Elaine Larsen, a longtime Pacifica resident and journalist, is the new editor and publisher of the MediaNews-owned Pacifica Tribune, that newspaper reports. She replaces Mario Dianda, who will become the top editor at the company’s Palo Alto Daily News Group. Larsen, 44, will be the paper’s third editor in four months. In January, Dianda was stripped of his job at the Oakland Tribune and transferred by MediaNews to run the Pacifica Tribune.

Larsen, 44, has been employed at the Pacifica Tribune since 1987. The Palo Alto native has a bachelor’s of arts degree in mass communications from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. She will report to Carole Leigh Hutton, vice president of Community Newspapers for MediaNews’s California Newspapers Partnership, which includes the Pacifica Tribune, San Mateo County Times and the Daily News Group.