Biz Buzz for February 2008: Thomson Financial's U.S. expansion

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

THOMSON FINANCIAL BULKS UP

Thomson Financial builds a 16-person U.S. staff, says co-managing editor Michael Baron, who came from Marketwatch, providing spot coverage of the stock market

Thomson Financial began publishing to Thomson customers in Europe and Asia in October, and began sending content to U.S. customers earlier this month.

Baron, who worked at Dow Jones and Bridge News before joining Marketwatch in 2000, was hired along co-managing editor Tomi Kilgore, who had been with Marketwatch since 1999 as a columnist and spot news reporter. They’ve spent the past six months hiring and training.

The staff is spread out, with 10 in New York, three in San Francisco and two in Boston.

Also from MarketWatch are Padraic Cassidy, an editor who previously covered airlines; Gabriel Madway and Katherine Hunt, who anchor coverage from San Francisco; and Wanfeng Zhou, a markets reporter who previously covered forex.

The rest of the editorial staff includes Joseph Woelfel, an assignment editor at the Dow Jones Newswires for more than 15 years, and Charles Mikolajczak, an editor with Wall Street Source for roughly 10 years.

The reporting staff includes Michelle Rama, formerly of Dow Jones Newswires and in her second stint with Thomson.

In addition, Corbett Daly, who worked with both MarketWatch and AFX in the past, leads a four-person team in Washington, D.C.

SHAKEUP IN ALLENTOWN

A reorganization at the Allentown Morning Call in early January leaves the paper without a business editor and with the business news staff merged into the metro department.

The business editor’s position had been open since September. Mike Hirsch, the former business editor, was promoted to the features department. The assistant business editor position has also been dissolved. Eloise DeHaan was the assistant business editor, but she has been reassigned to a universal copy desk.

Editor Ardith Hilliard wrote in a memo: “Business reporter Spencer Soper has been named an assistant metro editor/business, and will supervise all aspects of business news, including daily sections and Sunday Real Estate. We are pleased that Spencer has taken on this challenge — he has shown great accomplishment in both reporting and editing during his time here.

“The position of business editor is being eliminated and business news will be merged with the metro operation, with a core of reporters dedicated to this area. Spencer will report to Assistant Managing Editor/Metro Mike Miorelli. Spencer’s reporting position will not be filled.

“However, by merging the business coverage with our metro operation we make it a broader priority across the newsroom, calling on expertise throughout the editing and reporting operation as well as from the business staff. One open business reporter position will be filled.”

NEW BIZ EDITOR IN NEWARK

Kevin Shinkle becomes the business editor at the Newark Star-Ledger, replacing Dave Allen.

Allen took a buyout from the paper and retired. Allen said, “After taking a break for a few weeks for travel and golf, I will be looking for a few consulting gigs, either in or out of the media.”

Shinkle, a 1987 graduate from Hillsdale College, has been the deputy biz editor for six and a half years, but has been working recently in the paper’s sports department as deputy sports editor.

Shinkle previously worked at Bloomberg News from 1993 to 2000 as a sports reporter and as a business reporter and at the Tampa Tribune from 1989 to 1993 as a business reporter. He also worked at the Chapel Hill News as a news writer covering UNC-Chapel Hill and town hall. His first job out of college was with the Gold Leaf Farmer, a weekly in Wendell, N.C.

Last year, the Star-Ledger’s business section received a SABEW Best in Business Award for general excellence in the large newspaper category.

NEW SENIOR EDITOR IN ATLANTA

Kathy Brister, a former biz reporter and editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, becomes the senior editor for business and news on the “News & Information” side of the newspaper. It’s a new position.

Brister becomes responsible for the business reporter clusters and a cluster of reporters on the state desk. The business reporter clusters don’t include the business and sports cluster on the “Enterprise” side that is run by former business reporter and assistant business editor Henry Unger. Brister had been senior editor/planning on the enterprise side.

Brister joined the paper in 2000 and covered technology and telecommunications. She had also been the business day editor and had supervised a team of general assignment reporters on the business desk. She was interim Sunday editor for about a year before the newsroom reorganization. She had previously been at the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

The Atlanta newsroom reorganized in 2007, resulting in non-traditional titles for the business news desk.

Sources at the paper say that Coca-Cola beat reporter Duane Stanford has yet to be replaced. He left in November 2007. Reporter Leon Stafford has been filling in on the Coke beat.

BOSS BUZZ

Dan Miller, (right) the business editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, resigns in early January amid concerns that the paper will soon be sold…Paul Barrett, who had been with BusinessWeek as an AME for the past 15 months, leaves the weekly to return to The Wall Street Journal…Former SABEW president Jodi Schneider, the economics and finance editor of Congressional Quarterly, becomes the media outlet’s first training director…Mitch Weiss, deputy biz editor at The Charlotte Observer and a winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, leaves to become Associated Press correspondent in Charlotte…Jack Burke, the business editor at the Rockford Register Star in Illinois, leaves the paper become an editor at High Velocity Communications in Waukesha, Wis. He is replaced by Deborah Austin, a biz reporter at the paper…Melinda Beck, who was an editor of The Wall Street Journal’s Marketplace section, begins writing a health care column for the paper… Alan Julian, the biz editor of the Evansville Courier & Press in Indiana, announces his retirement from the paper, effective Jan. 31… Jason Schaff, who resigned in December as the editor of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, decides to stay on the job.

UPPER EAST SIDE

Bob O’Brien, who was CNBC’s on the air stocks editor, joins Barron’s to write a stocks column…Dow Jones Newswires special writer Lingling Wei joins The Wall Street Journal as a reporter covering real estate finance... New York Post biz reporter Roddy Boyd leaves the paper to join Fortune. Also, Janet Whitman leaves the Post’s biz desk to become a U.S. correspondent for Canada’s National Post…Copy editor Nirav Vora leaves The Wall Street Journal to join the biz edit desk at The New York Times…Crain’s New York Business senior reporter Tom Frederickson leaves the paper to become a financial planner at L.J. Altfest & Co. in Manhattan. Daniel Massey, a recent graduate of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, will replace him in February…. Beth Heinsohn leaves Dow Jones Newswires after an 11-year tenure to take a position at Oil Price Information Service. Also, Geoffrey Rogow becomes the small-cap stock reporter Dow Jones News. Min Zeng joins Dow Jones Newswires as a reporter on the Treasury team. Min comes from Bloomberg News, where he covered foreign exchange and the U.S. government bond market since 2005. And Joe Checkler joins Dow Jones Newswires to cover the hedge fund industry, a newly created position.

DOWN SOUTH

Atlanta Journal-Constitution business reporter Patti Bond (left) leaves for a job at Home Depot, which she once covered…Reporter Christina Rexrode joins the Charlotte Observer business desk to cover banking. She had been on the business desk of the St. Petersburg Times… Frank Vinluan, previously a metro reporter for the Des Moines Register, joins the Triangle Business Journal to cover tech and utilities...C. Grant Jackson, the biz editor and later the business columnist for The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., leaves to take a job at the local chamber of commerce.

THE HEARTLAND

Bill Vlasic (right) leaves the Detroit News, where he covered autos, to become the Detroit bureau chief for The New York Times…Jesse Thomas, a Chicago-based reporter who covered the futures markets, leaves Dow Jones Newswires for a job with public relations firm Waggener Edstrom in Seattle…Dawn Cobb, the biz editor at the Denton Record-Chronicle in Texas, becomes the paper’s ME… Matt Slagle, the national technology and business reporter for the Associated Press, leaves the wire service to become a public relations manager for Sony Online Entertainment. Slagle had been in AP’s Dallas bureau.

WEST COAST

Matt Kish becomes managing editor of the Portland Business Journal. He joined the paper 18 months ago as a staff reporter covering ports, manufacturing, media and marketing… Mark Stafforini joins the East Bay Business Times as ME. Stafforini comes to the paper from the Oakland Tribune, where he was business editor…Deborah Gage joins the San Francisco Chronicle as senior technology reporter. She comes from Baseline magazine, published by Ziff Davis. James Temple also joins the Chronicle from Bloomberg News to cover real estate…Kakie Urch, the business editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., leaves to become a consultant for local business TV show “Desert Cities Business Report with Shellie Karabell.”

GLOSSY GOINGS

Mark Borden joined Fast Company as senior editor, and Anya Kamenetz joins as a staff writer. Borden has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Sports Illustrated, among other publications. A reporter at Fortune from 1998-2002, he wrote that magazine’s profile of designer Marc Jacobs and his business partner Robert Duffy last fall. Kamenetz has written for The Times, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post, among others…Deborah Heisz becomes the editor in chief of Success magazine, which plans to re-launch in March as a bi-monthly and focus on content for entrepreneurs and small businesses. In addition, Lisa Ocker has been named editor. Ocker previously spent six years as editor of Boca Raton magazine in Florida. She also worked as a reporter for the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. Also, Sandra Bienkowski becomes ME. She previously worked as editor of Home Health Products and managing editor of Mobility Management.

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Posted Jan. 14, 2008