CHERYL POWELL NAMED BJ EXECUTIVE EDITOR

 

                   CHERYL POWELL 

Cheryl Powell promoted to BJ executive editor

Cheryl Powell, in Summit County almost all her life, was promoted from managing editor to Akron Beacon Journal executive editor, where she has spent the last 27 years.

She also handles the BJ web site and is regional editor for the Canton Repository, Ravenna Record-Courier, Alliance Review and Massillon Independent.

Cheryl replaced Michael Shearer, who left to be executive editor of the Beacon’s sister paper, The Columbus Dispatch.

Powell, whose family moved to Twinsburg when she was 1, has lived in Summit County since, with the exception of attending college at Kent State University and a brief stint at the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky. 

SHEARER TO COLUMBUS, CHERYL POWELL TO INTERIM EDITOR

 

                                                                    MICHAEL SHEARER

Shearer to Columbus Dispatch; BJ ME Cheryl Powell will be Interim Editor

 

Akron Beacon Journal Editor Michael Shearer was named executive editor of The Columbus Dispatch. Since both are part of Gannett’s USA TODAY network, he’s working for the same people.

Michael is from the Columbus area and has family there so it’s sort of a homecoming for him. He was at the BJ for almost 5 years.

He oversaw news at The Canton Repository, Alliance Review, Massillon Independent and Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier.

Shearer, who will begin his new role Jan. 8, grew up in the Columbus area and served as top editor of The Advocate in Newark from 2000 to 2016.

The former GateHouse Media hired him to lead eight Northeast Ohio newsrooms in 2017 before it acquired the Beacon Journal in 2018 and merged with Gannett in 2019.

Managing Editor Cheryl Powell, at the BJ for 26 years, will be interim editor until a new editor is selected. Cheryl also was the Metro editor and a reporter at the BJ.

L-R: Jim Mackinnon, Cheryl Powell-Fuller, Betty-Lin Fisher, Katie Byard

They mean business

I found this photo interesting for those of us who haven’t been to the third floor of the BJ for a few decades.

The people in the photo are Jim Mackinnon, Cheryl Powell-Fuller, Betty-Lin Fisher and Katie Byard, the BJ’s business writers.

The windows behind their heads are where Betty Jaycox once prowled in the Society Department, as it was called in those days. 

Between the heads of the three females is where Pat Englehart once ruled the State Desk. 

The blue-greenish stuff on the right of the photo is where the Sports Department once regaled the rest of the newsroom.

With scarcely 60 people left in the newsroom, that’s close to one-fourth the number when I retired in 1996.