Will the LA Times Be Sold or Allowed to Just Fade Away?

Five and a half years, the Chicago Tribune Company has cut more than 200 newsroom jobs from the Los Angeles Times, reducing the staff to about 900 people.  Now Tribune wants to cut more. Last week, Times editor Dean Baquet went public with his refusal in an article in the paper itself. More remarkably, he was joined by publisher Jeff Johnson, who supposedly was sent out from Chicago to keep things in line.  At the same time, a group of 20 prominent civic leaders have asked Tribune to beef up the staff or sell the paper. Is the Times uniquely important to Southern California’s culture and its sense of itself or just another assent in an faltering business?