thumb|First issue of a Los Angeles Times suburban section, published on April 6, 1952
The Los Angeles Times suburban sections or zone sections were printed between 1952 and 2001 as adjuncts to the main newspaper to cover the news of and sell advertising space in various parts of Southern California that the Times considered to be in the prime part of its circulation area. The giant Los Angeles daily had a "more aggressive zoning policy than perhaps any other newspaper" because its local market was so widespread, a writer for The New York Times opined. But as two of these and six other specialized sections were eliminated in 1995 because of a downturn in newspaper revenues, Times editor Shelby Coffey called them simply "a noble experiment."
Growth
The first zoned section was published on Sundays only for the San Gabriel Valley in April 1952 under the direction of Mike Straszer, who was in charge of all succeeding zoned editions until 1958. An editorial in the Times's San Gabriel Valley section explained that . . . the Southland has grown so rapidly it has been impossible to pay specific attention to every community in the Sunday paper. . . . Consequently the idea of "zoning" was born. This means that papers delivered to a certain area are to contain a special section devoted to the particular interest of that area. The San Gabriel Valley Section is the first of these.
The next zoned editions were opened in the San Fernando Valley and in the Glendale areas on March 4, 1956. A one-year anniversary layout listed the names of key people working on the San Fernando section as Straszer, Maurice Stoller, Mary Nogueras, Albert Markado, Norman Dash, Richard W. Degnon and Fred Baumberger.
By the end of April 1957, zoned editions were appearing in the San Gabriel Valley (since 1952), Southern Communities (around 1954), Orange County (1954), the San Fernando Valley (1956), Glendale-Verdugo Hills (1956), as well as the newest sections, the Westside (1957) and Centinela-South Bay (1957).
In November 1958, a copy of the Centinela-South Bay section that carried a story about the 50th anniversary of Inglewood, California, was placed in a time capsule beneath the cornerstone of the Inglewood City Hall "with the expectation it will be opened in the year 2008."
The frequency of the San Fernando Valley section was expanded in April 1960 to twice a week — on Thursdays and Sundays. That same twice-weekly schedule was adopted for the Westside section in April 1961. Times editor Nick B. Williams wrote about the suburban editions in that year:
. . . they publish almost no crime news, no sensational or scandalous information, . . . they concentrate on community development, club news, social news and the normal, active lives of average and above-average citizens.
By 1968, the experience of the weekly zoned editions had generally been positive — but Orange County, to the south of Los Angeles was a different matter. In that year its population stood at 1.29 million and, according to Time magazine, Times publisher Otis Chandler watched the [suburban sections] process with growing dissatisfaction, then decided that the only solution is for a newspaper to grow the way a modern city-community grows. . . . an ever-expanding circle of satellite towns, with citizens showing an increased interest in local affairs. To give them the local news they want, Chandler decided there was no substitute for being on the spot. The result appeared last week: the Orange County edition, edited, printed and partly written by a 32-man Times satellite staff operating entirely in Orange County.
Under the direction of Orange County managing editor Ted Weegar, a separate editorial staff — including a reporter stationed in Sacramento, the state capital, each day took apart the editorial product prepared in Los Angeles and "Orafied" — or localized — the entire newspaper, from front page to sports, especially for Orange County readers. The result was printed in and distributed from a modern, $7 million printing plant in Costa Mesa in Orange County. The cost was estimated to be some $9.5 million a year "to give suburbanites and exurbanites the feeling that they are reading a world-minded paper with a home-town emphasis." Times publisher Chandler was quoted as saying that satellite publishing, as it was called, "seems to make sense in metropolitan markets, where papers are interested in furthering their economic base, away from the center city."
In April 1978, the Times began a daily San Diego County edition, with a 26-person news staff, plus advertising and circulation employees.