Dodero, Cahn move on up

Managing editor named editor of Pilot; editor will lead papers’ online work.After more than six years of navigating the Daily Pilot as it grew back to seven-days-a-week paper and added coverage of UC Irvine, Editor Tony Dodero has handed his post over to S.J. Cahn, who has been the paper’s managing editor.

Dodero is being promoted to general manager of the websites for the Pilot and its seven sister papers. There he will oversee both the business and editorial sides of the Times Community News websites.

Times Community News is the division of the Los Angeles Times that publishes the Pilot and the seven other papers, including the Huntington Beach Independent and the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot.

“This is a great opportunity for Tony,” said Tom Johnson, Pilot publisher and Times Community News general manager. “He will be able to work on new business ventures and strategies and handle the websites’ budgets as he develops in a new role in the journalism business.

“It also is good for our websites,” Johnson said. “We’ll have a person running them who deeply understands the community journalism we do.”

The decision to make the change was not an easy one, Dodero said.

“The Daily Pilot readers are the best on the planet,” he said. “They can be tough when they need to be, but in most cases they are ever so grateful to know that the Pilot is there for them on their doorstep each and every day. It’s been my pleasure to make that happen the last six years as editor and 15 total years in various reporting and editing roles.”

Dodero, 44, covered Newport Beach City Hall for the Pilot in 1992 and 1993 and was the paper’s news editor and assistant managing editor from 1995 to 1998. He graduated from Long Beach State and worked as news editor of the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

During his tenure, Dodero oversaw the expansion of the Pilot’s Forum pages and developed a themed Page 2, which includes coverage of politics and senior citizen issues.

“As hard as it is to leave the Daily Pilot editorship, it has been made much easier knowing that I leave it in good hands with S.J. Cahn,” Dodero said.

Cahn has been the Pilot’s managing editor since January 2002. Before that he was senior city editor at the paper. He joined Times Community News as a reporter in August 1998.

Cahn, 36, started his career at a small weekly newspaper in Missouri, and has worked in the Washington bureau of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and as a copy editor at the Kansas City Star. He earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has a bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame and a master’s degree in English from the University of Washington.

“S.J. has been a valuable member of our editorial team, and we have great confidence in his leadership and ability to continually champion the quality local coverage that is the hallmark of the Pilot,” said Elaine Zinngrabe, the Pilot’s general manager.

Cahn, who has written a politics column for the paper for years, said his own measure of how he does in his new role will be simple.

“If readers don’t notice changes -- I trust for the better -- within six months, I haven’t done my job,” he said. “Fortunately for me, Tony’s leaving me a strong paper with a great staff. I’m excited to work with them and with members of the community as editor.”