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Less than a month after Russ Stanton announced he would leave as VP of content at KPCC, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times is joining former LAT colleagues at their crisis PR company. Stanton will be a senior executive at G.F. Bunting + Co., a San Francisco firm founded by former Times reporter and editor Glenn Bunting. Stanton left the Times' top job in Dec. 2011 and joined KPCC the following month.
"In Russ, we are getting an intelligent, seasoned and unflappable executive who knows how to maneuver adroitly in stressful situations and has tremendous contacts in the world of mainstream and digital media," Bunting said Sunday in a statement. He bills the move as a reuniting of guys who worked together on the LA Times Business section in the early 2000s. That group includes former Times editor Aaron Curtiss and another ex-Timesman, Ralph Frammolino.
When he said his goodbyes in the KPCC newsroom last month, Stanton said only that he was going to an "opportunity to help build a fast-growing communications business in the commercial, for-profit space." I guess this qualifies.
The Bunting company was recently in the news for representing Occidental College in the school's fight against a Times story that mischaracterized complaints over sexual attacks. The episode led to the firing of Times staff writer Jason Felch and questions about the involvement of Bunting and Frammolino, who was previously a book-writing partner of Felch.
Bunting learned the crisis PR game at Sitrick and Company before going off on his own.
