Duff Wilson and Megan Twohey are joining Reuters expanding Global Enterprise Team. Wilson, most recently a reporter at The New York Times, will be an investigative reporter and associate editor at Reuters. Twohey comes to Reuters from the Chicago Tribune, where she was a reporter. In her new role, Twohey will be an investigative reporter.

Now see, this is the kind of publication we hope to see more of in 2010: The Fiscal Times, set to launch next year, will be an online-only entity that “will aim to drive the conversation surrounding our nation’s most pressing economic issues.”

Sure, there are plenty of economic blogs out there right now, but there are two things that make us excited about The Fiscal Times. One is its content sharing agreement: the news org already has a deal with The Washington Post, and is working on arrangements with other publications, much in the way that The Business Insider has done. Secondly, The Fiscal Times really has culled some of the best financial reporters and editors: Ann Reilly Dowd, formerly of Fortune and Money; Elaine Povich from The Chicago Tribune and Newsday; Dan Morgan, an ex-investigative reporter for The Washington Post and Eric Pianin, a 28-year veteran of The Washington Post. What’s more, TFT’s editor-in-chief is Jackie Leo (at left), who formerly held the same position at Reader’s Digest and was editorial director of Consumer Reports.

With this group, it finally makes sense why the organizations that are sharing content would actually want to take articles from The Fiscal Times, and not the other way around.

Says one of the founders of the publication, Peter G. Peterson, “The Fiscal Times is a new entity whose time has come, an independently supported publication comprised of top journalists and opinion makers covering the critical economic issues of our time.” We might actually believe him.

Read More: Fiscal Times launching next year –Twitter

The Fiscal Times’ Twitter

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Between all the layoffs at Conde Nast and The New York Times, you’d think that a journalist who still has a job would hold tight for dear life. Well, as we learned last week with ex-Tribune Co. employees starting The Chicago News Cooperative and selling their content to Tribune competitor, New York Times Co., sometimes leaving a job can be good for your career.

Now James O’Shea‘s new project has attracted another Chicago Tribune writer, famed columnist David Greising, who will be leaving Sam Zell‘s publishing nightmare for more cooperative pastures.

Greising was the Tribune‘s chief business correspondent, so it’s hard not to take his departure as a microcosm of Tribune Co.’s quickly decaying structure. Greising will be joining former Tribune managing editor James Warren and former Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski.

Tribune’s Greising Joins O’Shea’s Chicago News Cooperative –Crain’s Chicago Business

Earlier: Jim O’Shea Explains The Chicago News Cooperative

It’s a baffling recent development to receive daily press announcements from publishers that are “proudly introducing” a new digital ad structure or employee. We’ve seen the Meredith Corporation promote Andy Sareyan to “brand officer…in charge of online platforms“, Josh Stinchcomb and Alice McKown take over Conde Nast‘s new online advertising structure, and Chicago Tribune journalists writing about their own publisher’s new cross-platform ad sales group.

Today, The Atlantic joins the ranks of its print-and-web contemporaries with its hiring of Breda O’Reilly as digital ad manager, “during a period of vigorous online expansion and innovation.”

Why is this news? Traditionally, when print publications hire someone to oversee a sales force, there’s no press release, no giant blurb sent out to other publications. And when blogs like Gawker or TMZ hire ad people, there is likewise little hooplah. It’s only when print publishers (which have had such a hard time transitioning between the mega bucks of print ads and the scarce terrain of online media buyers) find someone to fill their digital ad sales spot that it’s cause for celebration. Because it proves that The Atlantic (or Conde Nast, or Meredith, etc.) has finally calculated how to turn their pageviews into cash.

We have to give credit to The Atlantic though for at least trying something new with their online content: When talking to publisher Jay Lauf two weeks ago on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu, he spoke about The Atlantic Wire and the pitch to advertisers of intellectual readers as a specific marketing niche.

Related: The Atlantic Names Breda O’Reilly Digital Ad Manager

Today’s New York Times news has to do with the buying of content from former Chicago Tribune employees. Considering that Sam Zell ran the Tribune and his other assets into bankruptcy, there’s a certain irony in those writers and editors (who formed a lawsuit against Zell last year) teaming up with Arthur Sulzberger and Co. to provide material for another paper.

And James E. O’Shea, a former Los Angeles Times editor and Chicago Tribune managing editor, is defecting to the new Chicago-based non-profit group, The Chicago News Cooperative, that will be providing the Times with local content for its Chicago edition — which is similar to the Bay Area edition launched last week.

Also part of the group, which is funded in part by The MacArthur Foundation (known for their NPR patronage and support of journalists) is Ann Marie Lipinski, former Tribune editor. That’s both great news for the Times, which is looking expand its local content to different areas of the nation, and a giant stick in Zell’s craw. Everyone wins?

Chicago News Venture To Sell Content To New York Times — New York Times

Connie Schultz, a columnist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, used her column in this Sunday’s paper to respond to a comment made by digital media maven Tina Brown to the Chicago Tribune last week while finding some sort of silver lining to the apparent death of newspapers.

Yes, Schultz conceded, veteran journalists are worried about job security. But they also fear “the online threat to standards we hold dear,” she said. Brown, who said journalists in their 50′s are afraid of the moves the industry is making towards digital media, was “too flip in assessing what worries many journalists,” Schultz added.

Schultz argued that, contrary to what Brown and others think, blogs are not the future of the media. “The so-called citizen journalism of most blogs is an affront to those of us who believe reporting and attribution must precede publication.”

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FishbowlDC: The LA Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun (Tribune’s Washington Bureau) might all be moving to the Scripps bureau office.

FishbowlLA: A good use for all of those empty newspaper boxes: planters for pretty flowers.

WebNewser: Al Roker Tweeted himself into a corner when he posted pictures from his trip to jury duty on his Twitter feed yesterday.

Forbes: New York Times “is leading a charge among big newspapers and magazines to create gripping digital ads that interweave marketing images with editorial content and respected journalism brands,” like those annoying ads that take over the whole homepage.

Reuters: Private equity firm ZelnickMedia Corp. is reportedly no longer interested buying Austin newspaper the American-Statesman. But current owner Cox Enterprises said it had found a buyer for two other Texas papers, The Lufkin Daily News and The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches.

Those of you watching President Barack Obama‘s first national press conference last night — and due to the blanket press coverage it was hard to miss — may have done a small double take when the President called on Sam Stein of The Huffington Post for a question. Considering the President only made time for 13 questions, and those left out included the Wall St Journal, Chicago Tribune, and Newsweek, the selection (journalists had been pre-selected by the White House) turned some heads. But hey, it’s supposed to be the Internet presidency right! And anyway, Stein asked a good question (in full after the jump).

We caught up with Stein, who in our opinion was remarkably composed last night, and asked him what it was like to be thrust into the Obama presser klieg lights.

I think this underscores just how far new media has come. I can’t pretend that it wasn’t great to be called on by the President. But I think this says more about the how journalism has changed and evolved. And, I should add, there are tons of other online reporters that deserve the chance (more than I probably did) to pose questions to the president.

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Oh the travails of the Tribune Co. Here’s the latest. The company has confirmed that it has in fact received a federal subpoena as part of criminal charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The “close associate” of Sam Zell who was allegedly approached by Blago’s people for “help”, and is now being interviewed by the FBI, has been identified as Nils Larsen. According to the Chicago Tribune Larsen is the “38-year-old financial whiz who was instrumental in Zell’s takeover of Tribune Co.” A deal Zell now concedes perhaps wasn’t as well thought out as it could have been.

Whether Larsen ever attempted to apply pressure to Tribune officials remained unclear.

At the news conference announcing the arrests, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald declined to say how far the effort went, “other than the person who was identified as a person to be fired was not fired and still works there today.”

It should be noted that the Tribune Co. and Zell maintain they did nothing wrong and that none of the Trib‘s editorial members were fired.

We have to imagine this is just the beginning. Earlier today the Chicago Tribune released a statement which basically says it held back on reporting certain parts of the Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich story at the request of the U.S. attorney’s office. Fine. This story may turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the Tribune. We shall see.

Just now the Tribune Co. released its own statement saying “the actions of the company, its executives and advisors working on the disposition of Wrigley Field have been appropriate at all times.” Says Gerould Kern, editor of the Chicago Tribune: “No one within Tribune Company has ever complained to me about the positions taken by our editorial board, or attempted to influence our coverage of the governor in any way.” We shall see. But wow the Tribune Co. is having a crappy week. Full release after the jump.

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