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Upward Mobility

Dan Webster , most recently director of television marketing for the Associated Press ' broadcast division, moves to Austin, Texas, to study for the ministry. Webster, former deputy Washington bureau chief for NBC and one-time news director at Albuquerque's KOB and Salt Lake City's KUTV , is also remembered for his antics while covering George Bush 's 1980 campaign. At one point, he and others aboard Bush's plane "didn't think Liz [ Trotta , of CBS ] was having much fun, so we duct-taped her in the john," he recalls. "I have no guilt about that." Trotta, now with the Washington Times , says she holds no grudges. "He'll make a wonderful priest; he kept our morale up. Did he tell you how he dressed up as a Secret Service agent one day and got through every security line?" Meanwhile, Norman Runnion , editor of Vermont's Brattleboro Reformer for 21 years before his retirement in 1990, begins life as a pastor. "When people ask me, 'Why did you go into the church?' I answer, 'God,' " he says. "I used to say, 'Because God wanted me to do penance for being a journalist for 40 years,' but I stopped. People were taking me seriously."

More Women Editors

Debbie Price takes the newly created position of executive editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram , the newsroom's No. 2 spot behind Editor Mike Blackman . She succeeds former Managing Editor Mary Jo Meisner , now editor of the Milwaukee Journal . Price, 34, most recently a columnist at the paper, notes that while she didn't take the traditional route to the masthead by rising among the ranks as an editor, "this isn't brain surgery we're doing. Newspaper management is a lot of common sense." Price began her career as a Star-Telegram intern in 1979... In Minnesota, the Duluth News-Tribune names Vicki Gowler as executive editor. Gowler, 42, takes over for Bob Jodon , who resigns but says he has no immediate plans. (Publisher James Gels says Jodon's departure was "mutually agreed to" but would not comment further.) Gowler spent 10 years at the Miami Herald before joining the Knight-Ridder Washington bureau in 1988.

The Power of the Court

WKRC-TV in Cincinnati dismisses a reporter and spikes a story about loafing and overstaffing at a local courthouse after judges there threaten legal action. Besides canning reporter Chris Yaw and suspending News Director Steve Minium and Assistant News Director Matt Silverman , the station airs an apology by General Manager William Moll and orders ethics training for all newsroom personnel. The episode began after Yaw says he noticed court employees reading and sleeping on the job. Minium approved hidden cameras, Moll says, and Yaw showed the resulting video to several judges to get their reactions. Noting that the footage included audio, the judges insisted WKRC had violated federal eavesdropping laws and called in the FBI. Yaw, 31, who this month enters divinity school in California, says he should have known the law and not used audio. Not that he was happy to be fired. "If heads didn't roll, the judges would have gone down on the station and on me," he says. "It would have meant a lot of legal hassles, and I'd rather lose my job than go to prison."

All in the Family

The Fresno Bee taps Karen Baker , formerly the paper's marketing director and a former editor at the Sacramento Bee and Chicago Sun-Time s, as editorial page editor. Baker says she agreed to launch the Fresno Bee's marketing department three years ago because her husband, George Baker , had been hired as managing editor and "I do not want to work for him, nor him for me." (As editorial page editor, Baker reports to Publisher Gary Pruitt , her husband to Executive Editor Peter Bhatia .) "I don't see any conflict at all," Baker says of her move from editorial to business and back. "I have a better sense of this market and community than someone who has been isolated in the newsroom. It would be better for newspapers if more newspeople would spend more time on the business side and vice versa."

The New York Times

Metro Editor Gerald Boyd and National Editor Soma Golden become assistant managing editors. Linda Mathews , a longtime Los Angeles Times staffer who left last year for ABC 's "World News Tonight," succeeds Golden, and Deputy Metro Editor Michael Oreskes takes over for Boyd. Also, food editor and critic Ruth Reichl leaves the L.A. Times to become the Times' restaurant critic. The Manhattan native succeeds Bryan Miller , who moves to the Styles staff.

How Active is Too Active?

When Sandy Nelson , a reporter at the Morning News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, took to the streets to support a local ordinance banning discrimination against gays, she didn't think her editors would mind. They did, however, and Nelson was reassigned to the copy desk after refusing to lower her profile in the campaign. Represented by the ACLU, Nelson is suing the newspaper, charging that editors violated her right to free speech. "They told me that if I gave up all my political activism, I could return to reporting," says Nelson, 37, who wrote mostly about education. "What about reporters involved in churches that fought against the ordinance?" Managing Editor Jan Brandt responds that editors only asked that Nelson play a less active role. "This is not about individuals or lifestyle or free speech," Brandt says. "It's about the right of editors to change the assignments of staff members to protect the credibility of the newspaper."

To the White House

Alison Muscatine leaves the Washington Post to write speeches for President Clinton, mostly on health care. Muscatine, a 12-year Post veteran and, like Clinton, a former Rhodes scholar, most recently covered tennis. Her husband, Brad Graham , remains at the Post as a deputy national editor but says his duties don't include any issues that his wife might write about. Says Muscatine, "There are so many of these types of relationships in Washington that a certain amount of vigilance is applied."

Nelson Leaves Daily News

Lars-Erik Nelson , Washington bureau chief and columnist for the New York Daily News , leaves the paper after 12 years to write a column for Newsday and New York Newsday . His departure coincides with Daily News Chairman Mort Zuckerman 's appointment of Martin Dunn , 38, as editor in chief. Dunn leaves Rupert Murdoch 's Boston Herald just four months after arriving from London's Fleet Street, where he edited a tabloid also owned by Murdoch. Nelson, who according to the Washington Post told colleagues he didn't want to work for a "Murdoch editor," did not return phone messages. At the Herald, Managing Editor Alan
Eisner takes over as editor.

Inside Magazines

Joe Abernathy , most recently a special projects reporter at the Houston Chronicle , joins PC World as senior editor of news... Harper's hires author and former Washington Post writer James Conaway as Washington editor and John Homans , most recently deputy editor of the New York Observer , as executive editor... Kenneth Sheets , a 21-year veteran of U.S. News & World Report , joins Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine as a writer.

Investigator in Chief

The non-profit Center for Investigative Reporting appoints Rick Tulsky , most recently at the Philadelphia Inquirer and a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner for investigative reporting, as managing editor of its broadcast and print projects. He succeeds co-founder Dan Noyes , who returns to reporting for the center after seven years in management.

Newsprint East

Thomas Baden , formerly a White House correspondent for Newhouse News Service , joins the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as managing editor... In an effort to cut costs, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette grants leaves of up to three months at half-pay to 38 newsroom staffers. Columnist Brian O'Neill , who asked for and received time off, laments to Editor John Craig Jr. , "I thought you'd put up more of a fight.".. The Asbury Park Press buys the debt-plagued Central Jersey Home News in New Brunswick and hires 116 of the 47,500-circulation daily's 292 employees... Henry Freeman , formerly editor of the Wilmington News Journal , takes over as publisher of the Courier-News in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Newsprint Elsewhere

J.D. Alexander , 54, executive editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer since 1986, rises to the paper's top spot as editor and publisher. He succeeds Virgil Fassio , who retires... The Contra Costa Times near San Francisco hires Bob Porterfield , a two-time Pulitzer winner who most recently worked at New York Newsday , as projects editor... Jack Fuller , editor of the Chicago Tribune , takes over as president and CEO of the Tribune Company. He succeeds John Madigan , now Tribune publisher. No successor for Fuller as of press time... Mike Haggerty returns to the Miami Herald newsroom after nine months as a fellow at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. He takes over as assistant managing editor/administration for Wayne Markham , now in circulation.... The Detroit News says farewell to Assistant City Editor Avram Goldstein and his wife, reporter Angie Cannon , who leave for Washington. He joins the Washington Post as assistant Maryland editor, she becomes a Knight-Ridder White House correspondent... Television sitcom star Roseanne Arnold purchases a chain of five Iowa weeklies. The papers, which carry church news, recipes, obits and the like, also now have a new advice column called "Dear Rosey."

National Public Radio

NPR promotes Bruce Drake from senior editor of the Washington desk to managing editor in charge of all news coverage. He succeeds John Dinges , who gets the new title of editorial director as part of a restructuring. At the same time, Joyce Davis , editor for the Middle East and Africa, begins a year's leave to write a book on Islam.

Warm Weather Hunt

Rolland Smith resigns from New York's WWOR , where he has been an anchor since 1988 after 17 years at WCBS , to join KNSD in San Diego. Smith, 51, says he left in part because WWOR wouldn't allow him to do freelance work. He also wanted to move to "an area of great weather." Meanwhile, WWOR News Director Will Wright divides the station's 10 p.m. newscast into two segments, the first filled by traditional news, weather and sports, and the second consisting of three or four in-depth features.

Around the Wires

United Press International ¿offers buyouts to some 200 union employees and early retirement packages to an unspecified number of others. A spokeswoman says that a third of both groups combined accepted the offers... At Reuters , Cynthia Ostermann returns from a six-month leave working with the United Nations relief agency CARE in Somalia to become Vancouver bureau chief.

Changes at ABC

Kathryn Christensen , who left ABC News two years ago to become managing editor of Baltimore's Sun , returns to the network as managing editor and senior broadcast producer of "World News Tonight." Before joining ABC, Christensen spent 11 years with the Wall Street Journal ... Katherine
Dillon now directs the production and marketing of ABC News programs for the home video and computer software markets. Dillon, who studied architecture at Cornell and Harvard, was most recently director of broadcast graphics... Robert Wallace , formerly executive editor at Rolling Stone , becomes senior story editor for "PrimeTime Live.".. Bret Marcus , a former WNBC news director, takes over as broadcast producer of the newsmagazine "Turning Point," scheduled to debut early next year.

Other Network News

At CNN , Bruce Morton signs on as a reporter in the Washington bureau. He leaves CBS after nearly 20 years... Former NBC reporter Arthur Kent , fired last year after a public spat with the network, returns to prime time as host of "Man Alive," a weekly half-hour show aired by the CBC in Canada... In Washington, CBS law reporter Rita Braver moves to the White House beat, succeeding Susan Spencer , now reporting for the evening news' "Eye on America" segments. Braver's husband, attorney Bob Barnett , has said he will no longer do legal work for the Clintons as a result.

Covering the Courts

Legal affairs writer Philip Hager , a 24-year Los Angeles Times veteran, and Karen Hata , most recently the Oakland Tribune 's opinion page editor, join the San Francisco Daily Journal , which covers the area's legal community. Hager becomes senior editor, while Hata takes over as news editor for Jon Kawamoto , now at the L.A. Times.