Tracking job changes by business journalists

Cate Doty of The New York Times writes Monday about Gorkana, the e-mail newsletter that tracks job changes by business journalists.

Doty wrote, “The newsletter — which reaches the in-boxes of about 5,000 journalists and will come out five times a week starting March 1 — is the American counterpart to a British version, which was started as a service to public relations firms and journalists, said Rob Ingram, director of the Gorkana office in Lower Manhattan. (According to the company’s Web site, the name Gorkana means ‘food for thought’ in Hindi and is drawn from a military experience of one of the founders.)

“In 2003, the two British public relations people who set up Gorkana started sending e-mail messages to publicists that listed reporters’ moves, and their popularity grew by word of mouth, Mr. Ingram said, adding that the goal of the newsletter, and the database of journalists and contact information that Gorkana sells to public relations firms, is to cut down on what reporters and publicists hate: the embarrassing and awkward phone call.

“‘You can’t do anything about bad P.R.,’ he said, ‘just like you can’t do anything about bad reporters, but at least you can try to help around the margins.'”

Read more here.