NEW YORK - Multichannel News
last week announced promotions for two key members of its editorial staff: R. Thomas Umstead and Steve Donohue.
Umstead, the magazine's pay-per-view and sports editor, was promoted to programming editor. And senior editor Donohue was named national editor.
Umstead joined the magazine in September 1987 as a correspondent and later rose to senior editor before becoming PPV/sports editor in 1995. He has also been a regular contributor to Cablevision, MCN's sister publication, and has been active in several cable-related organizations, notably the National Association of Minorities in Communications.
In his new position, he will cover all aspects of cable programming for MCN's weekly and daily-online publications and will oversee the magazine's programming supplements. He replaces Linda Moss, who left MCN
for another opportunity.
"Tom is a natural for this job. He's been covering programming for us all along, and will no doubt continue to break big pay-per-view stories, a reporting category he virtually created," said MCN
editor Kent Gibbons.
Donohue has been with MCN
since October 1999, after stints at two other cable trade publications and earlier reporting gigs at Internet Week, Law Enforcement News
and The BuffaloNews. He will continue to write about such topics as interactive television and news-network programming, and will shift from New York to a Washington, D.C., base later this spring.
In Washington, he will work closely with Washington news editor Ted Hearn and look to include regulatory angles in broader stories about the cable industry.
"Steve has made a name for himself in cable-trade reporting for his investigative work, so he should flourish in the capital," Gibbons said. "We think he and Ted will make a terrific tandem."
