FishbowlNY's 2009 Lists: The Year's Biggest Moves In Media

This year -- full of flux and uncertainty about where the media is heading -- has resulted in a vast number of job changes and departures across all matter of media companies and publications. In almost every field of journalism, big names have either been fired, promoted, retired, or simply moved on to more lucrative positions. Here, we take a look back at the biggest industry shakeups of 2009. The Biggest Move in Magazines: Stephen Adler leaving BusinessWeek. When editor Stephen Adler announced his departure from BusinessWeek this October following the magazine's sale to Bloomberg LP, he wasn't just making a statement, he was starting a trend. Soon he was followed by some of his former colleagues, like John Byrne and BusinessWeek's president Keith Fox, who decided to stay with magazine's original parent, McGraw-Hill. (Not to mention all of those who involuntarily left the pub not long after.) It takes a lot of chutzpah to up and quit your editor gig in the middle of this turbulent media landscape, it takes even more to get your coworkers to come with you. Fortunately for Adler, he's already landed another gig at Thomson Reuters. Runners Up: Time.com managing editor Josh Tyrangiel comes on board as editor at Businessweek; Marie Claire's publisher Susan Plagemann joins Vogue; Nancy Berger Cardone of shuttered Gourmet takes Plagemann's spot at Marie Claire; Janice Min leaves Us Weekly; Mariette DiChristina becomes Scientific American's first female editor-in-chief. More after the jump The Biggest Move in Newspapers: Liz Smith leaves The New York Post. The gossip columnist was fired from her job back in February, but was quickly snapped up by entertainment industry trade Variety, which still knows talent when it sees it. More so than any other comings-or-goings in the newspaper world, Smith's forced departure after 33 years of service proved that in this economy, anyone is ripe for a layoff. Runners Up: Food critic Frank Bruni leaves The New York Times, is replaced by Sam Sifton; Peter Kaplan leaves The New York Observer, is replaced by Tom McGeveran, who also decides to leave before the year's up; Ross Douthat becomes the Times' Op-Ed editor contributor replacing Bill Kristol; Rebecca Blumenstein goes from managing editor of WSJ.com to international editor and deputy editor of the entire Wall Street Journal; Sandra Guzman is fired from the Post months after speaking out against chimp cartoon. The Biggest Move in Television: Lou Dobbs leaves CNN. Dobbs announced his final broadcast, effective immediately, on November 11. Later, we learned his departure involved an $8 million buyout to get the controversial host to take his act elsewhere. Runners Up: Oprah Winfrey plans to leave her network television show behind; Charlie Gibson steps down from ABC's "World News"; Diane Sawyer takes over Gibson's role; George Stephanopoulos takes over for Sawyer on "Good Morning America." Head Honchos: Bonnie Fuller launches her own media brand HollywoodLife.com after leaving American Media Inc. in 2008. She also manages to poach some big names from the gossip world to join her in her new venture. Runners Up: Jim Kelly leaves Time Inc. after 30 years at the company; News Corp. COO Peter Chernin leaves the company after chimp cartoon causes controversy; Eric Hippeau becomes CEO of Huffington Post.

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FishbowlNY's 2009 Lists: The Year's Biggest Moves In Media

Drew Grant

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Drew Grant