Changes on LA Times' biz desk

A number of new editors have been named on the Los Angeles Times business news desk, according to a memo posted on the LA Observed web site.

New business editor Davan Maharaj named Julie Makinen as the section’s deputy business editor, senior markets editor John Corrigan as senior news editor, West executive editor Anne Reifenberg as enterprise editor, and reporter Chris Gaither as technology editor.

In the memo, Maharaj noted about Corrigan, a SABEW board member: “During his tenure in the Business section, John has piled up an impressive body of work: He was project editor for the 2003 series ‘The Wal-Mart Effect,’ which won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, and the 2006 series ‘Retirement at Risk.’ He has overseen coverage of several major stories, including the Enron scandal, the labor strife at West Coast ports, the California supermarket strike and abuses by mortgage lender Ameriquest.”

Maharaj stated about Reifenberg: “She joined The Times in 2003 after nearly a decade at the Wall Street Journal. In a previous posting, at the Dallas Morning News, Anne was the lead writer on a series about violence against women that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for 1993. Anne’s position was created out of a vacancy that dates to last year.”

As for Gaither, he stated, “Chris, who joined The Times as a staff writer in February 2004, succeeds Aaron Curtiss, who held the technology editor job for five years before moving to the paper’s innovation team. In his time on the tech beat, Chris covered the business of Internet media and advertising from the San Francisco Bureau. He chronicled the growing power of new media giants such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft’s MSN, and the interactive efforts of TV networks and other traditional media companies.”

Read more here.