Biz Buzz for March 2008: USA Today's biz desk reorganization

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

SHUFFLING THE DECK AT USA TODAY

USA Today shuffles jobs on its Money desk after a buyout leaves it without four veteran business journalists.

According to an e-mail from Jim Henderson, managing editor for Money, Tom Fogarty becomes the economics editor. He also will handle any business coverage produced by the paper’s foreign correspondents and he will be Money’s liaison with the World desk. Fogarty had previously overseen the business travel team on the desk. He replaces Mike Clements, who took the buyout.

Rodney Brooks, deputy managing editor for Money, has been handling the economics team for the past two months.

Editor Fred Meier, who has overseen the paper’s advertising and marketing coverage, will now also oversee the paper’s three auto reporters. He replaces Judi Austin, who took the buyout.

Media reporter David Lieberman, who had reported to Meier, now reports to David Craig, the paper’s New York bureau chief.

Of the veteran journalists who took the buy out, three were assignment editors: Austin, Clements and Daphne Quinn, who handled graphics. Jim Hopkins, a biz reporter and sometimes editor, left the San Francisco bureau. He’s now running a blog about USA Today parent Gannett at http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/. It’s independent of the company.

BOSTON HERALD BIZ EDITOR LEAVES

Greg Gatlin, the business editor at the Boston Herald, leaves the paper to become director of public affairs at Suffolk University. No replacement has been named.

Gatlin (left) served as business editor of the Herald since 2006, when he replaced Cosmo Macero Jr. During his 10 years at the paper he also served as deputy business editor and a reporter for seven years, covering media, retail, marketing, consumer products and additional beats.

Before joining the Herald, Gatlin was business reporter at The Patriot Ledger and the MetroWest Daily News. He worked for three years in production at ABC News in New York before beginning his print journalism career.

Gatlin is a 1989 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colby College and has a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University.

Gatlin stated: ‘The Boston Herald has given me more opportunity than I could have ever dreamed possible over the last 10 years, and I cherish the friendships I have with all of its wonderful people, including the very talented staff of the business section.’”

GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNING

Bloomberg News reporter Jeff Green is now the Detroit bureau chief, as of early February. Green has been with Bloomberg since June 2001.

Green came from BusinessWeek, where he covered Chrysler for a year, and he has covered General Motors for the wire service. Detroit is one of 135 bureaus worldwide for Bloomberg.

Previous Detroit bureau chief John Lippert has transferred to Bloomberg’s Chicago office where he will continue to be a reporter for Bloomberg’s Markets magazine.

Lippert has been with Bloomberg since 1995. Before that, he was a city hall reporter and business editor of the Detroit Free Press from 1987 to 1995. He previously worked for three years for the Oakland Press.

Lipper is a 1984 graduate of Wayne State. He previously worked at General Motors before going to college to become a journalist.

BOSS WATCH

David Wighton, the New York bureau chief for the Financial Times, becomes the business editor of the Times of London…Robert Frank (left) becomes a news editor at The Wall Street Journal. He will also advise on the launch of a new magazine aimed at the wealthy expected to launch later this year…Moryt Milo becomes editor of the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, replacing Norm Bell. Milo worked at the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers group, which publishes 10 community newspapers in the valley, and is operated by Media News Group.… Jim Zebora, the business editor of the Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate in Connecticut, becomes the managing editor of the Time

UPPER EAST SIDE

Aparajita Saha-Bubna joins the Dow Jones Newswires’ equities group to cover the consumer finance beat. She has covered credit markets at Reuters and Bloomberg. Marshall Eckblad takes on the banking beat at Dow Jones Newswires…Tami Luhby (right) leaves Newsday’s business desk after almost nine years. She is moving on to become a senior writer at CNNmoney.com in Manhattan… Robert MacMillan, who covered the media business for Reuters, leaves for a similar job at The Wall Street Journal. Also, Brett Arends joins The Journal as a columnist. Heidi Moore, the U.S. bureau chief of Financial News, joins The Journal to cover mergers and acquisitions, while Elizabeth Rappaport joins The Journal to cover the credit markets. She had been at TheStreet.com.

WAY DOWN SOUTH

Palm Beach Post business reporter Kristi Swartz (left) joins the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to cover technology and telecommunications…At the Triad Business Journal in Greensboro, N.C., Steve Ivey joins as a reporter to cover health care, law and media. He had been at the Anniston Star in Alabama. The Triad Business Journal also hires Lane Harvey Brown to cover residential real estate and economic development…The Asheville Citizen-Times drops its standalone business section, which had existed for about a year. Now, biz news occupies the last three pages of the sports section five days a week. On Sunday, it remains a standalone section.

MIDWEST MOVES

Larry Vellequette joins the business desk of The Toledo Blade as its automotive writer. He had been on the city desk as a GA reporter…Dow Jones refining reporter Jessica Resnick-Ault, based in Houston, becomes its lead oil refining beat reporter, relocating to New Jersey…Robert Herguth becomes managing editor of The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee. Herguth was an assistant city editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he has worked since 1999. In addition, the biz weekly hires Dave Doege to cover courts, small biz and technology. Doege spent the last 26 years with the Milwaukee Sentinel and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as a courts reporter and in the newspaper’s Waukesha bureau…Avrum Lank, who covers personal finance and the economy at the Journal Sentinel, takes on residential real estate. He takes this beat over from Michele Derus, who retired…Jui Chakravorty, who covered the auto industry for Reuters in Detroit, moves to New York to cover M&A in the tech, automotive, airline and manufacturing sectors

WEST COAST WAVES

San Jose-based Associated Press technology reporter May Wong leaves the wire service. BBC appoints Maggie Shiels as its first permanent San Francisco technology reporter. Shiels has already covered Silicon Valley for the BBC on a freelance basis. She will be reporting mainly for the BBC News website but will also file multimedia reports for its TV and radio outlets...Tricia Duryee is the new principal correspondent at a news site/blog called mocoNews, part of the ContentNext stable of Web sites, which also includes paidContent.org. She was the telecom reporter at The Seattle Times. No replacement has been named. Eric Pryne has joined the biz desk at The Times as the commerical real estate reporter. He has been covering the paper's JOA with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and was a metro staff writer covering growth and transportation.

GLOSSY GOINGS ON

David Margolick joins Conde Nast Portfolio from Vanity Fair. Dan Colarusso joins the magazine’s web site operations as managing editor. He had been with the New York Post…Douglas McCollam, previously a senior editor at Legal Times, joins BusinessWeek as its legal affairs correspondent. Also, Chad Terhune joins BusinessWeek as a senior writer in the Atlanta bureau. He had been with the Wall Street Journal…Stephanie Mehta, (right) a senior writer at Fortune, becomes global editor at the glossy…Tina Borgatta becomes the editor of OC Metro Business, a magazine that covers Orange County, Calif., business.

ONLINE ACTION

Angela Moore, formerly the consumer news team editor for MarketWatch.com, becomes U.S. commentary editor. She will be responsible for all U.S. columnists. Moore will also oversee the “First Take” product providing real-time commentary on breaking news events. Jim Jelter, previously the industrials editor at MarketWatch, now leads the newly created company news team. This team will cover and report on all companies outside of technology and finance, and work to focus on hard-hitting, breaking news, analysis and enterprise…Crain’s Chicago Business hires Lisa Leiter, a veteran of CNNfn, Bloomberg TV and a former producer on Moneyline with Lou Dobbs, to host a daily Web cast that it will launch this spring.

ON THE AIR

Lacy O’Toole (left) becomes the Los Angeles bureau chief for CNBC. O’Toole joined CNBC in 2002 as a news associate working on the news desk and quickly became a segment producer for the network. She was a field producer managing CNBC’s coverage of important remote events including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland…The Miami Herald business desk branches out into radio. It launched the “Friday Business Report,” a three-and-a-half minute segment on local business that airs each week on the South Florida NPR affiliate, WLRN, at 5:45 p.m. The multimedia specialist on the biz desk, Niala Boodhoo, works with other business reporters and a radio producer to gather sound, write and produce the segment each week. “It’s been interesting to discover how we approach stories differently for radio,” says biz editor Lisa Gibbs. Listen at www.miamiherald.com/business and click on Friday Business Report in the left column.

THE BOOK SHELF

Greg Karp, a reporter and columnist with The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., has written a book called “Living Rich by Spending Smart: How to Get More of What you Really Want.” The book, published by Pearson Financial Times, is based on his “Spending Smart” consumer column, which won a SABEW award in 2006 for best column…David Andelman, the executive editor of Forbes.com, has released “A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.” See more at www.ashatteredpeace.com.

ON CAMPUS

New York Times business writer Joe Treaster leaves the paper to become a professor at the University of Miami. Treaster had been covering the insurance industry for the past decade.

IN MEMORY

Thomas Brady, (left) a Philadelphia Inquirer copy editor who had written the “Newsmakers” gossip column and he recently edited a news column about business people in the news that often included short profiles of leaders, dies of heart failure. He was 57.

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Posted Feb. 14, 2008