Pandey joins LA Times biz desk

Swati Pandey is switching roles at the Los Angeles Times, moving from the editorial pages to the business desk.
Swati, who has distinguished herself with editorials on immigration, foreign affairs and other topics, will be a entertainment general assignment on the business team.
From the announcement:

"A 2004 graduate of Yale University, Swati has been with "The Times for just over two years, and has been a stalwart contributor to the editorial pages during that time. Initially a researcher and fact-checker, she has steadily expanded her range with varied and literate articles for the editorial pages and other departments, notably Calendar. Most recently, she produced a lovely Column 1, a first-person piece that ran last week to great acclaim." -- Managing Editor Davan Maharaj and Editorial Pages Editor Jim Newton

For more click here.

Wired Magazine headed back to UK

Wired magazine is headed back to the United Kingdom.
Nearly a decade ago, former Wired magazine owner, Wired Ventures Inc, shut down the U.K. version of the magazine. Conde Nast bought the magazine from Wired Ventures in 1998 and has now announced its plans to launch another UK version of the magazine, with an accompanying Web site, in the first quarter of next year. Conde Nast also plans to launch the magazine in Italy in early 2009 before the UK version is released.
Wired is a monthly technology magazine that covers how technology affects culture, business, the economy and politics.
Read more here.

Loeb Awards recognizes WSJ journalists

The Loeb Awards recognized Daniel Hertzberg, deputy managing editor for The Wall Street Journal, for the 2008 Gerald Loeb Award for lifetime achievement. Loeb also honored a team of WSJ journalists for coverage on the meltdown at Bear Stearns Cos.
Sponsored by G. and R. Loeb Foundation, The Loeb Awards honors accomplishments in business, finance and economics.

The Sun cuts its business section

Newspapers deciding to cut and condense business sections has become commonplace this year. And its not over yet.
Now the Baltimore Business Journal reports that The Baltimore Sun is also planning to eliminate its daily business section on July 29 and move the coverage to the "Maryland" section of the newspaper.
From the story:

"A redesign of the Sun, slated to take affect by the end of August, will feature two pages a day focusing on business. The business stories will be folded into what business news editor Bernie Kohn, in an e-mail to staffers outlining the changes, described as a new "uber-news" section, which will focus on local, national and world news coverage. The changes come in the wake of Sun management announcing a new round of buyouts and layoffs in the newsroom."

For the full story click here.

Clay Felker, founding editor of New York magazine, dies at 82

Clay Felker, founder and former editor of New York magazine, The Village Voice and many other New York publications, died in his home today. He was 82.
Felker will be remembered by the journalism community as a "visionary editor who was widely credited with inventing the formula for the modern magazine," reads The New York Times obituary.

Mr. Felker edited a number of publications besides New York magazine. There were stints at Esquire, The Village Voice, Adweek, Manhattan, inc. and others. He created an opposite-coast counterpart to New York and called it New West.
But it was at New York that he left his biggest imprint on American journalism. He founded it as a Sunday supplement to The New York Herald Tribune in 1964. Four years later, after the newspaper closed, he and the graphic designer Milton Glaser reintroduced New York as a glossy stand-alone magazine.

For the full obituary read here.

Two new editors for Vanity Fair

Women's Wear Daily reports that Vanity Fair is adding two new contributing editors. Both hires -- Vanessa Grigoriadis and Joe Hagan -- hail from New York Magazine.
Grigoriadis won a National Magazine Award in 2007 for a profile of Karl Lagerfeld in New York and Joe Hagan wrote high-profile stories on media and finance.
For more click here.

Appelbaum leaves Globe for Post

Binyamin Appelbaum, a business reporter at The Boston Globe, is leaving the paper to join The Washington Post, according to reports from The Phoenix.
Appelbaum garnered respect from reporters and was picked up by the Globe after he penned an award-winning series, "Sold a Nightmare," for The Charlotte Observer.
The series, which foretold of the subprime mortgage crisis from a local perspective, was a finalist this year for the Pulitzer Prize and clinched a Polk Award.
Recently Appelbaum examined housing projects in Barack Obama's former Illinois state senate district, and detailed Obama's relationships with the developers who've renovated and operated those project.
It is still unclear exactly why Appelbaum decided to leave the Globe and what he will cover at the Post. From The Phoenix's reports:

"One Globe staffer who spoke with DQM linked Appelbaum's departure to the Globe's worrisome financial arc. A second disagreed, saying that the Post has had its eye on Appelbaum ever since his coverage of sketchy homebuilder Beazer Homes USA garnered The Charlotte Observer a Polk Award and a Pulitzer-finalist slot. I tried to reach Appelbaum earlier today, but haven't heard back; if I do, and if he's willing to discuss the reasons for his departure, I'll post them here".

Plain Dealer to cut pages, sections

The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, is cutting an average of 32 pages per week and eliminating four stand-alone sections, including Monday Business, said Managing Editor Debra Adams Simmons.
She said the page cuts would be different on different days but that the end goal was to reduce the weekly page counts.
The paper will also reduce its daily two-page opinion section to one page but will increase the Sunday opinion pages by two pages.
The changes were rolled out to subscribers in a two-page guide distributed with the paper on Sunday.
For an article with further comments by Simmons, click here.

ABC's new college progam

Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is one of five schools that will host an ABC News multimedia bureau next September.
The company is launching ABC News on Campus, a partnership with top journalism schools across the country to educate and mentor talented college students.
The Redwood City Daily News recently interviewed Mark Lodato, the News Director and a Professor of Practice at ASU, to talk about the new program.
To read the interview click here.

Gannett reorganizes, loses two execs

Gannett Co. Inc. announced on Friday that it would be reorganizing its newspaper division, the U.S. Community Publishing Division, by reducing its number of regional divisions from five to four and will not be replacing two retiring executives.
Senior Group President Barbara A. Henry, published of the Indianapolis Star, will run the new Interstate division until Aug. 1 when she retires. Denise H. Ivey will retire on Jan. 1. She is a group president of the Mid-South Group and president and publisher of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, KY.
For more information on the reorganization read here.