The New York Observer grabs Mediagazer’s ‘human editor’

The Cutline

Megan McCarthy, the editor of Mediagazer, the widely-read media news aggregator, has been named news editor by the New York Observer, the salmon-colored paper announced on Thursday.

McCarthy was the first dedicated "human editor" at the Techmeme spinoff when she joined in 2010. Before that, she was a blogger for Wired and for Gawker Media's ValleyWag.

In the Observer's hiring announcement, editor-in-chief Elizabeth Spiers praised McCarthy's "great eye" for stories, and said her arrival would "contribute to making an Observer that's faster and more agile."

No human replacement for McCarthy has been named yet, but Mediagazer is hiring.

Other notable media appointments announced in the last 48 hours:

• Jeff Smith, the Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, has been named managing editor of the national security reporting desk at the Center for Public Integrity, the nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization. Smith and two colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for their work on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He joined the Post in 1986.

• The Guardian, which is gearing up for the launch of guardiannews.com, its new American website, confirmed a pair of hires: Nick Davies, the reporter "who's blown the lid off some of the biggest scoops of the U.K. phone-hacking scandal for the British newspaper," will join the American operation next spring, Capital New York's Joe Pompeo reports. The London-based Guardian also said that Ana Marie Cox, the founding editor of Wonkette and a former GQ writer, will be joining the New York-based site. Cox wrote a piece for Guardian last month on Rick Perry, Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate.

• Jon Banner, executive producer of "World News With Diane Sawyer," was named senior executive producer by ABC News head Ben Sherwood. Michael Corn, whom Sherwood called "one of the highest impact players at ABC News" in an internal memo, will succeed Banner.