Signs of trouble on Huffington Post biz desk?

Kat Stoeffel of the New York Observer writes about recent turnover on the business desk of the Huffington Post and wonders whether it’s the sign of bigger issues.

Stoeffel writes, “A month ago, business editor Ryan McCarthy, who for two years helped develop the HuffPo’s fledging business desk, left for Reuters. The complexity of national financial reporting and the pressure of daily deadlines proved too challenging for some of the site’s young hires, two of whom were fired after less than three months on the job.

“They had been hired under business editor Peter Goodman–himself a recent acquisition, from The New York Times. Mr. Goodman declined to comment on personnel matters, but told Off the Record he was confident about the team he’d assembled.

“‘What they all have in common is they’re relentlessly curious,’ Mr. Goodman said. ‘They are wonderfully, inspiringly devoted to the old-fashioned parts of journalism, like using people’s stories to represent larger issues.’

“Sources within the Huffington Post blamed the churn on the business desk on a less-than-rigorous hiring process, which they said consisted of recommendations from Ivy League professors followed by brief interviews. Others were skeptical of the Huffington Post’s Jefferson Young Journalist Program, which taps young reporters before they’ve graduated from college to ‘nurture new journalistic talent by pairing them with seasoned editors,’ according to an AOL press release.”

Read more here.