LA Times biz editor named AME for arts and entertainment

Los Angeles Times editor Davan Maharaj sent out the following staff announcement on Wednesday:

Today, I’m announcing a new leadership team for one of the most important journalistic franchises at The Times.

I’m pleased to announce that John Corrigan, our Business editor since 2009, will lead our arts and entertainment coverage, starting Monday.
John, who will become an assistant managing editor, will work with an accomplished team that includes some of our strongest reporters and editors. He inherits a Calendar staff that produces some of the most innovative coverage in the entertainment world. Our Movie team landed an agenda-setting series on Academy Award diversity. Our television and music teams are setting new audience records on Showtracker and Pop & Hiss. Hero Complex is a multimedia juggernaut. The Envelope has become awards central for Hollywood. And our critics are the best in the business.
John brings a wealth of experience and energy to his new role. As Business editor, he led a team of reporters and editors in making our financial report a model: a combination of elegant features, hard-hitting investigative stories, and quick-hit breaking news on our blogs. John collaborated with our Company Town team and sharpened our focus on technology and social media — helping to bring millions of new readers to Tech Now.
He has shown a particular ability to work with top-flight reporters and editors. John edited the 2003 series “The Wal-Mart Effect,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. He directed The Times’ coverage of Ameriquest, which was praised by the Columbia Journalism Review as a rare warning from the business press before the mortgage meltdown. He oversaw our coverage of Toyota’s sudden-acceleration crisis, for which reporters Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian won a Loeb Award. He worked with Ken again this year on the ground-breaking Wheels of Fortune series. We will learn in a few days if that has won a Loeb as well.
As a film and television major at Loyola Marymount University, John specialized in screenwriting and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine and communication arts. His passion for music is evident whenever he cuts loose on his Stratocaster in the band Blue Cube.
John will report to me. Please join me in congratulating him on his new assignment.