Dean Baquet stood up to the Tribune Co. beancounters who wanted big cuts at the Los Angeles Times, where Baquet was the editor.

Predictably, Baquet got fired last November for his troubles (publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson preceded him by about a month).

Luckily, his old paper, the New York Times, has taken him back as Washington bureau chief and assistant managing editor.

Note this graf from the NYT story:

In the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times, which will now be competing directly with Mr. Baquet, Doyle McManus, the bureau chief, said in a memorandum that competition was good for journalism. But, Mr. McManus added, “it will still be the N.Y. Times, still encumbered by that paper’s institutional weaknesses and still, even with Dean on the premises, an often unpleasant place to work.”