California Post poaches Ben Bolch as Los Angeles Times sports staff dwindles to nine full-time staff writers

LOS ANGELES — The California Post has hired veteran sportswriter Ben Bolch from the Los Angeles Times, marking the third departure from the Times’ sports section to the New York Post–backed West Coast startup as it ramps up staffing ahead of its official launch later this month. 

It was one of several moves the California Post sports staff made on Monday. 

Vincent Bonsignore, who had covered the Las Vegas Raiders the previous six years for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and had spent nearly two decades covering Los Angeles sports for the Southern California News Group, joined the Post as a senior NFL columnist. 

Michael Durate, who has covered Los Angeles sports for the past 12 years for NBC Los Angeles, joined as a senior sports writer. 

Charly Hill, who graduated from Miami in 2024 and has interned and freelanced at Bleacher Report, TNT Sports and NBC, joined as a sports content creator.

Bolch, who has covered UCLA athletics for the Los Angeles Times for more than a decade and spent 26 years at the paper overall, becomes the latest high-profile addition for the California Post, which has aggressively targeted established Southern California journalists to anchor its coverage.

His move follows the recent exits of former Los Angeles Times sports columnist Dylan Hernandez and Dodgers beat writer Jack Harris, who  announced last month they were joining the California Post. 

With Bolch’s departure, the Los Angeles Times is now left with just nine full-time sports staff writers, a stark contraction for a paper that once boasted one of the deepest sports departments in the country.

Outside of the editors, the Los Angeles Times is currently led by veteran columnist Bill Plaschke, senior writers Bill Shaikin and Kevin Baxter, Thuc Nhi Nguyen and Broderick Turner on the Lakers, Ryan Kartje on USC, Gary Klein on the Rams, Sam Farmer on the Chargers and Eric Sondheimer on high schools.

The Los Angeles Times was slated to have the second-largest contingent of sports staffers covering the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo behind NBC, which is the broadcast home of the Olympics, before the pandemic. The plan at the time, according to sources, was to send 14 reporters and photographers to Tokyo to produce a separate daily color section, as it first did in 1984 when the games were held in Los Angeles. The Times will be covering next month’s Winter Games in Italy with one writer as Thuc Nhi Nguyen will be taking a break from the Lakers beat to cover the games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. 

When Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the Los Angeles Times in 2018, he told The Washington Post, “One of our priorities is to be the sports paper of the nation.” Since the pandemic in 2020, however, the sports section has been reduced to the final four or five pages of the California section five days a week, with a standalone sports section of six to eight pages appearing only twice per week.

Despite its statewide branding, the California Post's initial sports coverage will be centered squarely on Los Angeles, with a primary emphasis on the sports and teams the Los Angeles Times still covers in the Dodgers, Lakers, Rams, Chargers, USC and UCLA.

Hernandez and Harris will lead its MLB and Dodgers coverage, while Southern California News Group Lakers beat writer Khobi Price and longtime Lakers reporter Melissa Rohlin, who joined the Post last week, will anchor its NBA and Lakers coverage. Bonsignore will lead the NFL and Rams coverage while Bolch will lead college sports coverage, focusing on USC and UCLA. 

The staffing losses at the Los Angeles Times come amid continued upheaval at the paper, which has faced newsroom cuts, buyouts and mounting uncertainty about its long-term investment in daily sports coverage. 

Meanwhile, the California Post is not done hiring. Sources familiar with the startup’s plans say the outlet is continuing to pursue additional Times sports writers and other well-known local journalists before its launch, aiming to quickly establish credibility and audience share in a competitive media market.