July 2008 Biz Buzz: New leaders at AP, Wall Street Journal

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

OVERHAUL AT THE TOP AT THE JOURNAL

New managing editor Robert Thomson wasted no time in revamping the management structure at The Wall Street Journal.

Thomson created three teams – national, international and enterprise – and placed editors in charge of each team. Matt Murray, former general news editor, is now in charge of the national team, which will oversee U.S. and corporate news. Nik Deogun, (left) former money and investing editor, becomes the new international editor. And page one editor Michael Williams is now in charge of investigative and some page one stories.

All three become deputy managing editors and will report to Thomson. In an e-mail to the staff, Thomson stated that the three “will sit close together in what could prosaically be called a ‘news hub,’ thus streamlining commissioning and editing decisions, and giving them a central role in the production and presentation of copy for the paper and the website.”

Some of the changes are a result of the departure of deputy ME Bill Grueskin, who leaves the paper to become dean of academic affairs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, overseeing the school’s faculty and curriculum and reporting to dean Nick Lemann.

In addition, Thomson named Mike Miller as senior deputy managing editor and said he would be in charge of editing the paper if he was unavailable. Miller remains in charge of the features sections.

Also, Cathy Panagoulias becomes a deputy ME and will take a greater role in providing administrative support for bureau chiefs and in hiring decisions. And Alan Murray, executive editor of the Journal Online, also becomes a deputy ME.

As part of the overhaul, deputy ME Laurie Hays leaves the paper after 23 years to become executive editor in charge of corporate coverage at Bloomberg News. She will start her new job on Aug. 4.

RITTER BECOMES AP’s BUSINESS EDITOR

Hal Ritter, who was the deputy managing editor for business coverage at USA Today when it launched back in 1982, has been named the new business editor at the Associated Press.

Ritter replaces Kevin Noblet, who resigned in March. Ritter had been acting business editor since then.

Ritter, 56, (right) began working for AP as a business-side consultant in February 2006, and became director of special projects in April 2007. He was one of the architects of AP’s Money & Markets service.

“Hal’s considerable expertise, smarts and high standards are just what we need to raise even higher the level of our journalism in the increasingly crucial area of business news,” said Kristin Gazlay, AP managing editor for financial news and global training, in a statement. “He is both innovative and determined.”

Ritter joined the Money section of USA Today as one of two deputy managing editors the summer before the newspaper’s launch in September 1982.

He became managing editor of Money in 1985, and initiated coverage of hard business stories, which helped drive the nationally distributed paper to respectability and then major-league status. He left USA Today in 2004 after being ME for news.

Ritter started as a reporter at Gannett’s evening newspaper in Rochester, N.Y. He became an editor in 1978. In September 1980, he left Rochester to attend the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he received his MBA in 1982.

Ritter is a 1974 graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas.

NEW BIZ EDITOR IN HONOLULU

Honululu Star-Bulletin assistant business editor Dave Segal becomes the paper’s business editor.

Segal, 52, has been with the Star-Bulletin for 10 years. He previously served as news editor at Pacific Stars and Stripes in Tokyo. He also has been business news editor for the Alameda Newspaper Group, which includes the Oakland Tribune, as well as assistant sports editor, assistant business editor, assistant features editor and a TV-radio columnist for the now-defunct Sacramento Union.

He succeeds Ken Andrade, who resigned to pursue a startup business venture.

Jennifer Sudick, who has worked at the Star-Bulletin since March 2007, most recently as a business reporter, will move into the position of assistant business editor.

BOSS WATCH

Trevor Delaney (left) plans to join the AP as personal finance editor on July 16. Delaney had been editorial director for personal finance at Black Enterprise magazine…TheStreet.com executive editor George Moriarty leaves to become an editor and publisher at Merrill Lynch Online…Boston Globe deputy biz editor Bennie DiNardo becomes deputy ME of multimedia at the paper... …Anne Reifenberg, an assistant business editor at the Los Angeles Times, leaves the paper to go work as an editor in the Los Angeles bureau of Bloomberg News. Reifenberg has been put in charge of the section’s enterprise efforts in March 2007 after a stint as executive editor of West magazine…Mark Anderson becomes Washington deputy bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires. Anderson will continue to cover the Supreme Court…Candace Beeke (right) becomes editor of Business Review Western Michigan. Beeke had been associate editor.

UPPER EAST SIDE

Wall Street Journal Federal Reserve reporter Gregory Ip plans to leave the paper to become the U.S. economics editor for The Economist. Also leaving the Journal is Kathryn Kranhold, who covered General Electric. She joins Sard Verbinnen & Co., a New York-based PR firm. The Journal hires two Financial Times reporters, Thorold Barker and Liam Denning, who write from the FT’s New York office… Saskia Scholtes becomes U.S. financial services correspondent for the FT. Scholtes has been the FT’s capital markets correspondent since 2006. Nicole Bullock becomes the FT’s new capital markets correspondent. Bullock joins the FT from SmartMoney magazine, where she was a senior writer. Before that, Bullock was a reporter and deputy bureau chief at Dow Jones Newswires…Jeanne Bonner, a business reporter for the Allentown Morning Call, leaves the paper after five years…Longtime Columbus Dispatch staffer George Myers Jr., most recently technology and assistant business editor, is now city editor of the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, Maine…Tim Catts, previously a blogger for BusinessWeek’s website, joins Financial Week as a banking reporter covering mergers & acquisitions.

WAY DOWN SOUTH

Staff writer Adam Linker leaves the Triangle Business Journal for a job at the North Carolina Justice Center…Staff writer Lane Brown leaves the Triad Business Journal in Greensboro…Biz reporter Frank Norton is among the layoffs at The (Raleigh) News & Observer. Also, longtime biz reporter Dudley Price retires from The N&O…Josh Brown becomes a biz reporter at The Virginian-Pilot to cover economic development and commercial real estate. Brown has been at The Press-Enterprise in California…Marcus Kabel, who had been in the AP’s Bentonville, Ark., bureau, where he had been covering Wal-Mart Stores Inc., transfers to the Atlanta bureau.

MIDWEST MOVES

Dick Gibson, who has covered the restaurant and food industries for Dow Jones for more than two decades, is retiring in July. Gibson, who works out of the Dow Jones Newswires office in Des Moines, Iowa, has worked for the wire service for the past nine years after working for The Wall Street Journal in its Chicago and Minneapolis bureaus. Also, Sharon Terlep becomes a Dow Jones Newswires reporter in Detroit covering the auto industry. Terlep previously covered auto transportation for the Detroit News…Dan Gearino joins The Columbus Dispatch covering energy and manufacturing. Gearino was previously in the Lee Enterprises’ Des Moines bureau, where he covered politics…. Joyce Tsai joins the Dallas Business Journal to cover health care, education and nonprofits from the Kansas City Star. Tsai replaces Jennifer Gordon, who joined the American Banker.

WEST COAST WAVES

Wall Street Journal tech reporter Rebecca Buckman (left) leaves the paper to become a senior editor at Forbes. She will continue to cover Silicon Valley… Elizabeth Gillespie, who had covered West Coast retail from the AP’s Seattle bureau, leaves the wire service. Also, May Wong leaves the AP’s San Francisco bureau, where she covered financial institutions…Reuters West Coast reporter Scott Hillis, who covered Apple Inc. and video games, leaves to work for Microsoft’s Xbox team.

AT THE GLOSSIES

Forbes tech writer Dan Lyons, (left) best known for writing the “Fake Steve Jobs” blog, leaves the biweekly to become tech editor at Newsweek…Fortune assistant managing editor Cait Murphy, senior editor John Simons and staff writer Matthew Boyle leave the magazine…Entrepreneur executive editors Maria Valdez Haubrich and Karen Axelton are leaving the monthly in the wake of the naming of a new editor, Amy Cosper. Cosper had been VP of business development at WiesnerMedia LLC. She has previously been the publisher and editor in chief of Satellite Broadband magazine, a Primedia publication. She has also held various managing editorial roles with Intertec Publishing and Argus Integrated Media.

ON THE AIR

CNN hires Carter Evans to be a correspondent for “Money Matters,” a program done in conjunction with CNNMoney.com. Evans joins CNN Newsource from CBS in New York, where he anchored CBS Money Watch business reports and served as a national correspondent for CBS NewsPath.

ON THE SHELF

John Wasik, Bloomberg News personal finance columnist, co-authored “iMoney: Profitable ETF Strategies for Every Investor” with Tom Lydon (FT Press/Prentice Hall). Only a few days after its release, it shot to No. 1 on the amazon.com mutual fund bestseller’s list. The book is a primer on exchange-traded fund strategies.

BACK TO SCHOOL

Washington Post investigative business reporter Alec Klein leaves the paper to become a business journalism professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Klein had taught part-time at American University and Georgetown University while at the Post.

DON’T MISS THE LATEST BIZ BUZZ

SABEW wants to follow you to your new job. Please send your new contact information to sabew@missouri.edu.

Posted June 23, 2008