Karen Lincoln will take over as president and publisher of The Daily Advertiser and The Daily World, while Karen Lincoln Michel, the current assistant managing editor for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, will take the reins as executive editor of the two Gannett newspapers. Gannett has named Karen Lincoln and Karen Lincoln Michel as the respective publisher and executive editor of The Daily Advertiser and The Daily World, the two Gannett-owned Acadiana daily newspapers.
According to The Advertiser, Karen Lincoln is a former media and consulting company owner replacing publisher Ali Zoibi, who retired from Gannett March 15. Before she started her own media company, Lincoln worked for five years as director of national sales and vice president/general manager of Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable.
Beginning March 26, the dailies' editorial staff will be managed by incoming executive editor Karen Lincoln Michel, the current assistant managing editor at the Green Bay Press-Gazette in Wisconsin and a former staff writer for The Dallas Morning News who holds a master's degree in journalism from Marquette University.
Lincoln Michel will take the place of former executive editor Brian Tolley, who left The Advertiser to take over as managing editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
What remains unclear is whether Gannett has yet to find replacements for two other department heads who recently departed from the Lafayette office. According to a company-wide email sent by Zoibi on March 1, the dailies' advertising and marketing director Blake Spivak is leaving March 23 to take a management position at The Austin-American Statesman in Austin, Texas.
On March 7, a week after announcing Spivak's pending departure, Zoibi informed employees through another company-wide email that Ross Doland, the dailies' longtime production director, "no longer works for Gannett."
"As this is a personnel matter no other information will be available," Zoibi tells employees in the email. "Let's pull together and continue to print the quality products our community expects from this team."
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