2004 News: New president, board members for SABEW

COLUMBIA, MO., Friday, May 7, 2004 – Rex Seline, managing editor for news at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the new president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Jonathan Lansner, business columnist for The Orange County Register, has moved up to vice president. Dave Kansas, Money and Investing editor at The Wall Street Journal, is SABEW’s new secretary-treasurer.

SABEW is the leading trade group for business journalists. The officers assumed their new jobs at the organization’s 41st annual conference. Kathy Kristof, a reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, completed her year-long term as president at the conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

SABEW members also elected five new members to the Board of Governors:

• Bill Choyke, business editor of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va.
• George Haj, assistant managing editor for business at the Houston Chronicle.
• Diana Henriques, a financial reporter for The New York Times.
• James T. Madore, media writer for Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.).
• Jill Jorden Spitz, business editor of the Arizona Daily Star.

Three incumbent governors were re-elected to the board:

• Becky Bisbee, business editor of The Seattle Times.
• Henry Dubroff, editor and founder of the Pacific Coast Business Times.
• Bernie Kohn, night business editor for The Washington Post.

The new governors join these current members of SABEW’s board: Gertha Coffee and Andre Jackson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Gail DeGeorge of the South Florida SunSentinel, Mary Flannery of The Philadelphia Inquirer, George Gombossy of The Hartford Courant, Sandy Gonzalez of Bloomberg News, Greg McCune of Reuters America, Josh Mills of Baruch College, Craig Schwed of Gannett News Service, and Christian Wihtol of The Register-Guard (Eugene, Ore.)

The 2004 SABEW annual conference featured several sessions on corporate governance, a hot topic for companies, regulators and investors. Speakers included William Donaldson, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and John Thain, chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange.

The chief executives of three leading air carriers -- Gerard Arpey of American, Gordon Bethune of Continental and Jim Parker of Southwest – also made a unique joint public appearance, discussing the future of airlines.

And Stanley Gold, the chief executive of Shamrock Holdings who is challenging the management at the Walt Disney Co., discussed shareholder rights and offered guidance for corporate directors.

SABEW will continue its educational efforts with workshops on investigative reporting and coverage of personal finance in Atlanta on Oct. 4-5, 2004. The 42nd SABEW annual conference will be in Seattle on May 2-4, 2005.

SABEW serves 3,200 business journalists. Its mission as an independent, not-for-profit organization is to encourage comprehensive reporting of economic and financial events and to upgrade the craft's skills and knowledge through educational efforts. SABEW is headquartered in Columbia, Mo., at the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri.

For more information about SABEW, contact Carrie Paden, SABEW's executive director, at 573-882-8985 or padenc@missouri.edu.