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The New York Times isn't the only big newspaper publisher looking at the perceived weakness of the Los Angeles Times in its home market and thinking hmmm. The Wall Street Journal's publisher and managing editor discussed Los Angeles as a possible target for a new local edition in a conversation with paidContent.
We came in with a growth mode, as Robert described, with plans to put more pages in, plans to put more correspondents in, plans to broaden the newspaper and turn it without ever diminishing its business coverage, to turn in into a newspaper that would have more broad interest. There was a brilliant coincidence because just as we were doing all these things, the newspaper companies in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York were actually reducing their coverage, they were closing down bureaus; their business sections were looking more and more like personal finance sections all at the time we were doing these new things, fresh things, larger things. We’ve seen a great result for us in that we are the only newspaper that’s been able to show significant circulation growth and also make a profit....We haven’t decided what our next local edition will be but the basic principle of seeing once great and highly valued local newspapers being diminished is what we’re looking at, a big opportunity. So you could say that some of the big markets, maybe Chicago, maybe LA, where we’ve done focus groups and see a growing antipathy among high-end readers, towards what’s happened to their local newspapers, that might well be opportunities.