Cuts in LA Times newsroom drop five from business desk

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

The recent cuts in the Los Angeles Times newsroom have resulted in a loss of five staff members from the paper’s business desk.

They are:

• Josh Friedman, longtime business staffer who had most recently been assigned to the Hollywood team, covering the box office and doing a  weekly feature called The Projector that previewed the weekend box office.
• Michelle Quinn, a San Francisco-based staffer who covered technology, including Apple. Quinn had joined the paper in early 2007 after 10 years with the San Jose Mercury News. She had also worked for the San Francisco Chronicle.
• Elizabeth Douglass, a longtime oil and energy reported who also covered the state Public Utilities Commission.
• Swati Pandey, who covered the music industry and had only recently joined the Business staff. She was formerly working on the editorial pages. A 2004 graduate of Yale University, Pandey had been with The Times for just over two years.
• Terry Rosales, the department’s secretary who had served at the Times in various capacities for three decades.