MASSACHUSETTS
Sean Burke, former president and group publisher of GateHouse Media New England, the largest newspaper chain in New England, with more than 100 newspapers in five states, was hired as president and publisher of the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram as of June 12. Burke has spent 30 years in the news industry, much of it in sales executive and other leadership roles. He was appointed regional director of advertising and marketing in 1997 for Community Newspaper Company, predecessor of GateHouse. During that time, he served for nine months in 2001 as publisher of multiple weeklies, including the TAB newspapers, of the Metro Division of Community Newspaper Company and as regional advertising director. In 2004, Burke became publisher of the then-Memorial Press Group, based in Plymouth and including 23 non-dailies, among them the flagship Old Colony Memorial. He was appointed regional publisher of GateHouse Media New England in 2006, a position that included being publisher of The Herald News of Fall River, the Taunton Daily Gazette, and ethnic and community weekly newspapers on the south coast of Massachusetts. He was promoted to GateHouse Media New England’s president and group publisher in 2013 and held that position until January. He has been a director and officer of the New England Newspaper and Press Association and a director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.
Doris Picardi has been promoted to display advertising director at the Boston Herald as of May 30. She will report to the vice president of advertising, Kathleen Rush. Picardi was employed in the classified advertising department for 29 years. She was first an advertising assistant and eventually became a staff manager, supervising revenue-producing events. Her responsibilities now include recruitment advertising, outside sales, outbound telemarketing, job fairs, supervision of advertising representatives for national, retail and Web advertising.
Adam Feuerstein is leaving New York City-based TheStreet to join Boston-based STAT, owned by the owner of The Boston Globe, as a senior writer and national biotech columnist. Feuerstein was a columnist on money and biotech for TheStreet. He also has been an assistant managing editor for the San Francisco Business Times and a reporter for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, where he covered commercial real estate and health care.
NEW ENGLAND
Mark C. Elliott has been named publisher of the Mt. Vernon (Ill.) Register News and the McLeansboro (Ill.) Times-Leader. For the past four years, Elliott was advertising director for the Anderson (Ind.) Herald Bulletin and then for Goshen (Ind.) News, for two years each. Before that, he was an advertising and marketing executive for newspapers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Arkansas.
The Transitions were written, at least in part, from published reports by Bulletin correspondent Joshua Leaston, an undergraduate student at Northeastern University.