2007 News: Biz Buzz for March 2007: The latest comings and goings

(Now a monthly feature on the SABEW web site)

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

 

MORIARTY RETURNS TO THESTREET.COM

George Moriarty returns to TheStreet.com as co-executive editor, according to a memo from E-I-C David Morrow. Tim Johnson is the other exec editor.

Morrow stated, “George had been with us for five years, most recently as managing editor of RealMoney.com, before departing in the summer to be editor-in-chief at IDD. I can’t tell you how joyous it is to welcome George back into the fold in his new role.” IDD is Investment Dealer’s Digest.

Moriarty replaces Aaron Task, who returns to writing and podcasting in a new role as editor-at-large.

In addition, the online business and investing news site announced new additions to the staff.

Adam Feuerstein returns to the San Francisco bureau as a senior columnist after working for two years as a research analyst for a hedge fund. Morrow said, “Adam is an enormously talented writer and reporter who routinely broke news on the biotech beat, and kept TheStreet.com front and center on our coverage.”

In addition, Michael Katz joins the staff as assistant personal finance editor. Katz spent three years at Forbes where he was both copy editor and reporter. Most recently, he was an editor for SmartMoney Custom Solutions, which produces investment-planning articles and marketing materials for clients such as T. Rowe Price, Ameriprise and Waddell & Reed.

Also, Brett Arends becomes a mutual funds columnist. He previously had worked at the Boston Herald as a columnist. And Eric Harding and Rebecca Corvino join as copy editors. Harding came from the New Haven Register, while Corvino worked at the Washington City Paper.

 

SAFIAN TAKES OVER FAST COMPANY

Business journalism star Robert Safian has been named editor in chief of Fast Company, replacing Mark Vamos. Safian also oversees the business end of the magazine, an unusual dual role.

Safian, profiled in 2000 by Crain’s New York as a rising star in the city, was exec editor and third in command at Fortune. He became ME of Money at age 33 in 1998, but left after six years to be an exec editor at Fortune. He leaves Time Inc. shortly before a round of expected job cuts. Fortune named a new ME, Andy Serwer, in late October.

Steven Koepp replaces Safian as executive editor. He comes from Time, where he worked for 26 years. A Wisconsin native, Koepp graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

During his tenure in the business section of Time in the 1980s, Koepp wrote and edited cover stories on Ralph Lauren, the Walt Disney Co., the buyout of RJR-Nabisco, the Simple Life, the Church of Scientology and B.C.C.I.

Fast Company has seen a number of changes in the past few years. It was sold to Morningstar Inc. founder Joe Mansueto, and then editor John Byrne left to return to his old stomping grounds at BusinessWeek, where Vamos had also worked.

Women’s Wear Daily reporter Irin Carmon noted that Vamos was given the title of ‘editor at large for Mansueto Ventures,’ according to an e-mail CEO John Koten wrote to the staff. A source said the search for Vamos’ replacement had been in the works for several months and had involved top staffers already at the magazine.

Safian is a grad of Brown University. He also worked at American Lawyer and Smart Money before moving to Time.

 

NEW BIZ ED IN PHILLY

Tony Gnoffo is the new business editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Gnoffo, who started in the new title in January, replaces, Bob Rose, the former AME for business at the Inquirer, left in November to become exec editor of Smart Money.

A memo from deputy ME Carl Lavin, stated, “Tony has the experience and the imagination to lead our business coverage to new heights, both in print and online. In 14 months as deputy, Tony impressed the entire newsroom with his smarts and energy, working in full partnership with Bob Rose to encourage journalistic excellence and to help all of us see new potential in innovative approaches to the news.”

Before becoming deputy biz editor, Gnoffo covered the cable/telecom beat with primary responsibility for Comcast Corp. He also volunteered for hurricane duty, roughing it in the Katrina zone for a sister paper in Biloxi. He has also done reporting from Trenton, editing in Cherry Hill, and running the Chester County bureau.

Gnoffo has been a reporter and editor during most of the 1990s on the biz desk. Before that, he was a senior editor at the start of the Online Newsdesk and as the first editor of the tech.life section of The Inquirer, one of first all-technology sections during the dot-com boom.

 

BOSS WATCH

Russ Stanton, the biz editor at the Los Angeles Times, becomes innovation editor for the paper. He is replaced by Davan Maharaj, who had been deputy biz editor for the Times. Amanda Bennett, the former top ed at the Philly Inquirer, becomes executive ed for enterprise at Bloomberg News. Bennett is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and bureau chief…Tunku Varadarajan, an editor on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, becomes AME/features at the biz daily. He joined the Journal in 2000 after working at the Times of London….Bruce Headlam becomes media and marketing editor, a newly expanded job in which he will direct coverage of those topics as well as continue to oversee the Monday section of Business Day, according to a memo from New York Times biz editor Larry Ingrassia… A.J. Carter, the associate biz editor for Newsday, leaves the paper to become spokesman for the Empire State Development Corp., New York’s economic development agency…Wayne Faulkner, real estate editor of the Chicago Tribune, becomes the biz editor of the Wilmington Star-News in North Carolina….Kevin Richardson becomes the biz editor of the Jackson Clarion Ledger in Mississippi….Jennifer Hamm, formerly the biz editor at the L.A. Daily Journal, becomes city editor of the paper….Allan Maurer becomes editor of TechJournal South….Dale Rim becomes biz editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press. He had been ME of the Las Vegas Business Press.

 

THE EAST COAST

Katherine Boehret becomes a tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal. In her new role, Boehret takes over writing the “Mossberg Solution” column, which discusses consumer electronics. Boehret previously assisted in co-writing the column with Walt Mossberg, who now shifts his focus to his two other columns, “Personal Technology” and “Mossberg’s Mailbox”….SEC reporter Joel Rothstein has left his post at Reuters out of the Washington, D.C. bureau…. Akweli Parker, a 34-year-old biz reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer for six years, moves to the paper's online division in a newsroom restructuring. Meanwhile, biz writer Joe DiStefano leaves the Inquirer for Bloomberg News to cover credit cards and consumer credit…Shir Haberman becomes the biz editor of the Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire, replacing Michael McCord, now opinion editor.

 

WAY DOWN SOUTH

Emery Dalesio takes a year-long sabbatical leave from covering business in Research Triangle Park and the rest of North Carolina for The Associated Press to teach business journalism and other courses in Romania on a grant from the Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program….Anne-Margaret Sobota takes a job as the biz editor of The Key West Citizen…Sam Scott, who previously covered education for the Wilmington Star News in North Carolina, moves to the biz desk….Reporter David Williams becomes an assistant biz editor at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. He continues to cover the business of sports and entertainment.

 

MIDWEST MOVES

Karen Mracek leaves Edge Business Journal, where she was the editor, to become assistant biz editor at the Des Moines Register…Mike Sobczyk, a biz reporter for the Findlay Courier in Ohio, leaves the paper after 20 years to become the city’s service director…Personal finance columnist Susan Morris leaves the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review after five years…. Bob Van Enkenvoort takes the reins as biz editor at the Green Bay Press Gazette, and Nate Phelps joins the department as biz reporter.

 

WEST COAST CHANGES

MSNBC recently hires Allison Linn to be a senior writer, based in its Redmond , Wash., HQ. She was previously a business writer for the AP, based in Seattle. Frank Green, a biz reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune, accepts a buyout offer from the paper….San Jose Mercury News biz columnist Michelle Quinn leaves to become a tech reporter for the Los Angeles Times in San Francisco.

 

AT THE GLOSSIES

Jennifer Reingold leaves Fast Company to become a senior writer at Fortune. Jerry Useem returns to Fortune as senior editor-at-large. Useem will be writing and editing special projects. Susan Z. Callaway joins Fortune as a columnist, covering the auto industry. And David Whitford joins Fortune from Fortune Small Business as editor-at-large. He will focus on feature writing. Senior editor Peter Lewis, who covered personal technology, leaves Fortune as part of the Time Inc. layoffs…Cybele Weisser becomes editor of the Home and Invest sections for Money. Also, Carolyn Bigda and Amanda Gengler are promoted to writer-reporters at the personal financial glossy. And Marlys Harris returns to the magazine as a senior writer overseeing the Plan and Smart sections. Also, Asa Fitch, a recent graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, joins Money as a staff reporter. Previously he was a reporter at the Litchfield County Times in Connecticut….Lew McCreary becomes a senior editor at the Harvard Business Review. He previously was editor in chief of CSO…Evelyn Nussenbaum joins Business 2.0 as senior editor. Nussenbaum spent the last five years freelancing for The New York Times, Fortune, Wired and Business 2.0. Before that, she was a business columnist and Sunday business editor for the New York Post. She works on the “What Works” section and handles advertising and media features…Kimberly Palmer becomes associated editor of U.S. News & World Report’s “Money & Business” section. She had covered white-collar crime for Government Executive.

 

ON THE AIRWAVES

Spokane biz veteran Paul Wham launches a Saturday radio talk show on KGA-AM radio. Wham, who has run and sold three businesses, has guests and takes caller questions during the 8 a.m.- 9 a.m. slot. …Columbia journalism prof Sree Sreenivasan joins WNBC/Ch. 4 in New York as technology reporter. He was last seen on WABC/Ch. 7. He’ll report on air and online, plus he will lead a number of new media initiatives at Ch. 4

 

AND THE WINNER IS…

Florida Atlantic University’s College of Business names its boardroom in honor of Eugene Miller, one of SABEW’s founders, in its new building. Miller is a former AME at BusinessWeek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN PASSING

John McCalla, editor of the Washington Business Journal, dies suddenly in early January. He was 38. In a story on the paper’s web site, publisher Alex Orfinger called McCalla “a top business journalist, a true leader, a dear friend to us at the Business Journal. Our hearts and prayers go out to John’s family. We’ll miss him greatly.” McCalla had become editor of the paper in 2006 after serving as its managing editor. He joined American City Business Journals at its Philadelphia paper in 1998 as a reporter.

Carroll Astbury, who worked as a business writer and a biz editor for the Bangor Daily News in Maine, died unexpectedly in late December. He was 58. Mark Woodward, executive editor of the paper, said Astbury’s outgoing personality allowed him to get to know quickly the people he was writing about. His background in economic statistics strengthened his natural ability to be analytical and to get straight facts when learning about an issue, he added. “He was gregarious by nature,” Woodward said. “He had an amazing ability to connect with people and was genuinely interested in them. All of that was very important to him as a reporter.”

 

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Posted Feb. 27, 2007