More moves in LANGland

Frank Pine has been named the new general manager of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Pine already served as executive editor of the Bulletin, a role he'll continue, and is executive editor of the Bulletin's sister paper, the San Bernardino Sun.

Pine replaces Peggy Del Torro, who took over as general manager of the Redlands Daily Facts.

Web traffic up at SGVN

Frank Pine, senior editor at SGVN, which consists of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News, sent out a memo today praising the three newsrooms for their good work in 2008 and noting a rise in Web traffic.

From the memo:

Everyone deserves credit for a year of strong online growth. In 2008, combined traffic to all three SGVN Web sites was up by more than 30 percent. Tribune's Web site was up more than 40 percent (up 122 percent in December over last December) year over year. Pasadena and Whittier also had respectable jumps in traffic. The trend for all three sites is increasing gains: In the early part of 2008, growth was sluggish, picking up in the middle of the year, and accelerating significantly at the end of the year.

Online standouts include Fred Robledo, who writes our most popular blog. Miguel Melendez, who took over the Pasadena preps blog in August, is also racking up impressive numbers. Frank Girardot's CrimeScene and Leftovers from City Hall (Jennifer McLain and Tania Chatila) are also driving significant traffic. Photo galleries continue to be a major draw with readers, consistently ranking at the top of our "most popular pages" stats.

SGVN is part of LANG's Inland Division. LANG is part of Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group.