NEWSPEOPLE

New hires, promotions and relocations across the industry

Courtnay Kim,a 20-year veteran of the Star Tribune newsroom, has been named assistant managing editor of business news, taking over leadership of coverage of the Minnesota business community digitally and in print. She is the first woman of color to be appointed to the role.

Michael de Adder has joined The Washington Post as a political cartoonist. In his new role, he will draw three cartoons a week for the newspaper in print and online. De Adder began his career working locally out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the alternative weekly the Coast, the Halifax Daily News and the Chronicle Herald.

Mahendra Durai has been named chief information officer for Hearst. From 2011 to 2019, Durai served as senior vice president and chief information technology officer of CA Technologies, an information technology management software and solutions company He also previously served as vice president of consulting at BMC Software, where he developed and oversaw an IT transformation global services practice.

Michael Tomasky has been named editor of The New Republic. Since 2009, Tomasky has edited the policy journal Democracy: A Journal of Ideas and writes a regular column for The Daily Beast. He will continue his role at Democracy. Tomasky replaces Chris Lehmann, who will become an editorat-large for the magazine. Tomasky was the first U.S. editor of The Guardian when it expanded in America and has contributed to The New York Review of Books and The New York Times.

Josh du Lac has been named director of global live for The Washington Post. In his new role, he will serve as co-architect of newly launched breaking-news hubs in Seoul and London with a major role in hiring, training, and oversight. As Live News editor since 2018, Josh was a central player in the Post’s breaking-news coverage. Du Lac has also been the driving force behind the Post’s quick buildout and adoption of the Live Update Files.

Rob Walters has been named editor of the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times News. He joins the publication from the Bristol Herald Courier, where he had served as managing editor since 2016. Prior to that, Walters was assistant managing editor at the Frederick (Md.) News-post. His career began in 1982 at the Bakersfield Californian. Walters succeeds Stephanie Mccellan who left the paper in January for a position with the Johnson City Press, a sister publication to the Times News. She had served as editor for more than five years and previously served as city editor for nearly 20 years.

Bruce Castleberry has been named senior editor for Massachusetts-based newspapers, the Lowell Sun and Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise. Castleberry’s new role combines Lowell/fitchburg senior editor responsibilities. He will also maintain his current duties as regional sports editor for Massachusetts. Castleberry is a veteran of the newspaper industry, with previous stints at The Dallas Morning News as well as smaller papers in Texas and Arkansas. He joined the Boston Herald in July 2013. He has also worked in corporate communications and public relations.

The New York Times has named James Dao metropolitan editor. Dao joined the Times in 1992 as metro reporter and was later the department’s deputy editor. He has also served as Albany bureau chief, congressional reporter, and Pentagon correspondent. In 2016, Dao joined the opinion department as the op-ed editor. Last year, Dao was reassigned from his position to an editor on the national desk. He takes over metro coverage from Clifford

J. Levy, who led the department from 2018 until January, when the Times announced that he would spend some time advising the audio department as a deputy managing editor.

Carly Schwartz has been named editorin-chief of The San Francisco Examiner. Schwartz will oversee the newsroom, along with editorial operations at The

Nob Hill Gazette and SF Weekly, which all fall under the ownership umbrella of the Clint Reilly Communications Co. Schwartz comes to the Examiner from Google, where she served as editor-in-chief of Google Insider, an internal news organization that she launched four years ago. Prior to her time at Google, Schwartz worked for the Huffpost on both coasts, serving as deputy national editor in New York City and as the founding editor of the site’s San Francisco bureau. In addition, Allen Matthews will join the Examiner as director of editorial operations. In this role, he will oversee all operational aspects of the integrated editorial program. Matthews comes to the job after a long career with the San Francisco Chronicle, where he served in a number of high-level editing positions for over 20 years. Al Saracevic was also named Examiner assistant managing editor for news and sports. Saracevic is also a Chronicle veteran, where he served in a number of highranking positions, including business editor and sports editor.

Ogden Newspapers has named John Kridelbaugh as the general manager of Ohio-based papers, the Sandusky Register and Norwalk Reflector. He will oversee both publications’ operations, along with advertising and circulation. He will serve as the advertising director for five Ohio-based newspapers, also in the Ogden network. In addition to the Register and the Reflector, they include the Findlay Courier, Fostoria Review Times, and Tiffin Advertiser-tribune.

Eugene Jackson has been named vice president of advertising and marketing sales for the USA TODAY Network Ohio news organizations in central and northeastern Ohio. He replaces Chris Pettograsso, who has left the company. Jackson has 16 years of media experience in various roles, including executive leadership. Most recently, he was senior sales director and regional market leader for Gannett’s Illinois markets of Lincoln, Pekin, Peoria, Pontiac, and Springfield. His past roles include senior vice president of advertising and marketing in the Washington, D.C. area. Prior to that, he was regional president and publisher of the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota and the Casper Star Tribune in Wyoming. He also previously served as president and publisher at the Daily Journal in Missouri and director of advertising at the Connecticut Post. He also worked for more than nine years in various advertising leadership positions at the Roanoke Times in Virginia, where he began his career.

Christy Johnson has been named managing editor of Alabama-based newspapers, Greenville Advocate, Luverne Journal, and Lowndes Signal. All three newspapers are owned by Boone Newspapers, Inc. Johnson began her career at the Greenville Advocate as a reporter. She replaces Kendra Majors, who served as regional editor of the Greenville Advocate, Luverne Journal, Lowndes Signal, The Demopolis Times, The Selma Timesjournal and associated digital and print products.

Marlon A. Walker has been named executive editor of the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss. and Mississippi state editor for the USA TODAY Network. He replaces Mary Irby-jones, who recently became executive editor of the Courier Journal in Louisville,

Ky. Walker arrived at the Clarion Ledger in August as a senior editor. As a reporter, he previously covered education at the Atlanta Journal-constitution. Walker has also covered city and county government, as well as transportation and public safety, at publications such as The Tampa Bay Times, The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., The Associated Press, The Telegraph in Macon, Ga., The St. Louis Post-dispatch, and the Detroit Free Press.

Jill Hunt, publisher of the Stillwater (Okla.) News Press, has retired. Hunt was a practicing journalist for 39 years with the bulk of that time serving the Stillwater community. She joined the News Press staff in April 1998. She was promoted to publisher in October 2019. Prior to that, she worked in the advertising department as the ad director after years as an ad representative.

Angela Charlton has been named Western Europe news director for the Associated Press. She is the first to hold this position at the AP. In this new role, Charlton will lead all formats in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Charlton started her career at the AP as a reporter in Moscow in 1994. Since then, she held numerous positions in several countries: chief correspondent in Ukraine, reporter in West Virginia, editor on the former International Desk, correspondent in Moscow and Paris, news editor in Paris, and Paris bureau chief.

Mark Walker has been promoted from general manager to publisher of The Commonwealth Journal, The Sentinel-echo, and The Timestribune. All three newspapers are located in eastern Kentucky and owned by CNHI. Walker had served as general manager of the Sentinel-echo and Times-tribune for two years, and the Commonwealth Journal for the past year. He also was a regional circulation manager for CNHI Kentucky. Previously, he worked for Schurz Communications, Boone Newspapers, and RR Donnelley and Sons.

Gina Chua has been appointed executive editor of Reuters, where she will oversee editorial operations, budgets, administration, safety, and security. She will also be responsible for leading technology initiatives around new forms of reporting. Chua has served in various roles from 2011 to 2021. She most recently served as global managing editor of operations. Previously, Chua served as the editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and The Asian Wall Street Journal/the Wall Street Journal Asia. She was also a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal in New

York; a reporter in Singapore, Manila and Hanoi; and a television and radio journalist in Singapore.

Lisa Callihan has been promoted to publisher of The Daily Independent in Ashland, Ky. She has been the paper’s general manager since July of last year. She joined the paper as an accounting clerk in 1990.

Gary Tyler has been promoted to publisher of the Richmond (Ky.) Register. Tyler has served as the paper’s general manager/ advertising director since August 2019, a position he will continue to serve in. Tyler began his newspaper career at the Courier-journal in Louisville, Ky. in advertising. He subsequently worked as director of advertising at the State Journal Register in Springfield, Ill., and before that, he was publisher at Louisville Business First.