Yesterday, after months of speculation, the LA Times appointed its next executive editor. The paper has given the job to Kevin Merida, the editor in chief of The Undefeated, an arm of ESPN that reports on the intersection of sports, race, and culture; prior to working there, he spent twenty-two years at the Washington Post, including as a managing editor, and also worked as a reporter at the Dallas Morning News and Milwaukee Journal. Merida, who is Black, will be just the third top editor of color in the history of the LA Times; his hiring follows a public promise that Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner, made last year to diversify the paper’s ranks. Merida will be tasked with growing the paper’s digital-subscriber base, which currently lags those of bigger rivals, as well as its own goals. “I see nothing but opportunity,” he told Meg James, an