2 Times editors get new duties

Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities Thursday as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums.

Randy Harvey, The Times’ sports editor since 2006, was named associate editor and will oversee the completion of a plan developed last year to create a news-gathering operation that serves print, the Times website, mobile devices, television, radio, Twitter and Facebook.

Jon Thurber, the longtime obituaries editor of The Times, was named managing editor for print and will have primary responsibility for the content plans of the newspaper and other print products produced by The Times.

“The sports staff has consistently led the newsroom in broadening our coverage beyond print, and Randy has overseen that effort by sharpening our focus to the things that matter the most to our readers, and then owning those areas in every medium in which our readers consume news,” Times Editor Russ Stanton said Thursday in a staff memo.

“The formidable work of Jon and his staff -- both in print and online -- has been front and center in recent days with the spate of celebrity deaths we’ve covered,” Stanton said.

As part of the moves, Times Executive Editor John Arthur is leaving after what Stanton called a distinguished 23 years that included stints as Page 1 editor and managing editor.

Philosophical disagreements tied to structural changes in the newsroom led to Arthur’s departure, Stanton said in a separate note to the staff.

Harvey joined The Times in 1981, covering the Lakers in the Showtime era. He made his name as an Olympics reporter during the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. He succeeded the late Allan Malamud as the Sports section’s Page 2 columnist in 1996 and became senior assistant sports editor in 2000, helping coordinate planning, coverage and projects.

Harvey left The Times in 2004 to become assistant managing editor for sports at the Baltimore Sun, then returned to The Times as sports editor in 2006.

Thurber joined The Times in 1971 and has a broad knowledge of its workings throughout the newsroom. During 15 years on the foreign desk, he worked as a copy editor, news editor and deputy editor of the weekly World Report section. He also filled in as A1 editor.

Thurber moved to Features in the early 1990s, where he was in charge of the news and copy desks and production, initially for the Calendar section and eventually for all feature sections. He also edited Calendar’s jazz coverage, encouraging some nontraditional stories on the genre.

Successors to Harvey and Thurber are to be announced.