Kevin Merida

After a six-month search, The Los Angeles Times announced on Monday May 3, 2021 that it had selected the seasoned journalist to be Executive Editor of the publication.

In 2020, Merida was named to the Dean’s Advisory Council at the Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts and Humanities, Simmons University.

Prior to joining the Times, Merida was a ESPN senior VP and editor-in-chief. He supervised the creation and launch in May 2016 of Andscape., a multimedia platform that explores the intersections of race, sports and culture. As editor in chief, Merida expanded The Undefeated brand across The Walt Disney Company, with a content portfolio encompassing journalism, documentaries and television specials, albums, music videos, live events, digital talk shows and two bestselling children’s books.

He was named managing editor, "responsible for news and features coverage as well as the Universal News Desk," on February 4, 2013. During his tenure in that position, he helped lead the newspaper to four Pulitzer Prizes. He was instrumental in revamping the Post’s digital presence, transforming the paper’s website into one of the world’s top-ranked online news journals.

He graduated from Boston University. After graduating, he attended the University of California, Berkeley's "Summer Program for Minority Journalists." Merida lives in Los Angeles with his wife, journalist, author and former Washington Post columnist Donna Britt. In 2012, The Huffington Post named the couple one of the "Black Voices Power Couples" of the year.

In 2008, Merida became Assistant Managing Editor at The Washington Post for the paper's United States national news department. He led the national staff for four years during the Obama presidency. Merida co-authored 'Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas, about Clarence Thomas, with Michael A. Fletcher. He teamed with Deborah Willis in 2008 to co-author the bestselling hardcover photo book, Obama, the Historic Campaign in Photographs.

He was hired by The Washington Post in 1993. During his 22-year career at the paper, Merida served as a congressional correspondent, national political reporter, longform feature writer, magazine columnist and senior editor in several roles. He was the coordinating editor of the Post’s yearlong 2006 series, “Being a Black Man," which was featured in the newspaper. The series earned a Peabody Award for increasing “our ability to understand the old issues in new ways,” and for its “melding of old and new forms of journalism and pointing to the future of electronic communication.”

Merida was part of a 1990 Dallas Morning News team that was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in explanatory journalism for a special report on the world’s “hidden wars.”

In 1983, Merida was recruited by the "Dallas Morning News", where he initially worked as a special projects reporter and local political writer. He was later promoted to Washington-based national correspondent and White House correspondent covering the George H.W. Bush presidency. He concluded his tenure at the paper as assistant managing editor in charge of foreign and national news coverage. At those newspapers, he wrote about crime and society.

Merida began his journalism career at the Milwaukee Journal. He served as a general assignments reporter and rotating city desk editor from 1979 to 1983.

He attended Crossland High School, among the first group of children in the US to be bused under a 1971 Supreme Court ruling.

Kevin Merida (born January 17, 1957) is an American journalist, author and newspaper editor. He currently serves as executive editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversees and coordinates all news gathering operations, including city and national desks, Sports and Features departments, Times Community News and Los Angeles Times en Español.