Biz editor becomes webcast anchor

The Ventura County Star launched Tuesday an online video site, Studio 805, that will feature a noon webcast, local breaking news, entertainment, interviews, multimedia presentations and eventually sports.

“Newsbreak,” the weekday noon webcast, is a digest of the day’s news, with links to stories published in the newspaper. The show will be anchored by Gretchen Macchiarella, who has worked three years for The Star, most recently as assistant business editor.

Macchiarella previously wrote the Getting Personal feature for the Star’s business section, which focused on topics such as personal finance, including saving, debt, real estate and budgeting. She was a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Best in Business winner in 2006 in the Enterprise category for a story called “Leaving Ventura County.”

The site is named after the area code for Ventura County. Read more here.