Mercury News biz editor leaving for Business 2.0

Todd Woody, the business editor at the San Jose Mercury News, is leaving that position to become assistant managing editor at Business 2.0 in San Francisco, according to a memo posted Tuesday on the Romenesko blog.

Deputy Managing Editor Matt Mansfield wrote in a memo that, “The story of Silicon Valley is still the most interesting business story anywhere, though, and we believe this is one of the best jobs in American journalism. We plan to fill it as quickly as possible.

“Todd has graciously agreed to help us find potential candidates for the top editing job in business, and we have already begun a national search for an editor who has the skill to lead our ambitious coverage. We intend to move fast because this is such an important job, so expect to begin seeing editor candidates visiting in the coming weeks.”

Mansfield later provided Talking Biz News with a copy of the memo.

Woody has seen the boom and the bust in technology coverage in the Silicon Valley area. He was hired as a senior writer for The Industry Standard in the late 1990s, and he helped build the magazine into a weekly publication that documented the ins and outs of the growing Internet industry.

By September 2001, however, the magazine was out of business, and Woody was looking for another job. By 2005, he became the business editor of the San Jose Mercury News, which has also heavily covered the Internet boom and bust, after joining the paper in 2003 as assistant business editor for technology.