American City Business Journals, the Charlotte-based parent company of more than 40 business newspapers across the country, has overhauled its national content team that provides content and consulting to its website and papers.
The restructuring is designed for the team to produce and distribute more content from Charlotte than it has in recent years, according to a memo sent to the staff from CEO Whit Shaw and Jon Wile, who is vice president of content.
The team also offers guidance and best practices to the ACBJ papers, which stretch from Boston to Honolulu.
The changes are expected to result in some journalists leaving the company. One of those departures is Huntley Paton, who left last week as executive editor of online operations. Wile declined to comment on others.
As part of the changes, the team is focusing on six areas — content, design, data, recruiting and talent development, content distribution and consumption, and operations. ACBJ promoted leaders for each of these areas.
Mark Mensheha is moving from the Sports Business Journal to be director of the national news desk, overseeing the day-to-day operations of content creation on the desk, as well as overseeing the company’s Bizwomen and Upstart Business Journal websites. He was part of the team that launched Sports Business Journal in 1998.
Craig Douglas, the managing editor of the Boston Business Journal, is moving to Charlotte to find ways that data-centric reporting used at that paper can be developed nationally for the other ACBJ markets. His new title is director of editorial data analysis.
In addition, Beth Hunt, who has been in the Charlotte office for nearly 10 years, has been named director of editorial recruitment and development. She previously had been manager of editorial operations and the editor of the ACBJ papers in Washington and Austin, Texas.
Joanne Skoog, who has been with the company since 1987, becomes director of editorial operations. She will act as a liaison between ACBJ’s markets and its attorneys. She also will be in charge of corporate cross-department communication with areas such as human resources. Skoog, Paton and Hunt previously split helping ACBJ markets.
Haley Correll, who has been the company’s director of social media, becomes director of editorial engagement and tools. She will help newsrooms understand the intersection of news, technology and audience, including social media and search engine optimization.
Ed Stych, who joined the company in 2011 as digital editor of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, becomes the editor in charge of ACBJ’s digital-only cities, which include Los Angeles and Chicago. He will be the day-to-day editor of those two properties and will handle the company’s contributors.
David Arnott is becoming an editor on the national news desk. Arnott will be a combination of editor, reporter and producer, overseeing the national home page and national social media accounts, as well as generating content on a national level. He joined the company in 2007.
Lastly, Ari Fermaglich has been named manager of editorial analytics. He joined the company in 2012. He will coach editors and reporters in local markets to better understand how their content is being consumed.
