LA Times names Faughnder a senior editor, Parvini a video game reporter

Los Angeles Times Company Town and A&E Investigations Editor Richard Verrier sent the following to the staff on Tuesday:

As the Los Angeles Times continues to expand and deepen its coverage of the entertainment industry, we are pleased to announce new positions with the Company Town team.

Veteran film industry reporter Ryan Faughnder has been promoted to senior editor, and staff writer Sarah Parvini has moved from the Metro section to cover the video game industry.

In his new role, Faughnder will work with me to assist in editing duties and help guide overall coverage of the entertainment industry during a period of upheaval for Hollywood. Faughnder, known for his lucid writing style and deft analytical takes on news of the day, will continue to write the weekly entertainment business newsletter The Wide Shot, which has become a must read for many decision makers with nearly 50,000 subscribers.

Faughnder was most recently a film business reporter for Company Town, writing about all major Hollywood studios, including Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures. He covered such major stories as the Sony hack, the streaming wars and Bob Iger’s surprise return to the throne as Disney’s CEO in 2022. He also was part of the team that was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist for coverage of the “Rust” set shooting.

A San Diego native, he earned a master’s degree in journalism from USC and a bachelor’s in English from UC Santa Barbara. Before joining The Times in 2013, he wrote for the Los Angeles Business Journal and Bloomberg News. When he’s not writing, Faughnder loves watching horror movies, playing guitar and blasting heavy metal. He started in his new role Monday.

Parvini began her L.A. Times career in 2014 through the Metpro fellowship program and has reported from various corners of the country and world for the paper, including an avian flu-stricken poultry farm in Iowa, the Muslim-majority suburbs of Dearborn, Mich., and the streets of Buenos Aires. As a Company Town reporter, she will cover all aspects of the video game industry and its growing importance to the business and culture of Southern California in collaboration with games critic Todd Martens.

Parvini’s love of gaming started early and grew from nights spent playing console games, MMOs and Dungeons & Dragons with her brother and cousins. She is transitioning to her role covering the video game industry after several years reporting on California’s diverse communities, with a focus on the state’s shifting demographics. In that time, she led coverage on population decline in California, wrote about the wave of city dwellers heading to the high desert, explored the diversity of MENA voters and reported on under-covered immigrant communities. As a breaking news reporter, she chased natural disasters, covered mass shootings and reported on crime. Parvini was part of the team that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, as well as a member of the investigative unit that uncovered scandals at USC’s medical school.

Parvini also graduated from USC with her master’s degree and received her bachelor’s from UC San Diego. The daughter of Iranian immigrants, she speaks fluent Persian and conversational Spanish. Her favorite video game is Final Fantasy VII, and she is probably one of the few people who still prefers turn-based combat in gaming. She started Jan. 3.