Onward and Upward

Well, it's official: Don Shirley will leave the LA Times as of Jan. 16, 2006. He tells me he's feeling "very upbeat" about the future. And Bob Dowling (pictured above), longtime Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, just announced his departure.

Don is a trusted colleague, fellow native Arizonan, and, dare I say it, something of a friend, and his body of knowledge about the L.A. theater culture (and the LA Times culture) will be missed at the town's paper of record. He could be prickly in print but he's always been unfailingly kind in person. Bob was a mentor to me at Back Stage West, which shared the floor with THR for its first five years, then merely the same building, and as the boss of my boss I felt he understood what I was doing, and what my little upstart team had built at BSW, better than anyone in the company.

These two don't have much in common except that they've loomed large in my professional life, and I wish them both all the best in the next chapter of their publishing careers.