UPDATE 2-Los Angeles Times publisher Hiller quits

(Adds publisher's memo, paragraphs 5 and 6)

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK, July 14 (Reuters) - Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller is resigning after less than two years at the newspaper as parent Tribune Co TXA.N prepares to cut jobs there.

Hiller is resigning, effective immediately, Tribune Chief Operating Officer Randy Michaels said in a memo released on Monday.

"During the last six months, he has helped the Times begin making the transition to new ownership, facing new realities. Part of that transition must now include a new publisher," Michaels wrote.

The announcement of Hiller's resignation comes on the same day that Tribune's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, announced the resignation of Editor Ann Marie Lipinski. Her replacement will be Gerould Kern, Tribune Publishing's vice president of editorial.

Hiller said in a separate memo on Monday that he met with Sam Zell, Tribune Co's chairman and chief executive, and that "Sam's the boss and he gets to pick his own quarterback."

"This is one very special place, and made so by all of you, and those of you gone before who dedicated themselves to bringing the news of the day to the city The Times helped build," Hiller wrote.

Tribune plans to name a new Los Angeles Times publisher by the end of the summer.

Tribune was taken private in an $8.2 billion deal led by Zell, a Chicago real estate tycoon. Since then, it has been struggling with approximately $13 billion in debt, while shrinking cash flow from its newspaper business makes it ever harder to pay off that debt.

The Los Angeles Times, Tribune's largest property, had seen a succession of editors and publishers come and go in the past few years. One publisher, Jeffrey Johnson, left after refusing to implement cost cuts mandated by the Chicago-based Tribune.

Hiller was seen by Times employees who have spoken with Reuters in recent months as more willing to take painful steps to reduce costs at the paper, including laying off employees.

In the latest round, the Times plans to cut the paper's workforce by 250, with 150 jobs coming from the newsroom.

Editor Russ Stanton told employees in a memo posted on the paper's website that the cuts would begin this week and be done by the end of August.

"The days and weeks ahead will be difficult ones, filled with pain, anger and sadness," Stanton wrote. "As I've said before, I deeply regret that these cost-saving moves will result in the loss of work for the many people who have served this company well."

Tribune meanwhile plans to sell off other properties, including the Chicago Cubs baseball team and Wrigley Field, as well as the Newsday newspaper on Long Island, which is being sold to Cablevision Systems Corp (CVC.N) for $650 million. The Cubs and Wrigley could fetch $1 billion or more.

Tribune Co also is reducing the number of pages that appear in many of its papers and seeking a 50-50 mix of advertising and editorial copy, something that company officials believe will reduce the expense of producing the papers. (additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)