Posted by chicagomedia.org on March 16, 2009 at 19:09:23:
Chicago Tribune names Michael Lev associate managing editor for business news
Michael Lev, a 17-year Chicago Tribune veteran who returned to Tribune Tower as business editor in 2005 after nearly a decade as an Asia-based correspondent, has been named associate managing editor for business.
Jane Hirt, the Tribune's managing editor, told staff of the appointment in a memo today.
Lev succeeds Jim Kirk, who left the Tribune at the end of last year to join Bloomberg News' Washington bureau, overseeing coverage of the White House and Congress as its government team leader. Lev worked in tandem with Kirk, who brought him in as his No. 2 in July 2005, five months after getting the job top.
"Michael has done a superb job leading change as interim leader of the business department since the beginning of the year," Hirt wrote. "It's been a time of great economic upheaval for Chicago and the country, and he and his team have worked hard to explain the complicated issues surrounding a story very personal to our audience."
Lev joined the Tribune in 1992 as a metro reporter. A graduate of Northwestern University, he previously worked as a reporter in California, including a hitch as a full-time free-lance reporter for the New York Times out of its Los Angeles bureau.
As a foreign correspondent, based first in Tokyo and then Beijing, Lev wrote from more than 20 countries in the region, covering everything from the economic rise of China to the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the tsunami that ravaged Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
(Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)