David Butler, editor of the Daily News of Los Angeles and vice president of news of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, is heading to Detroit as editor and publisher of The Detroit News, staff at both newspapers were told Wednesday.

The switch comes as MediaNews Group Inc., the Denver-based publisher of the Daily News and the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, purchases the Detroit News from the nation’s largest newspaper company, Gannett Corp.

Butler came to the Daily News as editor in 1997, the same year MediaNews began cobbling together a chain of suburban newspapers around Los Angeles with the Daily News as its flagship.

On Wednesday, MediaNews Group announced that it was buying the Detroit News and Gannett said it would purchase the rival Detroit Free Press from Knight Ridder Inc., the nation’s second-largest newspaper publisher.