Times announces three key staff changes

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 28, 2001

Jeanne Grinstead, a veteran journalist with 18 years' experience at the St. Petersburg Times, has been named a deputy managing editor.

Managing Editor Neil Brown also named Tom Drury, an award-winning novelist, freelance journalist and writing teacher, as the newspaper's world editor. Ron Brackett, who has more than 15 years' experience at the Times, was named executive news editor.

Grinstead, 50, has served the paper as assistant managing editor/features, a deputy features editor, editor of the paper's Perspective section and campaign editor. She previously oversaw the paper's successful sponsorship of the 1996 vice presidential debate and a 1998 gubernatorial debate.

"Few journalists can match Jeanne's range of experience and versatility of skill," Brown said. "She'll keep running our features coverage, but this appointment recognizes that her influence reaches well beyond those sections."

Grinstead has a bachelor's degree from Indiana University in Germanic languages and literature, and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Drury, 44, spent the first 10 years of his career working at newspapers in New England, including the Providence Journal in Rhode Island. He then turned to fiction writing and has published three critically acclaimed novels. Drury also has been a regular contributor to the New Yorker and has written for the New York Times Magazine and numerous other publications. He has been a writing instructor at Wesleyan University and taught seminars at Yale, Florida State and LaSalle universities.

Last year, Drury won a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa and a master's degree in fiction writing from Brown University.

Brackett, 38, began as a part-time copy editor at the St. Petersburg Times in 1985 and rose through a succession of editing jobs in the newspaper's St. Petersburg and Tampa offices. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of South Carolina.

In his new job, Brackett will continue to oversee the paper's national and foreign wire service coverage. But he also will take the lead in planning and presention of featured stories on page one and the front of the local section.

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