When former Lucky Peach editor Peter Meehan joined the Los Angeles Times in October 2018, he did in order a contributing editor who could “guide editorial direction and enlargement of The Times’ meals and dining coverage” inside the wake of the unexpected loss of life of longtime food critic Jonathan Gold. But in February, the L.A. Paper dropped the “contributing” part, determining to make Meehan the reputable editor of the phase.
By that factor, I had started bossing people around so much,” Meehan says. “I became invested enough inside the technique and the vision that it has become something I desired to do.” Yesterday, the fruit of Meehan and his group’s labors came to life in the shape of the first stand-on my own meals segment to seem within the L.A. Times seeing that 2012. Grub caught up with Meehan as he boarded a flight again to New York, in which his circle of relatives nonetheless lives, to speak approximately his plans for the revitalized meals phase.
How did Jonathan Gold’s passing play a role in your coming to the L.A. Times?
Well, he was speakme to me about coming to L.A. And he was editing the segment for a while. But I in no way took all of it that severely. And then he was given unwell virtually speedy this beyond the summer season, and I suppose Jonathan become a large part of why [the paper’s new owner,] Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, offered the report. I assume he turned into one of the marquee people at the L.A. Times. And so suddenly that they had those new owners who had been equipped to put loads of cash and support into meals, and they had misplaced the fellow who ought to show them the manner.
What was the run-up like before the day before today’s launch?
They had also employed a group of recent humans since I joined. Before, food was best two and a half pages on Saturdays. I changed into like; we want more extraordinary real estate. We want a stand-by myself meals phase. There is a choice to reinvent and reinvigorate the L.A. Times, and there has been no pushback. They have been similar to, ‘Okay. How quickly do you need to do it?’ And that’s an incredible component in any media surroundings, mainly this one. I’m very proud of
The first section and what we made and what’s in it. Still, I see it because the first step in the direction of something new that we can be driving. I assume there’s simply loads of techniques and interdepartmental collaboration that [haven’t] always been a part of the procedure at the L.A. Times, mainly at some point of that Tronc awful-possession duration. I suppose if we made a product that human beings need to peer, they want to have a look at, they want to personal, they need to hold, they need to subscribe to, it’s going to require a few formal inventions along producing the fine journalism we can.
