December Edition of Biz Buzz: Buyouts and Layoffs, Oh My

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

BEAUCOUP BUYOUTS HIT NEWARK BIZ DESK

The Newark Star-Ledger’s business desk has been hit with a number of departures due to the paper’s buyout program.

Kevin Shinkle, the business editor at the Star-Ledger, leaves the paper and taking a job as an assistant business editor at the Associated Press. Shinkle’s last day at the paper was Nov. 12. He started at the AP on Nov. 17.

Shinkle (left) became the business editor at the end of 2007. At the AP, Shinkle becomes assistant biz editor for money, in charge of four teams: financial/Wall Street, real estate, personal finance and money and markets. Shinkle had been the deputy business editor for six and a half years, but had also worked in the paper’s sports department.

T.J. Foderaro, a deputy business editor at the paper, also left recently. He joins Harrison Scott Publications. Deputy business editor Eric Strauss has found employment, taking a job at Centenary College in nearby Hackettstown. And Beth Fitzgerald, who covered small business, is now an editor and writer at www.NJBIZ.com.

Paula Paige, the Sunday business editor at the paper, also took the buyout and was originally scheduled to depart on the same day as Shinkle. But now she's been asked to stay until the end of the year to help direct the paper's business coverage.

Other well-known staff members leaving the paper include, in alphabetical order: Real estate and finance reporter Sam Ali, casino reporter Judy DeHaven, energy reporter Tom Johnson, pharmaceutical reporter George Jordan, pharamaceutical reporter Jeff May, general assignment reporter Greg Saitz, commercial real estate reporter Ian Shearn, and drug blog Pharmalot writer Edward Silverman.

Also leaving is Bob Cohen, who covered the drug industry from Washington, D.C.

NEW MES AT FORBES

Forbes magazine announces in late October that Stewart Pinkerton and Tom Post have been promoted to managing editors. Both Pinkerton and Post have been serving as deputy managing editors.

In his new role, Pinkerton (right) will continue to oversee the integration of contributors to the magazine and Forbes.com. Prior to joining Forbes in 1990, he spent 24 years at The Wall Street Journal, in a mix of reporting and editing positions.

As deputy managing editor for the Journal, Pinkerton coordinated the reporting and editing of the paper’s insider trading coverage that won two Journal reporters the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism.

Post will continue to have a significant role in the development of cover stories for Forbes, and continue to oversee a stable of magazine writers and reporters. He has been with Forbes since 1997, joining the company from ABC News.

Post has an extensive career in journalism, including serving as general editor at Newsweek magazine from 1990 to 1996, as well as stints at Business Month, Success Magazine, Venture magazine, and at Fortune. In 1993, he won The National Women’s Political Caucus Award for “A Pattern of Rape: War Crimes in Bosnia,” his cover story for Newsweek.

CUTS AT THE LA TIMES

The recent cuts in the Los Angeles Times newsroom have resulted in a loss of five staff members from the paper’s business desk.

They include Josh Friedman, longtime business staffer who had most recently been assigned to the Hollywood team, covering the box office and doing a weekly feature called The Projector that previewed the weekend box office.

Also leaving is Michelle Quinn, (right) a San Francisco-based staffer who covered technology, including Apple. Quinn had joined the paper in early 2007 after 10 years with the San Jose Mercury News. She had also worked for the San Francisco Chronicle.

The other departures include Elizabeth Douglass, a long-time oil and energy reported who also covered the state Public Utilities Commission, and Swati Pandey, who covered the music industry and had only recently joined the business staff. She was formerly working on the editorial pages. A 2004 graduate of Yale University, Pandey had been with The Times for just over two years.

Finally, Terry Rosales, the department’s secretary who had served at the Times in various capacities for three decades, also left.

MONEY, IT’S A GAS

Craig Matters, who earlier this year became the executive editor at Fortune magazine, is named managing editor of Money magazine.

Matters (left) replaces Eric Schurenberg, who will leave the magazine near the end of the month.

In an announcement to the staff, Time Inc. editor in chief John Huey stated, “A fixture of Time Inc.’s business and investing coverage for more than two decades, Eric joined the company as a reporter working for Time Life Books. He worked at a full range of Time Inc. titles including Life, Fortune and Business 2.0; he even spent a year outside Time Inc. launching Goldman Sachs’ website for investors, until he realized he was unhappy as anything but a journalist. Still, he spent most of his Time Inc. career where he ended it – at Money.”

Matters left Money in 2001 to become the founding editor of CNNMoney.com, the business and finance news Web site with 10.4 million unique monthly visitors, according to Nielsen Online. He rejoined Money in 2004 as executive editor.

Previous to his time at Time Inc., Matters spent 10 years at American Lawyer Media, where he was editor of an early online community for lawyers called Counsel Connect and ran newsrooms for American Lawyer in San Francisco and Miami. He began his career as a reporter and editor at weekly and daily newspapers in Connecticut.

BOSS WATCH

Pat Rizzo joins msnbc.com as senior business editor/producer based in New York. He had been economics editor at the Associated Press…Bruce Hammond (right) becomes the new business editor at The Oregonian in Portland, replacing Ben Santarris, who has left the paper. Hammond has been The Oregonian’s senior editor for suburban news. He’s been at the paper since 1987 and previously served as its political editor…Mark Guidera, the business editor at the Tampa Tribune, is laid off after five years at the paper….Barbara Rehm becomes editor in chief of American Banker. Rehm joined the paper in 1987 as a reporter in its Washington bureau. She was promoted to Washington bureau chief in 1995, senior editor in 1998, and assistant managing editor in 2003…Terry Hunt, a White House correspondent for the Associated Press, has been named by the wire service to oversee its financial crisis coverage…Jamie DeWeese has been promoted to assistant news editor, heading a new desk covering hot stocks, at Dow Jones Newswires. DeWeese now heads a team of several reporters working on the fast-paced coverage of stock movers, particularly those moving significantly without any apparent news…Andy Browne becomes China editor for The Wall Street Journal on Dec. 1, replacing Rebecca Blumenstein, who moves to New York to become international news editor. Also, Dennis Berman and Rick Brooks become deputy editors for the Journal’s Money & Investing section. Brooks had been deputy bureau chief in Atlanta, while Berman had been global deals editor at the paper.

UPPER EAST SIDE

Susanne Craig (left) becomes Wall Street editor at the Wall Street Journal and will oversee the paper’s investment banking coverage. Craig had been a reporter. Aaron Lucchetti, a writer for the Money & Investing section, joins Craig on the Wall Street team to cover Morgan Stanley. Jenna Wortham, a new media reporter for Wired.com, joins The New York Times as a tech reporter to cover Internet companies…Thomas Grillo joins the Boston Herald’s biz desk to cover development and sports business. He had been a reporter at Banker & Tradesman.

WAY DOWN SOUTH

Jim Hammond, a staff writer at the Columbia Regional Business Report in South Carolina, becomes editor at GSA Business, a bi-weekly business newspaper based in the Greenville-Spartanburg area of the state. Hammond had been with the Business Report for four months. He previously worked at The State, the daily paper in Columbia. Scott Miller, a staff writer at the Charleston Regional Business Journal, joins Hammond at GSA Business…Don Worthington, (left) the business editor at the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina, leaves the paper Nov. 5 amid nearly two-dozen job cuts in the newsroom… Kimberly Morrison will join the reporting staff of the Jacksonville Business Journal on Dec. 3 as a health care reporter. She formerly covered WalMart Stores Inc. for The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, based in Bentonville… Jeannie Naujeck joins the Nashville Business Journal as its civic affairs reporter. She previously worked at The Tennessean as its music business reporter.

MIDWEST MOVES

Christopher Calnan joins the Austin Business Journal to cover technology, banking, finance and energy. Calnan was previously a reporter for Mass High Tech, a weekly business newspaper in Boston focusing on technology-based industries throughout New England. He covered software and Internet-based companies and investors who finance them…Nancy Darnell, assistant business editor, and business reporter Jim Stafford leave The Oklahoman. Darnell had been assistant biz editor since late 2003 and previously served as the assistant city editor. Stafford returned to the paper as a business reporter in June 2003 after a three-year stint at Oklahoma Christian University. He was the paper's business editor from 1992 to 1998.

WEST COAST WAVES

William West, the editor of the Central Valley Business Journal in California, leaves the paper after three years after a disagreement with the publisher…

GLOSSY GOINGS ON

Mary Ellen Egan (left) becomes executive managing editor, a new position, of ForbesLife Executive Woman. She has been associate editor and chief of reporters for Forbes…Bob Cohn, the executive editor of Wired magazine, takes over The Atlantic’s Web operations…Hawaii Business magazine editor Kelli Abe Trifonovitch is leaving after nine years to pursue other interests. Jerry Burris becomes active executive editor at the magazine…Washington CEO executive editor Barbara Morgan leaves the Seattle-based monthly after one year, and the magazine is sold to Seattle Business…Ryan Schuster becomes editor of Prairie Business magazine in North Dakota. Fargo-based Prairie Business is published monthly by the Grand Forks Herald, a division of Forum Communications Co.

AND THE WINNER IS...

David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters News at Thomson Reuters, receves the Lifetime Achievement Award for Business and Financial Reporting from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which hands out the Emmy Awards.

IN MEMORY

David Doege, (right) a reporter for the Milwaukee Business Journal, dies in late October after suffering a heart attack. He was 53. Doege had also worked at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel…Paul Dodson, who worked 18 years as a business reporter and columnist for the South Bend Tribune in Indiana before retiring in 2002, has died. He was 68.

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Posted Nov. 14, 2008