On his first day back at the Los Angeles Times, John Cherwa took a few seconds to look around the sports department. What he saw made him feel good about his choice to return to the paper after 14 years at the Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel.
“I sa
w a lot of familiar faces,” Cherwa said. “After everything that has happened in the industry since I left, that felt pretty good.”
Cherwa, a former APSE president (2002-03), is Deputy Sports Editor at the Times, the same title he held there from 1980 to 1995. He will also continue to be sports coordinator for Tribune papers, a duty he received when he moved from Chicago to Orlando in 2002. The Times DSE job came open recently when Sports Editor Randy Harvey was promoted to Associated Editor and DSE Mike James was promoted to Sports Editor.
In fact, Cherwa says he hadn’t really thought about leaving Orlando, his hometown paper, until he received an e-mail from James asking if he’d consider coming back west.
“I really agonized over the decision,” he said. “Orlando is a great paper, with a great sports department, and I was happy there.
“But the more I considered it, the more I realized I was ready for a new challenge. And I couldn’t think of a better paper for me to take that on than the Times.”
Many of Cherwa’s duties will be the same as before. He’ll be in charge of investigations and projects, and will run the daily operations when James is not around.
But he’ll also help develop new multimedia strategies, an area that was in its infancy when he took the sports editor job in Chicago.
“Before, it was 100 percent about putting out the paper,” Cherwa said. “It’s what we did. Now, depending on the day, I might only deal with that a small portion of the time and be working on online stuff the rest.”
Lynn Hoppes, Cherwa’s former sports editor in Orlando who’s now with espn.com, said L.A. made a great hire.
“John is a great thinker,” Hoppes said. “He is an enterprise guy, and he very much loves to go after stories.
“He’s one of the best editors I’ve worked with.”
Cherwa said he was pleased but not surprised to recognize many old colleagues when he returned to L.A. It was a big part of the reason he came back.
“The Times has its own culture,” he said. “Going outside to hire is not something we do a lot, and I think a lot of people believe this is a great place to work.
“I’d like to think I walked in and knew most everybody. That will provide a comfortable working environment for me for sure. I’m very happy to be back.”
