October Edition of Biz Buzz: New boss in St. Louis

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

NEW BIZ EDITOR IN ST. LOUIS

Adam Goodman has been named the new business editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, according to a memo from editor Arnie Robbins.

Goodman (right) had been AME/Metro. His new title is deputy managing editor for metro and business news. He replaces Andre Jackson, who left earlier this year for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he now oversees business coverage.

Robbins writes, “In coming weeks, Adam will be assessing the overall structure of the two departments and it is possible some assistant editors will be supervising teams that include metro and business reporters.

“Adam brings to the position deep familiarity with the St. Louis business world, thanks to his many years as a business reporter and editor. His beats included real estate, banking, aerospace and defense. He moved to Metro in the late 1990s as an assistant editor and subsequently has had stints as environmental reporter, science editor and deputy metro editor. He was named assistant managing editor in 2005.

“When we recently asked Adam to lead our coverage of the Anheuser-Busch saga, he swiftly organized an expanded team of business and metro reporters and editors and helped them identify and execute a series of smart enterprise stories while also keeping on top of breaking developments. The resulting coverage distinguished us as a leading source on this important story.”

Irv Harrell also joins the metro/business team as an assistant editor.

DES MOINES DEPARTURES

Steve Dinnen, a senior business reporter for the Des Moines Register, as well as farm editor Jerry Perkins, left the paper.

Dinnen (left) has been laid off, while Perkins took a buyout. Dinnen has been a senior business reporter at the Register since 2000. Before that he worked for Meredith Corp. and the Indianapolis Star.

Perkins, whose last day was Aug. 29, had been with the paper since 1978 and had been the farm editor since 1993, covering topics such as ethanol’s effects on farmers and Cuba’s interest in purchasing corn from Iowa farmers.

“I've spent half my life working in the Register newsroom, but it was time to move on,” says Perkins. “I've got a number of things I want to do, including finishing a novel that has been kicking around in my brain for 17 years and finding something where I can use the Spanish I learned in the Peace Corps."

Brian Schwaner, a former business editor at the Register, tells Biz Buzz that Perkins’ departure is a major deal. He called him the dean of agribusiness coverage.

“That represents a serious changing of the guard not only from the perspective of the Register's coverage team but for agribusiness coverage nationally,” says Schwaner, now an AP editor in Louisiana. “Jerry worked for me when I was business editor of the Register in the late 1990s. The guy knows more about pigs, corn and soybeans than anybody on the planet.”

Perkins grew up in Des Moines and worked at the Register during college before serving in the Peace Corps in Panama and Nicaragua. He left the Register for five years to become public affairs director for the Iowa Corn Growers Association. During his time away, he spent seven months in Stavropol, Russia, managing an agribusiness center.

WSJ HUB DESK OVERHAUL

The Wall Street Journal has overhauled its main editing desk to coordinate its coverage with other Dow Jones’ biz journalism properties such as Marketwatch and Dow Jones Newswires.

As a result Sheila Courter becomes the day editor and hub desk chief. In this role, Courter now oversees the layouts, and will coordinate with the desks and advertising department to help set the paper’s daily news menu. Courter has been deputy copy desk chief and a Page 1 slot editor.

In addition, Mike Boone, currently the copy desk chief, will become copy chief on the hub later this fall. Boone will be responsible for style and editing quality across all Journal platforms, and will work closely with the new desks to ensure that Journal editing standards are upheld and enhanced.

Also, Tim Hanrahan, a deputy national editor, takes on an enhanced role in the newly created role of day editor of wsj.com. A veteran of the old wsj.com who has worked on the news desk for the last year, Hanrahan becomes the prime conduit between the new subject desks and wsj.com, and overseer of the front news pages on the site.

BOSS WATCH

Xana Antunes, (left) formerly executive editor of CNNMoney.com and editor of the New York Post, has been named editor of Crain’s New York Business…Wayne Ezell, the reader advocate of the Florida Times-Union newspaper in Jacksonville, has been named the paper’s business editor…Jason Ukman becomes the Washington Post’s new economics editor. Ukman joined the Post in 2001, spending the past seven years in a number of editing roles on the foreign desk and a 2004 stint as a reporter on metro….Tony Dobrowolski, a reporter at the paper for the past 16 years, has been named the new business editor of the Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts. Dobrowolski, 54, replaces Ellen Lahr, who left The Eagle to become director of communications at Excelsior College in Albany, N.Y…Chicago bureau chief Steve Wisnefski has been named deputy managing editor for North American equities, overseeing the breaking news operations, at Dow Jones Newswires…Joe Rutland has accepted a job to become the business editor of the Laredo Morning Times in Texas…Chris Passante becomes editor of the Central Penn Business Journal in Harrisburg, Pa. Passante had been ME of the Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina…Bruce Castleberry has been named the business editor for The Morning News, a newspaper in northwest Arkansas.

UPPER EAST SIDE

Ben White joins the New York Times covering Wall Street and finance. He previously covered banking for the Financial Times…Jane Hexham joins the Dow Jones Newswires copy desk. She had been a copy editor at The Wall Street Journal…Associated Press reporter Adam Schreck, (right) who previously covered energy and airlines for the news agency in New York, relocates to Dubai, United Arab Emirates to cover energy, investment and economic development in the Persian Gulf region….Greg Farrell joins the Financial Times as a Wall Street correspondent. He had been at USA Today. Also joining the FT is Kenneth Li, a former Reuters media reporter….Allissa Kline joins Buffalo Business First to cover education, trade, accounting, legal and public companies. Kline had been at the Observer-Dispatch in Utica. She replaces long-time reporter Annemarie Franczyk, who accepted an appointment to the communications department faculty at Buffalo State College.

WAY DOWN SOUTH

Jennifer Thomas joins the Charlotte Business Journal reporting staff. She had covered retail for the Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania…Melanie Stawicki Azam joins the Orlando Business Journal to cover health care, education and nonprofits. Azam had been at the Daytona Beach News-Journal… Tim Simmons, a reporter on The (Raleigh) News & Observer biz desk who covered the business of academia, leaves to become VP of communications for a local education initiative, the Wake Education Partnership.

MIDWEST MOVES

Dallas Morning News business writer Suzanne Marta, who covers airlines and tourism among other things, takes the paper’s buyout offer…At the Oakland Business Review paper in Michigan, reporters Carol Marshall and Gary Gosselin — two-thirds of the paper's reporting team — and associate editor Mark Thompson-Kolar were let go as the paper goes to a Web-only format. Editor Mark Fellows takes a job as a science writer at Michigan State University... At the St. Louis Business Journal, Lucie Wolken, a former intern, joins the staff full time. Also, Matt Allen moves from Web editor to reporter, covering the law/accounting and managed health care beats. Kelsey Volkmann joins the Business Journal as Web editor after being at the Baltimore Examiner…Joanne Cleaver, previously real estate editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has accepted its buyout offer and left the newspaper…Susanna Ray now covers aerospace for Bloomberg News, switching from the airline beat. Ray moves to the Chicago bureau from the Seattle bureau…Sean Wood, a reporter covering manufacturing, aviation and banking, leaves the San Antonio Express-News. Laura Lorek, (right) technology and economic development senior writer, will now also cover banking, while ag and sports biz reporter William Pack takes on the aviation beat…Jacob Bunge joins the Chicago bureau of Dow Jones Newswires as a reporter covering derivatives and exchanges. Bunge most recently worked for HedgeWorld, a ThomsonReuters publication, covering the hedge fund and commodity trading advisor industries…Debbie Bolles joins the Dallas Business Journal as a copy editor. Also joining the weekly are Katherine Cromer Brock, who will cover sports business, residential retail and hospitality, and Web/broadcast reporter Kerri Panchuk.

WEST COAST WAVES

Seattle Post-Intelligencer tech reporters John Cook and Todd Bishop (right) leave the daily for the Puget Sound Business Journal, where they will launch a new tech news site…Bill Heisel, an investigative reporter on the Los Angeles Times California desk since 2006, switches over to the biz desk to cover the mortgage meltdown, housing foreclosures and their impact on the regional economy. He previously worked for the Orange County Register. Also at the Times, Andrea Chang becomes the retail reporter. Chang joined the paper in June 2007 as a summer intern and was hired soon after, in October, as a full-time business reporter, working general assignment…Bruce Bigelow resigns from the San Diego Union-Tribune to take a job with a startup venture called Xconomy.com that provides online business news about technology, innovation, VCs, biotechs and startups…Joe Tartakoff joins the San Francisco Chronicle to cover tech. Tartakoff previously covered the biotech biz at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer…Robert Dixon, the editor of the Business Press, a publication of the Riverside Press-Enterprise in California, leaves the paper…The Pacific Business News, the business weekly in Honolulu, hires photographer Christina Failma, who had been laid off from the Honolulu Advertiser.

AT THE GLOSSIES

Fortune’s Silicon Valley bureau chief, Brent Schlender, has accepted the magazine’s buyout offer. From 1992 to 1994, Schlender was Fortune’s Tokyo bureau chief. Prior to joining Fortune in 1989, Schlender was a reporter and editor for The Wall Street Journal…Matthew Boyle joins BusinessWeek as deputy corporations editor. Boyle was previously at Fortune for just under eight years, most recently as a writer. He will report to senior editor Diane Brady…Carol Hymowitz, (left) formerly of the Wall Street Journal, joins Forbes as editorial director of Forbes Life Executive Woman.

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Posted September 22, 2008