L.A. Times shaken by a summer of turmoil and scandals

On a Friday night last month, Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine sent a short email to the newsroom, announcing sports columnist Arash Markazi had resigned.

The columnist had copied information contained in seven stories from other sources, an internal investigation found. Pearlstine said “for the record” clarifications were added to each of the articles.

But there was more to the story. For a year and a half, veteran sports writers had been roiled by Markazi’s penchant for lifting prose from press releases and other sources, his cozy relations...