|
|
writenews.com
|
Friday, February 7, 2003 Media Cynic | Forum | Advertising | Classifieds | Jobs Publishing Industry Soundbytes Launches and Redesigns | Miscellaneous People · James Dimonekas, vice president and publisher of Playboy magazine, has named Diane Silberstein to the position of associate publisher/advertising for the magazine. She will be based in Playboy Enterprises, Inc.'s Publishing Group headquarters in New York and will report to Dimonekas. Silberstein, 46, joins Playboy from Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine, where she was the magazine's publisher. She has also served as publisher of The New Yorker and Elle and has held top positions with Allure and Vogue. · David J. Pecker, Chairman and CEO of American Media, Inc., announced the promotions of several executives to top positions at AMI's Weider Publications Active Lifestyle and Enthusiast Groups of Magazines. AMI acquired Weider Publications and its related properties last November. Carolyn Bekkedahl was promoted to Executive Vice President of AMI and Publishing Director of the Weider Active Lifestyle Group and Barbara S. Harris was promoted to Executive Vice President of AMI and Editorial Director of the Weider Active Lifestyle Group. Ms. Harris has appointed Anne M. Russell to replace her as Editor In Chief of Shape Magazine. The promotions are effective immediately. Ms. Bekkedahl and Ms. Harris will report directly to Mr. Pecker, with Ms. Russell reporting to Ms. Harris. · Salem Communications Corporation, a radio broadcaster focused on religious and family themes programming, has announced the promotion of Evan Masyr to Vice President and Corporate Controller according to Senior Vice President and CFO, David Evans. Mr. Masyr, who was previously Controller for Salem Communications, will continue to be responsible for the company's accounting department, including corporate financial statements and SEC reporting and compliance, accounts payable, payroll, and cash management. Salem Communications also announced that Charles L. "Chuck" Finney has been appointed to the newly-created position of National Program Director for Music, and Brand Manager for Salem's Fish format, according to Joe D. Davis, Executive Vice President of Radio for Salem Communications. Finney will provide support and direction to Salem's 14 stations that broadcast Contemporary Christian Music while he continues to serve as Director of Programming at KLTY-FM in Dallas. · Thomas A. Jolly has been named sports editor of The New York Times. Mr. Jolly, currently assistant news editor, will assume the responsibilities formerly held by Neil Amdur, who was appointed senior editor for staffing/national recruiting last August and oversaw the search for his own successor. Mr. Jolly, 47, has been assistant news editor since 2000. From 1997 to 2000, he was an assistant sports editor, overseeing weekend sports coverage. He joined The Times in 1993 as a copy editor in the Sports Department from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where he had been associate sports editor. · Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. announced that Michael Lafavore, 50, has been named Editor-In-Chief of TV Guide magazine. In this position, Mr. Lafavore will be responsible for the editorial content, design and direction of the magazine. He will be based in New York, and will report to TV Guide Publishing Group President John Loughlin. Mr. Lafavore will join the Company on February 3, 2003. Michael Lafavore comes to Gemstar-TV Guide with over 20 years of editorial experience. Mr. Lafavore is the former Editor-In-Chief and the founding editor of Men's Health magazine. Most recently, Mr. Lafavore has been a magazine consultant whose clients have included The Hearst Corporation, Meredith Corporation, The Dennis Publishing Group, Bauer Publishing USA, Wenner Media and National Geographic Magazines. · IGN Entertainment -- home to IGN.com, a destination for video gamers -- announced the appointments of L. Gregory Ballard and Michael J. Shannahan to its Board of Directors. Ballard is chief executive officer of SONICblue, a leader in the converging Internet, digital media, entertainment and consumer electronics markets. Shannahan is an industry veteran who has served as chief financial officer for several companies in the technology and media industries. · Bob Calvert, Senior Vice President Operations announced the appointment of Jim Orban, General Manager of the Ottawa Citizen effective immediately. Mr. Orban takes over from Gordon Fisher who has been acting as interim publisher of the newspaper since June of 2002. Mr. Orban, who has lived in Ottawa since the mid-1960s, holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Ottawa. He started his newspaper career at the Ottawa Journal in 1972 and joined the Ottawa Citizen in 1975. Since 1976 he has held various sales management positions. He worked at the Edmonton Journal (1991-94) as Director of Advertising sales. Jim returned to the Citizen in 1994, and was most recently Vice President, Sales and Marketing responsible for advertising sales, promotional activities, community relations, marketing and research. As General Manager, Mr. Orban will be responsible for all the day-to-day business and editorial operations of the Citizen. · The board of directors of Standard Register, an information solutions provider, has elected Joe Morgan as vice president and chief technology officer for the company. This is an expanded role for Morgan, who continues to serve as president and CEO of the company's subsidiary, SMARTworks, LLC. In this officer role, Morgan will also lead Standard Register's Information Management organization. · The appointment of Richard J. Meislin as editor of news surveys and election analysis at The New York Times was announced by Howell Raines, the executive editor. In his position, which is new, Mr. Meislin will oversee an expansion of the role of The Times's News Surveys department, which carries out public opinion polling on politics and other news issues and compiles the newspaper's bestseller lists and football rating polls. Mr. Meislin will serve as a member of the editing team that oversees local and national political coverage, bringing the polling operation directly into everyday news planning. Michael R. Kagay, who heads the surveys department, will report to Mr. Meislin with the new title of director of public opinion research. The appointment will take effect after a brief transition. · IFILM Corp., which providese IFILM Network, Online Testing Exchange and the Hollywood Creative Directory, has appointed Adam Frank CEO of the company, announced Co-Founder and exiting CEO, Kevin Wendle. Wendle will remain active as a member of the Company's Board of Directors and the Executive Management Committee. Frank, who has been working directly under Wendle since November 2001 as COO, will assume the position of CEO effective immediately and report to the company's Board of Directors. Prior to joining IFILM, Frank was at Yahoo! where he developed strategic partnerships with major media and entertainment companies including Conde Nast, Disney, Knight-Ridder, Rolling Stone, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and USA Films. · Tribune Publishing announced that Louis Sito, president, publisher and chief executive officer of Hoy, a Spanish-language daily newspaper, has been named to the newly created position of vice president/Hispanic media. In his new role, Sito will be responsible for the strategic direction of Tribune Publishing's initiatives in Hispanic media and for coordinating group activities that include Tribune's four Spanish-language newspapers. Digital Publishing · Palm Digital Media, Inc. and Lightning Source Inc. have launched the Classics Collection, a selection of classic literature that gives students, teachers and administrators unlimited use of up to 500 ebooks for an entire school year. The collection of titles includes The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, Night and Day, by Virginia Woolf, the works of William Shakespeare, and other books commonly found on middle and high school reading lists. A licensing fee beginning at $499 for the school year gives schools unlimited access to the ebooks. Content Deals · Lightspan, Inc., a provider of educational products and services used in schools and homes, announced that the Company will provide books from Scholastic as a key component of its new reading program, the Lightspan Achieve Now Literacy Library. The new Lightspan Achieve Now Literacy Library combines the technology of Lightspan Achieve Now with appropriate leveled books from Scholastic and learning activities that align to state standards. · Abebooks, an online marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books. and R.R. Bowker, a publisher of bibliographic information, have announced a partnership. Abebooks is partnering with Bowker to make the 40 million books currently listed on Abebooks.com available to book buyers that use Bowker's booksinprint.com and globalbooksinprint.com websites. Customers who are searching for a rare or out-of-print book will be able to perform a title, author, or ISBN search on booksinprint.com or globalbooksinprint.com, and have immediate access to Abebooks' database. Launches and Redesigns · Dialog, a Thomson business and a provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, said that it has introduced distance learning as part of the company's Graduate Education Program (GEP). Faculty and students in library science programs can access distance learning modules at no cost at http://training.dialog.com/gep/distance. Online sessions cover searching basics, database indexing and advanced business searching on Dialog. Dialog's GEP is a worldwide professional development initiative to help prepare future librarians to use online information services in their jobs. The free program offers graduate library schools access to Dialog services and specialized training materials for instruction in online searching. · AltaVista has launched an expanded version of its multimedia index, with over 240 million unique media files, including images, video clips, MP3 and other audio files. The company has also added new search parameters to its News search, enabling visitors to better pinpoint articles of interest to them. Miscellaneous · The Newspaper Guild-represented staff of Consumer Reports Magazine, engaged in a seven-month negotiation with Consumers Union, the publisher of the magazine, have launched a website, "Consumer Reports Exposed," to bring public attention to the negotiations. The website can be found at consumerreportsexposed.org. · Bauer Publishing announced a rate base increase for In Touch Weekly, a weekly entertainment magazine. The rate base will increase from 250,000 to 350,000 beginning with the April 14th issue, which hits newsstands April 7, 2003. In Touch Weekly is a weekly entertainment magazine featuring celebrity profiles, real-life stories and breaking news. Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.  www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2007 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
