Changes coming to Washington Post biz desk

Patrick Gavin of FishbowlDC posted a memo Thursday from Washington Post assistant managing editor of financial news Sandy Sugawara and deputy AME for financial news Greg Schneider about changes coming to the business section.

Sugawara and Schneider write, “In a few weeks, we expect to launch a new Page Two for Washbiz, designed by Tan Ly and reflecting the reporting and voice of Frank Ahrens, as well as a redesigned daily section by Denny Brack (with help from Kathy Lally) that will include a consumer/tech destination page and a biweekly photo essay jointly produced by Ylan Mui and Melina Mara.

“Michael Rosenwald has turned over his biotech portfolio to Kendra Marr so that he can write more personal finance stories, bringing his wit and sharp eye to that subject. Steve Mufson recently launched an energy blog. Alec Klein and Zachary Goldfarb have been working on a credit meltdown project that will soon be published. Tony Faiola and Travis Fox have a series of multi-media globalization efforts planned.

“Reporters and editors are also deep into projects on the working poor, rising energy prices, intelligence contracting, privacy and Iraq contracts. We are eager to hear other ideas. As you know, the newspaper is revamping its copy desk operations to create an editing structure focused on the evolving editing needs of the web and the print edition. We will have studied the successful copy editor restructuring in the A section and will be joining this effort on June 1, with some modifications to address the particular needs of the Business section. Among other things, we will be moving to a two-touch system and more fully integrating copy editors into our operations. We are fortunate to have an exceptionally strong team of copy editors. This new system will impact every person on this staff.”

Read more here.