Los Angeles Times publishing heir Otis Chandler dies

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2006

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Los Angeles Times publishing heir Otis Chandler, who transformed the newspaper from a partisan provincial publication into one of the most respected US dailies, died Monday aged 78, the paper said.

Chandler, the fourth generation of a family of publishers who bought the journalistic powerhouse in 1882, died in California fron degenerative illness called Lewy body disease, a brain disorder combining some of the most crippling symptoms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, the Los Angeles Times announced.

Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times from 1960 to 1980, "catapulted the paper from mediocrity into the front ranks of American journalism," according to the fourth most widely circulated US newspaper.

"Otis Chandler will go down...