Emily Steel, in the Wall Street Journal, covers why LA Times publisher David Hiller and newly-axed editor Jim O'Shea couldn't agree:

It seemed to Mr. Hiller that Mr. O'Shea was "unable to make the hard choices" by asking that the newsroom budget increase to about $123 million from $120 million. "They were proposing an increase in a year when, like all newspapers, revenue was down dramatically," the publisher said in an interview yesterday. "The idea that a newsroom budget would be increased was regrettably totally unrealistic."

And then there's O'Shea's memo.

According to the Dec. Scorecard for the paper, the decline in advertising and circulation revenue continued. Online was healthier, though, with page views totaled 75.1 million, down 2.8 millions from
November. Page views to prior year were up by 18%. Unique visitors
increased by 21%, of which local unique visitors were up by 35%.

The online edition got 50 new staffers, with another 50 hired elsewhere. 130 left the paper, and the staff is now around 800.

Top stories below---

Top 10 Stories (Online)
1. New details of tiger attack released (Charles Piller and Tim Reiterman)
2. Death in a seaside paradise (Joel Sappell)
3. Body is found in L.A. tow yard a day after accident (Kenneth R. Weiss)
4. Drugs to build up that mental muscle (Karen Kaplan and Denise Gellene)
5. Air of inevitability escaping Clinton (Peter Nicholas)
6. Huckabee campaigning for 23% sales tax (Janet Hook)
7. A nursing home death, and a shocking phone call (Scott Glover)
8. Foot soldiers for the Ron Paul revolution (James Rainey)
9. Jamie Lynn Spears is not the first teen to have a baby (Robert Lloyd)
10. Fury in New Orleans as housing demolition OKd (Jenny Jarvie)

Earlier:

Editor Jim O'Shea Out at LA Times