The Hollywood Reporter isn’t what it used to be, but there’s still plenty of interest in the trade paper’s top editorial job,” says a 5.4 Radar item by Jeff Bercovici. “A number of Los Angeles Times staffers are said to have thrown their hats into the ring, perhaps worried about what might become of the Times now that it (and parent Tribune Co.) have been taken over by Sam Zell. (One, staff writer Claudia Eller, says she was contacted by a search firm, not the other way around.) New York Times scribe Sharon Waxman‘s name has also come up.

“Asked whether she was in the running, Waxman says, ‘There’s nothing going on there.’ (Intriguingly, she adds, “If that were true, I don’t think I’d let you break it.”) The job is said to pay around $200,000 a year. ‘If it were not for the money, no serious journalist would take it,’ says one embittered insider. ‘The new owners are only interested in using the paper to help promote their seminars and other profit-making enterprises.'”