A tough place for The Times

These days, it often seems like a fairly apt description of the Los Angeles Times' increasingly uncertain future.

This week, the paper's new publisher, David D. Hiller, asked Editor Dean Baquet to resign because they were unable to agree on The Times' future direction and on the Tribune Co.'s demands that costs be cut by further reducing the staff. Hiller is the third publisher installed since Tribune acquired the paper as part of its purchase of the Times Mirror Co. James O'Shea, former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune -- who will take Baquet's place Monday -- will be the fourth editor in six years.

Meanwhile, Tribune itself is up for sale and this week two Los Angeles financiers, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, submitted bids to buy the whole company and restore the Los Angeles Times to local ownership. Entertainment entrepreneur David Geffen also remains interested in submitting a bid for The Times alone, something Tribune now says it also is willing to entertain.

It's all become a bit of a soap opera, and, in a remark that Friday's Wall Street Journal turned into a Page 1 headline, Baquet described the relationship between Tribune and The Times as "a tragic, bad marriage." So, in that spirit, let's ask the soap opera-ish question: Can this marriage be saved?

Earlier this week, Hiller sent The Times' staff a thoughtful appraisal of the paper's situation and of the steps that need to be taken to ensure that it go on fulfilling its responsibilities to its readers and meeting its financial obligations to Tribune's stockholders. The key initiatives he identified centered on reinvigorating local and regional coverage, reaching out to Latino readers, young people and young families. "Our strategy," he wrote, "is building audience in L.A. and Southern California, and being authentic and indispensable in the eyes of people here, not on the East Coast and not in Chicago. This does not say turn away from foreign and national coverage, but it would suggest focus on issues and regions of special relevance here -- like our role as a gateway to the Pacific and our leading coverage of the entertainment industry."

Those are inarguable goals. And, if pursuing them under the direction of a publisher and an editor, neither of whom ever has lived or worked in Los Angeles, would seem to increase the degree of difficulty