A BLOW TO L.A. 'THE FINAL CHAPTER' MOURNED.

Byline: Beth Barrett and Rick Orlov Staff Writers

The newsroom of the Los Angeles Times seemed like a mausoleum to reporters Monday morning, and all around town the obituary to the century-long reign of the Chandler family was being written with the announcement that the Times Mirror Co. had been sold to Chicago-based Tribune Co.

The takeover - $6.46 billion in stock and cash plus $1.8 billion in debt - hit many like a California quake, realigning power and rocking community institutions.

From City Hall and Bunker Hill high-rises to journalistic enclaves across the country, the reaction was one of disbelief.

Mayor Richard Riordan lamented the sale of ``a venerable Los Angeles institution,'' former Times news executive Noel Greenwood called the merger ``the final chapter of Mark Willes and the Chandler family,'' while billionaire businessman Eli Broad expressed dismay that Los Angeles would become the largest U.S. city not to have a locally owned major daily newspaper.

``I never thought I'd see the day that the Los Angeles Times was owned by anyone other than the Chandlers or some other local interests,'' Broad said. ``I hope the Chicago Tribune people are smart enough to put their executives out here so they can learn about Los Angeles and represent it and not try to run it from Chicago.''

Otis Chandler, the former publisher who is credited with building the Los Angeles Times into a respected national newspaper, told the Times in today's editions that he didn't know about the deal until late Sunday night, after it was approved. He said he began hearing possible rumors Friday of a takeover by The Tribune Co., but said he made no effort to confirm the rumors.

``I wasn't surprised by the announcement,'' Chandler said, ``because I was not happy with current management of the Times and Times Mirror, and my assumption was the board of directors and the family weren't happy either, and under those circumstances, to move forward in this mega-merger world, one has to consider merging.''

Faced with staff fears of loss of jobs and local control, Times executives offered assurances but few answers in staff meetings.

However, John Madigan, chairman, president and chief executive of Tribune Co., promised that the merger will be good for Los Angeles and for journalism and that ``no layoffs are planned.''

But he noted in a Reuters news service interview, ``We have not been inside the doors of the Times Mirror properties yet.

``I think we will get along fine. Our cultures are compatible. This is the biggest thing we have ever done. . . . This positions us in the major markets as probably the leading media company.''

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said if the sale is consummated after a 20-day open bidding period and gets federal antitrust approval, it will mean ``the passing of an era in terms of corporate citizenship.''

While the 1.1 million-circulation Times will certainly remain a major paper, Yaroslavsky said it is troubling and symptomatic of modern Los Angeles that another major corporation is leaving.

With BP Amoco's pending acquisition of Atlantic Richfield Co., Times Mirror is the ``last domino'' in long list of Fortune 500 companies to leave downtown.

``It used to be if you wanted to build Disney Hall, you went to 15 or 20 corporations, got them energized and got the job done,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``But those companies don't exist here anymore, they aren't locally rooted and we suffer to a significant degree as a result.''

By agreeing to sell the Times and the company's other papers and enterprises, through its controlling stock interests and out of its own trust, the Chandler family is ending 118 years of ownership and control.

For good and ill, the Chandlers stamped their journalistic, real estate, cultural and philanthropic image on the region as no other Southern California dynasty has before or after. Often accused of unprincipled boosterism and greed, the Chandlers left a legacy that includes the Owens Valley aqueduct, development of the San Fernando Valley and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown.

``If not for the Chandlers, there would not be the city of Los Angeles as we know it,'' said Patt Morrison, a Times columnist known for her hats and humor. ``It would be like conceiving of the earth without gravity.''

Morrison said her morning trip to the dentist was less painful than the newsroom Monday.

One senior staffer said the announcement was greeted with the kind of sentimentality and sadness reserved for the passing of great icons: ``There is sadness in the sense that people here are part of a grander cultural institution, and it's sad to see that change. It is sad to see a change in the sense of place and sense of history that the Times and Times Mirror have had. There's a lot of confusion and uncertainty.''

Mark Willes, the controversial chairman and CEO of Times Mirror, reportedly burst into tears and wept as he left the board meeting Sunday night after the deal was approved.

On Monday, he told employees he will leave within 90 to 180 days, when the merger is completed.

In a statement to employees, he thanked them for making Times Mirror a ``very valuable company.'' Under the terms of the merger, shareholders - including many Times employees - will get to exchange their Times Mirror shares at a premium rate, about twice the $47 a share they were selling for on Friday.

``You are the last in a line of dedicated and extraordinary people who made our company great,'' Willes wrote.

Newsroom discontent with Willes and Publisher Kathryn Downing reached a boiling point when a profit-sharing deal with Staples Center forced the Times to defend its journalistic standards.

Henry Weinstein, legal affairs reporter at the Times, said on the ``Which Way L.A.'' radio program, ``I am not going to cry over his departure after he has driven up the stock and is making millions.''

Downing held three staff meetings Monday, telling staff members that the principles of editorial independence and integrity would be maintained. The Times, she added, will be a separate subsidiary of Tribune, with a separate board of directors, including Chandler family members.

She said Times Mirror's corporate structure, which includes 170 people, is redundant to the Tribune's, but did not say what would happen to employees.

Bonnie Hill, president and CEO of the Times Mirror Foundation, said the Tribune Co. has a strong philanthropic ethic, and that she anticipates the foundation and the Times' giving, which totaled about $5.8 million in the L.A. area last year, will continue. The Tribune Co.'s foundation arm contributed about $5 million in the region last year, she said.

Many staff members said they were worried that the Times' international and national bureaus, which were created by Otis Chandler in the 1960s and have added to the paper's prestige, would be absorbed by the Tribune.

``It's like the chicken eating the alligator,'' said one staff member, who shared many staffers' view that The Times is superior to the Chicago Tribune.

Greenwood, a former senior editor with 25 years' experience at the Times, said Willes ``did what he was hired to do. He made them even more obscenely wealthy.''

Jim Bellows, former editor of the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald- Examiner and a former senior editor at the Times, said, ``It's a shame how money is running everything nowadays. It used to be that a newspaper was a quasi public service, but it depends on the stock price now. It doesn't bode well for the country.''

City Editor Bill Boyarsky, who's been at The Times since 1970, said there was widespread apprehension in the newsroom.

``Everyone is very worried,''he said.

- Staff Writer Greg Gittrich contributed to this article.