New biz editor named at Philly Inquirer

Brian Toolan, a national editor at the Associated Press, has been named the new Philadelphia Inquirer business editor, according to a memo posted on the Romenesko site.

He succeeds Tony Gnoffo, who is going back to reporting. The Inquirer business section has been the talk of the business journalism community in the past year because it now has a bank that sponsors a column called “Philly Inc.” The bank has its logo in the section’s masthead.

Vernon Loeb, deputy managing editor for news, writes, “Brian currently oversees all daily and enterprise reporting nationally for the AP, managing 65 domestic news bureaus, the 35-editor National Desk, the Health & Science Desk and the National Reporting Team. The Hartford Courant, under Brian’s leadership from 1998 to 2006, won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2002, 2004 and 2006.

“Locally, Brian is still best known and fondly remembered for the 16 years he spent at our sister paper, the Philadelphia Daily News, from 1982 to 1998, where he started as a layout editor in sports and went on to become sports editor, assistant managing editor for news and, ultimately, managing editor.

“Brian is a 1972 graduate of St. Bonaventure University and began his distinguished career in journalism at the Scranton Tribune as a reporter and sports writer. He resides in New Hope and, as of two weeks from today, will no longer have to make the arduous early morning commute to Manhattan.”

Read more here.