A no-nonsense journalist, Hagihara was a Times editor when the paper was in a fierce circulation battle with the Orange County Register.
Randy Hagihara, a longtime Los Angeles Times editor known for his no-nonsense demeanor, as well as a sharp-eyed recruiter who delighted in finding and mentoring young journalists, has died at his home in Huntington Beach. He was 72.
“Randy communicated toughness as an editor. And he was, in fact, damn tough,” said Martin Baron, who was editor of the Orange County edition in the 1990s and later became editor of the Washington Post. At the time Hagihara worked under him, Baron recalled, there were 165 staffers in the edition’s news department.
In 1979, Hagihara joined the tiny staff of the short-lived Koreatown Weekly, which became known as the first English-language newspaper for Korean Americans. Hagihara worked out of the newspaper’s Little Tokyo office in downtown Los Angeles, reporting stories, taking photographs and developing them in the darkroom. He also sold ads, pursued advertisers for unpaid bills, and made trips in a Ford Pinto station wagon to collect bundles of the newspaper from the printing presses in Sacramento.
During his time in Orange County, Hagihara played a key role in coverage of the county’s municipal bankruptcy and other major stories. He later became The Times’ senior editor for recruitment and ran Metpro, the news organization’s minority-recruitment program. He recruited hundreds of journalists who found careers at The Times and other publications.
“Without trampling on the egos of the reporters he guided, he could shape any news story into a vivid and precise report,” said William Nottingham, a friend and former Times editor.
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