Dow Jones Newswires names news editor for media monitoring desk

Dow Jones Newswires senior editor Steve Wisnefski made the following staff announcement on Thursday morning:

I am pleased to announce that Josh Beckerman has been appointed to head the media monitoring desk at Dow Jones Newswires. He replaces Michelle Gerdes, who recently joined the WSJ’s standards and practices department.

Josh, who has been with Dow Jones for 14 years and currently serves as an assistant news editor with the Newsletters group, will oversee a team of five editors who monitor a wide array of print and broadcast media outlets. The desk is responsible for quickly publishing brief items on significant news developments that haven’t yet been reported by Dow Jones. The desk is also called upon frequently to cover televised appearances of government officials, corporate executives and other newsmakers.

The desk plays an important role in ensuring that Newswires subscribers have complete and up-to-the-second reporting of critical news. It also serves as a first response unit of sorts for Dow Jones more broadly, alerting editors and reporters at Newswires and WSJ of significant developments.

Josh joined Dow Jones Newswires as a reporting assistant on the spot news desk in 1997, later serving as a copyreader and copy editor. Since 2007, he has been an assistant news editor at the Dow Jones Private Markets division. He oversees the LBO Wire private equity newsletter and contributes to the Private Equity Beat blog. Before starting at Dow Jones he worked in television, radio and government. Josh has a B.A. from SUNY New Paltz and an M.A. from Central Michigan University.

Josh will start in his new role as news editor on the monitoring desk on Feb. 1. Please join me in wishing him all the best.