Monthly Archives: February 2010
NC paper drops stock listings
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Lee Barnes, the editor of the Hickory Daily Record in North Carolina, writes Sunday about the decision to drop printed stock listings from the paper.
Barnes writes, “Did you notice that we no longer have the stock market listings in our newspaper?
“Judging by reader response, you probably didn’t. We had 30 people call to complain. That’s well under 1 percent of our readers.
“Any regular feature in our paper that attracts less than 1 percent of our readership would be considered a dismal failure, but this decision was different. Those 30 callers were older, loyal readers who don’t have home computers, or prefer not to use them.
“In this electronic age, stocks reports are one of two things that newspapers do poorly. When you pick up your paper in the morning, those stocks listings have already been available for free on the Internet for more than 12 hours.”
Read more here. Disclosure: I have been a trainer on business news coverage for the Hickory Daily Record in the past three months and worked with Barnes at the Tampa Tribune.
Former Lexington biz editor finds job as city editor
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Jeff Beach, the former business editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky, has been named the city editor of the Bowling Green Daily News in Kentucky.
Beach had been laid off from the Lexington paper in March 2009.
A story in the Daily News on Sunday states, “Beach was most recently employed by the Lexington Herald-Leader, where he worked from 2001 to 2009, first as the night metro editor and later as the business editor.
“Beach’s other professional experience includes time at the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald, which won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1998 for its coverage of flooding in the Red River Valley and fire that burned several blocks of downtown Grand Forks, including the Herald’s newsroom. Beach was the news editor for the paper at that time.
“Beach is a North Dakota native and an alumnus of the University of North Dakota.”
Read more here.
Biz desk editor changes at NYTimes
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New York Times business editor Larry Ingrassia sent out a memo naming David Joachim as banking editor, working with David Gillen to oversee its finance and Wall Street coverage. In addition, Bill Brink, a veteran of a number of editing assignments at The Times, will become weekend editor on the business news desk.
In a memo on the Romenesko site, Ingrassia wrote, “David Joachim has earned plaudits from editors and reporters alike for his first-rate work as Bizday’s weekend editor since March 2007. His talent in working fast on complicated finance stories, and juggling lots of copy at the same time, was on full display during the financial meltdown. He is smart and inflappable on deadline, and has a deft touch with copy. The knowledge he soaked up about finance and regulatory issues make him an ideal choice as an editor on the finance team.
“David joined our copy desk in May 2005, after spending about a decade in the technology press. His last job was group editor for six magazines published by CMP Media. He got his start in the publishing business at Newsday, first as an intern and then as a staff writer covering high school and college sports. In his college years at SUNY Stony Brook, he was a New York Times stringer.
“Bill Brink , who will succeed David as weekend editor, brings a wealth of editing experience at The Times to Bizday. He spent two decades in Sports, where he rose to deputy editor. He has overseen coverage for five Super Bowls, four World Series, the 2000 Summer Olympics and numerous major golf tournaments. In 2003, Bill took over the Continuous News Department, at the height of the Iraq war, and over three years helped guide its evolution into the vibrant live news desk it is today.
“Bill then moved to the magazine division and was managing editor of Play Magazine. In 2008 it was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in the general excellence category. Last year, he spent much of his time in Paris, managing the IHT’s daily report and overseeing some of its enterprise reporting. Since returning, he has worked on the foreign desk, Dining, Home and Travel – so, versatility is clearly one of his many strengths. Bill has won fans among reporters every step along the way.”
Read more here.
New biz editor named in Memphis
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Roland Klose has been named the business editor at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. He replaces James Overstreet, who left last month.
A story on the paper’s Web site states, “Klose joined The CA in 1989 as a business reporter, covering transportation, labor and other subjects. In 1996, he became assistant business editor.
“In 1998, Klose left Memphis to work for The Tampa Tribune, where he was assistant business editor in charge of the Tuesday-through-Saturday daily sections. He later served as managing editor of The Riverfront Times in St. Louis, and editor at the Illinois Times in Springfield, Ill.
“‘I’m excited to be part of The CA, especially during a time of change, and look forward to serving our readers,’ Klose said.
“Beginning last September, Klose has assisted with the launch of Going Green, the Web-only environmental weekly of The Commercial Appeal. He will continue as editor of Going Green.”
Read more here.
Remembering a colleague
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Alan Abelson of Barron’s remembers Saturday his former colleague, Harlan Byrne, the Midwest editor of Barron’s who died earlier this week at the age of 89.
Abelson writes, “From his Barron’s perch in the Windy City, Harlan cast an inquiring and knowing eye on a wide swath of Corporate America, especially those muscular companies that made big ugly things that rust in the rain. He was a meticulous reporter of the highest integrity, a prolific writer, an unflappable, low-key interviewer, no matter how grouchy and intimidating the subject, an astute judge of markets and possessed of an extraordinary ability to separate fact from hyperbole, truth from spin.
“We can’t recall a single instance when one of the countless pieces he wrote elicited a complaint of inaccuracy from even the crankiest corporate chieftain. Would that all of us ink-stained wretches could say the same.
“Harlan graced the Barron’s masthead until he retired in 2002, but continued to turn out his thoroughly researched, well-wrought pieces for the magazine until 2006. Personally, he was bright, gentle and unfailingly generous, just one great guy. All of us at Barron’s and anyone lucky enough to have known Harlan will really miss him.”
Read more here.
Apcar named NYT economics editor
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Len Apcar, the editor of the Asian edition of the International Herald Tribune, is joining the New York Times‘ Washington bureau as its economics editor.
In a memo obtained by Politico’s Michael Calderone, executive editor Bill Keller and Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet write:
“Len is a terrific enterprise leader who has run big investigations and coverage for Bizday and the foreign desk. He is great at talking through stories and running breaking news. He has become a strong advocate for the Web and has forged a close relationship with Larry Ingrassia and his Bizday team. As for his most recent run at the IHT, we’ll quote Marty Gottlieb’s announcement from early this morning:
“‘It is hard to overstate Len Apcar’s impact on the IHT. Since arriving in the fledgling Hong Kong newsroom nearly four years ago, he has been instrumental in securing the IHT’s place as the leading international newspaper in Asia.’
“Under Len’s stewardship, the Asian IHT won numerous awards, including the Osborn Elliott Prize last year for reporting on the cyclone in Myanmar. Before moving to Hong Kong, he was editor of NYTimes.com. He has also been enterprise editor on foreign, and chief of business correspondents on Bizday. Previously, at the Wall Street Journal he was a reporter in Detroit, Dallas and Washington covering Congress, the budget, tax policy and labor.
“At a time when many newspapers are retreating from Washington, the appointment of an editor of Len’s stature is another sign of the bureau’s importance to The New York Times. It is our goal to build an economic team that can run as hard as our powerhouse political, national security and investigative groups.”
Read more here. The memo does not mention that Apcar was the business editor of the St. Petersburg Times in the early 1990s.
AME leaving BusinessWeek
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TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Rob Hunter, an assistant managing editor at BusinessWeek, announced Friday that he’s leaving the magazine recently acquired by Bloomberg to go The Wall Street Journal.
He’s the third high-profile business journalist to leave the magazine in the past week.
In an e-mail to friends and co-workers, Hunter wrote, “As some of you might know, today is my last day at BusinessWeek. Thanks for making my time here so enjoyable. I’ll be starting a job at the Wall Street Journal in a few weeks.”
Hunter became an assistant managing editor in 2007, after serving as a senior editor for finance since November 2005.
Before joining BusinessWeek, Hunter served as editor of SmartMoney.com, where he oversaw all editorial content for the Web site and managed the staff of 20 reporters, editors, and freelancers.
He also held the positions of assistant managing editor and senior editor at SmartMoney.com. Before that, Hunter was a senior editor and then the managing editor of Derivatives Strategy, a monthly magazine. He began his journalism career as a reporter at the Waterford, NY-based newspaper, The Good News.
CNBC and curling
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Eric Dash of the New York Times writes how CNBC‘s showing of the Olympic curling events after the market closes has captivated some of its business news viewers.
Dash writes, “Jake Siewert, a counselor to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said curling provided a welcome respite from the usual shout-’em-down-style of business TV. ‘It’s better than that thing where they have eight people in a box screaming at each other,’ he said.
“Raj Atri, a research analyst at Bank of America, said the game’s plodding pace was a plus. Curling is so leisurely that he can easily multitask, with one eye on his Bloomberg terminal that provides financial data and another on a game.
“It never would’ve happened without CNBC — or, in all likelihood, at any other time of year.
“‘Let’s face it: if baseball and football were in the winter, nobody would be watching,’ said Robert P. Kelly, the chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon, who took up curling when he was growing up in Canada. He is a former ‘skip’ — the player who usually directs the strategy during a game —and dispenses curling tips to employees.
“Like what? ‘What’s important,’ Mr. Kelly deadpanned. ‘To win — just like on Wall Street.’”
Read more here.
Byrne, longtime Dow Jones journalist
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Harlan Byrne, a longtime business journalist who worked for The Wall Street Journal and for Barron’s for 56 years, died earlier this week in suburban Chicago. He was 89.
Byrne was a graduate of the University of Missouri.
An obituary notice in the Chicago Sun-Times states, “He joined The Wall Street Journal as a reporter in the Dallas bureau in 1949, and subsequently served as bureau chief in Houston, Cleveland and Philadelphia, before being transferred to the Chicago bureau in 1961.
“In 1985, he became Midwest editor of Barron’s, also a Dow Jones publication, and continued writing until 2005. Harlan was nominated by The Wall Street Journal for the Top 100 Business News Luminaries of the Century Awards, the Gerald R. Loeb Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1982.”
Read more here.
The sensationalist WSJ
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Felix Salmon of Reuters thinks that Friday’s “sensationalist” front page of The Wall Street Journal is evidence of attempts by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and the paper’s managing editor, Robert Thomson, to make the paper more political.
Later, Salmon notes another story on the front page about climate change contains “an institutional bias at the WSJ on this issue too, as evinced by things like the paragraph which begins with this:
Salmon concludes, “That might be a sensible move, from the point of view of selling copies, especially on the newsstand. But it will also inevitably serve to erode the trust that many people, on Wall Street especially, have in the reporting of the WSJ.”
Read more here.