August 2008 Biz Buzz: Changes at Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones

By Chris Roush croush@email.unc.edu

MORE CHANGES AT THE JOURNAL

The Wall Street Journal continues to shake up its editing ranks, naming a new international news editor and a new editor for money & markets.

Rebecca Blumenstein, the current China bureau chief for Journal, will become the paper’s international news editor in New York later this year.

In an e-mail, ME Robert Thomson wrote that Blumenstein will be “overseeing our global network of bureaus and correspondents and reporting to Nikhil Deogun. Rebecca’s promotion, which takes effect at the end of the year, is a recognition of her extraordinary work in Beijing, where she has led an extremely capable team of journalists, whose coverage of economic, social and political events in China has been outstanding in its breadth and quality. Until Rebecca returns to New York, Mike Allen will be very ably assisting Nik.”

Meanwhile, Ken Brown has been named the new money & investing editor, replacing Deogun, who has become the international editor.

Brown has been deputy for the group since April 2007. Previously, Brown worked at Pzena Investment Management, where he was a principal and did client services, research and communications for their global and international strategies. Prior to Pzena, Brown was the bureau chief for the real estate section of The Journal.

In addition, the paper offers exit packages to some staff writers, including Carol Hymowitz, who writes the management column ‘In The Lead,’ Terri Cullen, who writes the personal-finance column “Fiscally Fit,” and Tom Weber, co-writer of the Buzzwatch blog.

DON’T FORGET DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

The Journal, however, isn’t the only Dow Jones & Co. property making changes to its staff. Dow Jones Newswires has also been busy in the past month.

For starters, Gabriella Stern (left) has been named senior editor for global news coverage for Dow Jones Newswires.

In this role, she will serve as the senior Newswires editor on the central news desk being formed to shape collective coverage of the most important stories and foster improved cooperation among print, Web and Newswires journalists at Dow Jones around the world.

She will work closely with central desk colleagues from The Journal franchise and other Dow Jones products, and she will supervise other Newswires editors who will be assigned to this desk in New York and remotely from Europe and Asia.

Also, Kathleen Madigan, (left) a former BusinessWeek writer, is joining Dow Jones Newswires as Big Picture columnist and economics writer.

In an internal e-mail, editors Eduardo Kaplan and Madeline Lim wrote, “Kathleen’s hire will boost our economics coverage at a time when the U.S. and the global economies face severe strains that are bringing about long-lasting structural changes.”

Nick von Klock returns to Dow Jones Newswires to be a news editor, overseeing the consumer products group of reporters. In addition to the six reporters who compose this group, von Klock will also lead a soon-to-be created team of general assignment reporters.

He will work with this group of junior reporters to develop their writing and reporting skills and they will be filling in for the reporting teams across the wire service. Von Klock most recently was a PR specialist with the Asia Development Bank in the Philippines. Prior to that, he was an assistant news editor in the North American equities group, where he helped run the Enterprise Reporting Assistants desk and managed some U.S. bureau reporters.

Suzanne Barlyn will join Dow Jones Newswires on Aug. 20 as a columnist in the personal-finance and wealth-management group. She will report on the business practices of financial advisers, including regulatory and legal issues.

Barlyn is a licensed, non-practicing attorney and has been a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal. Her work has also appeared in Time magazine, the Boston Globe, TheStreet.com and Fortune Small Business. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and a law degree from American University in Washington, D.C.

Finally, Dow Jones Newswires plans to start a new markets column called Connections, to be written by Spencer Jakab, according to an internal e-mail from deputy managing editor Michael Reid.

Jakab has been writing the Taking Stock equities column -- initially called Street Savvy -- for about two years. Prior to that he has written about energy markets in the U.S. and equities markets in Europe.

VIRGINIAN-PILOT BIZ EDITOR TAKES NEW SLOT

Bill Choyke, the business editor at The Virginian-Pilot and a SABEW board member, will become director of community news at the paper at the end of July, according to an internal announcement. He will oversee six local publications.

Assistant biz editor Chris Dinsmore becomes acting biz editor at the paper. Dinsmore has been at the paper since 1993.

Choyke (right) tells Biz Buzz, “It’s a good opportunity, and I look forward to broadening the appeal of our community newspapers, and that includes more business news.”

Choyke began his professional career at his hometown newspaper in Waukegan, Ill., after graduating from Ohio University in Athens. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1975, and provided coverage in the nation’s capital for a number of Texas newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News from 1981 to 1989.

Choyke joined Gannett Co. in 1993 as marketing director for its newspaper in Iowa City, Iowa, and moved back to the newsroom in 1995, serving primarily in Nashville as an editor, including assistant managing editor for business. He assumed his current duties as business editor of The Virginian-Pilot in March 2003.

Dinsmore has covered retail, real estate, economic development, riverboat gambling, tourism, shipyards and defense contracting. Recently, he’s responsible for the port, railroads, trucking and warehousing.

BOSS WATCH

Brian Bergstein, (left) previously a national tech reporter at the Associated Press, becomes the wire service’s national tech editor. He will be based in Boston and will oversee a team of nationwide reporters covering the tech industry including the legal, business, social and ethical implications of technology. Matt Fordahl, previously the tech editor, becomes assistant biz editor for the AP…Brad Zigler becomes managing editor of Hard Assets Investor, an educational web sited devoted to the commodities markets… Damon Cline, the business editor of the Augusta Chronicle in Georgia, leaves the paper to become public information specialist at the Medical College of Georgia’s Division of University Advancement…. Joanne Paulsen becomes the business editor of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix in Canada. She had been entertainment and lifestyles editor.

UPPER EAST SIDE

Boston Globe business reporter Binyamin Appelbaum leaves to become the national banking reporter for the Washington Post. At the Globe, Casey Ross joins the biz desk to cover commercial real estate. Ross had been a government reporter with the Boston Herald. Also, Erin Ailworth moves from the paper’s zoned editions to the biz desk to cover energy and the environment…Nat Worden (left) joins Dow Jones Newswires to cover the media business. Worden had been with TheStreet.com… Jackie Calmes becomes economic policy reporter at The New York Times. Calmes had been a reporter at The Wall Street Journal…Gergana Koleva will join Dow Jones Newswires on Aug. 4 as a general assignment reporter. Gergana formerly worked at MarketWatch.com, where she was a reporter and researcher for Marshall Loeb’s daily personal-finance column and wrote personal-finance features.

WAY DOWN SOUTH

Richmond Times-Dispatch deputy biz editor Gregory Gilligan wrote his last “Biz Buzz” column. Staff writer Louis Llovio takes over the column… Retail reporter Delawese Fulton accepts a buyout from The State in Columbia, S.C.

MIDWEST MOVES

Jason Womack joins Dow Jones Newswires as a reporter in the Houston bureau covering natural gas. Womack previously covered energy at the Tulsa World… Arielle Kass joins Crain’s Cleveland Business to cover finance. Kass had been a reporter at the Gwinnett Daily Post in suburban Atlanta covering planning, zoning and the environment.

WEST COAST WAVES

Swati Pandey, a researcher and assistant articles editor for the Los Angeles Times editorial pages, becomes a general assignment entertainment biz reporter…The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, located at Arizona State University, names Anita Malik (right) as deputy director. Malik had been managing editor of its web site, www.businessjournalism.org. She replaces Jonathan Higuera as deputy director. Higuera has left the organization. In addition, Kelly Carr becomes senior online producer. She had been associate editor of the Web site…Biz reporter Will Jason leaves the North Bay Business Journal in Santa Rosa, Calif., to pursue a master’s in journalism at Cal-Berkeley. He is replaced by new reporter Jenna Loceff.

AT THE GLOSSIES

Senior editor Philip Elmer-DeWitt retires from Fortune. He spent 27 years at Time magazine and then moved to Business 2.0, where he was executive editor. He now writes a blog that covers Steve Jobs and Apple.

ON THE WEB

Salon tech writer Farhad Manjoo leaves the Web site to write a twice-a-week column for rival Slate.com.

AND THE WINNER IS…

The New York Times received three Gerald Loeb Awards, considered the Pulitzer Prices in business journalism, while Fortune magazine’s Allan Sloan won his seventh Loeb Award. Other winners included the Charlotte Observer for a series of stories on Beazer Homes and the subprime mortgage crisis, and the Charleston Post & Courier in South Carolina for stories on how China is affecting the local economy. A group of four Wall Street Journal reporters won in the best writing category for coverage of the failure of Bear Stearns, while Bloomberg News won in the news service category for coverage of the subprime securities market. Charles Fishman (left) of Fast Company — who also won a Loeb Award in 2005 and 2007 — won in the feature writing category, while MSN Money won in the online news category. And PBS’ “Nightly Business Report” won in the daily television category for its coverage of India…Misako Hida, a New York City-based freelance journalist, received the International Labour Organization Prize for Journalism, for her article, “The Land of Karoshi” The article appeared in the largest-circulation Italian daily newspaper, la Repubblica. The story concerns a 23-year-old Japanese male temporary worker at a Nikon’s Kumagaya City factory who had dreams of coming to study in the United States, but he ended up committing suicide during a deep depression directly caused by overwork.

IN MEMORY

Lynn Gomez, (right) an assistant business editor at The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, dies at the age of 61 after battling cancer. After working for Reuters in London and New York, she moved back to Florida to be closer to her family in 1994. She joined the Sun-Sentinel again as a graphics editor and later became an assistant business editor.

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Posted July 15, 2008