Los Angeles Times has named Scott Kraft managing editor. Kraft has been with the Times for more than three decades, and now will be responsible for foreign, national, Washington, California and Metro news in addition to investigations and enterprise reporting.

Frank Leto has been appointed publisher of The Joplin Globe (Missouri), replacing Mike Beatty, who recently resigned to become president of APG Media in Florida. Leto is currently publisher of The Daily Item in Sunbury and the Danville News in Pennsylvania, and he will also succeed Beatty as a regional publisher for CNHI newspapers in eastern Oklahoma.

The News Media Alliance mourns the loss of John Murray, News Media Alliance vice president of audience development. Murray was with the News Media Alliance for over 20 years. He specialized in helping members achieve increased audience growth and circulation through new and creative approaches. He was the face of the organization for many members, providing benchmarking data and sales trends and capturing success stories of innovative practices. He was the man behind the NAA Facts, Figures & Logic, Single Copy Snapshot and Circulation Analysis reports, the popular Audience Development Symposium held annually at the mediaXchange conference through 2017, and more recently, the Driving Digital Subscriptions report and the summer audience webinar series

George Bausch Waters, 97, died July 2, according to an online obituary in the Rome Sentinel (New York), where Waters was a long-time publisher and president. Waters served as publisher from 1964 to 1993. He became president of the company after the 1969 death of his father-in-law, Bradley C. Barnard, and served in that role until May 2011.

Rachel Chazin, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) social media producer, has died at age 27.

Preston County News & Journal (West Virginia) has announced the retirement of general manager Carol Peters. Her last day is July 20.

Longtime Boston Herald photographer Arthur Pollock died at 68.

Pollock made a mark on the Boston news landscape photographing thousands of news events, celebrities and athletes.

Glenn Martin McNatt, a longtime Baltimore Sun editorial writer and arts columnist, has died of lung cancer. He was 69.

Alexander City Outlook (Alabama) editor Mitch Sneed has died at 57. Sneed passed away July 1 as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

Randy Wilson, the longtime managing editor of the Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff), has died. He was 65.

Megan Schrader, an editorial writer for the Denver Post since 2016, has been named editorial page editor, overseeing all aspects of the daily opinion page and Sunday Perspective section.

In June, Egyptian journalist and founder of Welad El Balad Fatemah Farag was voted onto the Board and Executive Committee of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Fred Scheller, who began his newspaper career in 1976 as a part-time employee at The Daily Item (Sunbury, Pennsylvania) and rose to be the newspaper’s general manager, will return as publisher of The Daily Item and the DanvilleNews (also in Sunbury, Pennsylvania), parent company CNHI said. Scheller will replace Frank Leto, who was appointed as the new publisher of the Joplin Globe (Missouri). 

Retired Associated Press photojournalist Alan Diaz, whose photo of a terrified 6-year-old Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez earned him the Pulitzer Prize, has died. He was 71.

Claude Lanzmann, the journalist and film director who directed the film “Shoah,” which relived the Holocaust through memories of witnesses, has died in Paris. He was 92.

The Poynter Institute announced that veteran journalist and college journalism director Barbara Allen would assume the position of Poynter.org managing editor effective July 16. Allen comes to Poynter from Oklahoma State University, where she is the director of student media. Before that, Allen was a writer and editor at Tulsa World. 

Beth Buehler has been named vice president of operations, a new role for Hearst. The announcement was made by Hearst president and CEO Steven R. Swartz and Hearst chief operating officer Mark Aldam. Buehler begins her new role on July 2 and will report to Aldam.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has promoted Janet Williams to credit manager in the business office. 

The Poynter Institute announced that the Washington Post homepage editor and former Asian American Journalists Association president Doris Truong has been hired as the organization’s first director of training and diversity. The role was created to grow Poynter teaching, both online and in-person.

Catherine Stortz Ripley, who served as news editor of the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune (Missouri) for the last 26 years, has resigned her position effective July 3.

Keven Zepezauer has been named president and publisher of the Wilson Times (North Carolina), expanding his leadership role at the 122-year-old, family-owned newspaper after a nearly two-year stint as general manager.

Elite Truong has been named deputy editor for strategic initiatives at The Washington Post.

Fran Wills has been named CEO of Local Media Consortium. The former VP and general manager of the Cox Media Group starts at the local media consortium on July 16.

The Winston-Salem Journal said Thursday it has hired Fred Greer as director of audience development. Greer will be responsible for the sales, marketing and delivery of the print and digital products.

Joe Tarcia has been named the new editor of San Luis Obispo’s (California) daily newspaper. 

Peter CaJacob, former McClatchy vice president of human resources, has died. He was 74.

Eugene Kim, a broadcast writer and editor for the Associated Press who for 34 years wrote the AP’s well-known Today In History feature, has died. He was 61.

The Los Angeles Times says veteran journalist Norman Pearlstine has been named its new executive editor. Pearlstine, a leader at Time, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, had been serving for two months as an adviser to Patrick Soon-Shiong, who spent $500 million to buy the Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Spanish-language newspaper Hoy and some community newspapers from Chicago-based Tronc.

Jennifer Chelwick has been named general manager of The Daily Light and Midlothian Mirror (Texas) and will oversee advertising, marketing and circulation sales. She has over 12 years of experience in the media industry, working for national brands such as E.W. Scripps, Gannett, and Cox Media Group.