Roanoke editor says biz reporter wasn't reassigned due to complaints

Michael Stowe, the managing editor of the Roanoke Times, wrote a memo to the paper’s staff to disclose that business reporter Jeff Sturgeon was not taken off the health care beat because of complaints by a large health care provider in the area.

Sturgeon’s switching to a new beat has been the topic of discussion after it appeared in a front-page Wall Street Journal article and became the subject of a Columbia Journalism Review article.

Stowe, in a memo posted on the Romenesko site, wrote, “In our efforts to protect Jeff’s privacy — and not air details of a personnel issue in public — Carole and I didn’t address the topic as directly as we would have liked.

“But I thought it was important to let each of you know: Jeff wasn’t reassigned because we were unhappy with the stories he had written about Carilion; nor did Carilion executives call the newspaper and ask for the change.”

Read the memo here.