LA Times assistant biz editor moving to obits

Claire Noland, the obituary editor of the Los Angeles Times, sent out the following staff announcement:

David Colker should fit in quite nicely as the newest member of the News Obituaries department. Pressed into service on the Timothy Leary death watch in 1996, he took his assignment so seriously that he was at the good doctor’s bedside in Beverly Hills when he died, and thus did not have to rely on secondary sources for Leary’s final words. (Which were: “Why not?”)

David, who will write and edit obits, moves over from Business, where he has been an assistant editor working the dawn patrol.

David has had a lively and varied career. He once worked for Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s production company. He jumped out of an airplane for an L.A. Herald-Examiner story (and broke his leg in the bargain). He has written about the tech industry, Bratz dolls and discount casket-makers, among other things, for the Business section.

A native of Kane, Pa., he received a journalism degree from Penn State, where he took pride in being a conspicuous absentee at home football games.

Please join me in wishing him well in his new assignment.