Houston Chronicle News Executives Promoted

    HOUSTON, March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Tony Pederson and Tommy Miller, two
 longtime Houston Chronicle news executives, have been given new titles and
 expanded areas of responsibility effective February 13, according to Associate
 Publisher and Editor Jack Loftis.  Pederson, formerly vice president and
 managing editor, has been promoted to executive editor and senior vice
 president, while Miller moved up from deputy managing editor to managing
 editor.
     Both Pederson and Miller will continue to report to Loftis, who remains
 the Chronicle's ranking news executive. "Since given the additional
 responsibilities of associate publisher in 1998, some of my current activities
 are outside the Editorial Division," Loftis said.  "Both Pederson and Miller
 have helped take up the slack and, as tested and well-respected newsmen, are
 more than capable of moving the Chronicle forward in the 21st century."
     Chronicle Chairman and Publisher Richard J. V. Johnson said the promotion
 of Pederson and Miller broadens leadership within the newspaper's Editorial
 Division.  "Both editors have assembled outstanding performance records while
 serving at practically every level in the news gathering process," Johnson
 said.
     Pederson, who joined the Chronicle in 1974, was a sportswriter, copy
 editor and sports editor before becoming managing editor in 1983.  A native of
 Waco, Pederson attended Baylor University, earning a B.A. in
 journalism/communications in 1973.  He earned an M.A. in journalism in 1976
 from Ohio State University.  In 1993, Pederson was named recipient of the
 James Madison Award by the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas for his
 work on First Amendment issues.  He is a former president of the Texas
 Associated Press Managing Editors group and a recipient of the APME's Jack
 Douglas Award for leadership.  Pederson, currently serving a one-year term as
 president of the Inter American Press Association, is a member of the American
 Society of Newspaper Editors and is on the board of Houston Grand Opera and
 the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
     Miller has been involved with newspapers and journalism education for more
 than 25 years.  He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Baylor
 University and a master's degree in journalism from the University of
 California at Berkeley.  Miller worked as a reporter for United Press
 International in Dallas, San Francisco and Sacramento before joining the
 Chronicle in 1973 as a news reporter.  He later became an assistant city
 editor.  Miller went to the University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1981 as an
 assistant professor of journalism and two years later became managing editor
 of the Beaumont Enterprise.  In 1984, Miller returned to his teaching position
 in Oxford and rejoined the Chronicle in 1986 as an assistant managing editor.
 He was promoted to deputy managing editor in 1994.  Miller is vice president
 of Texas Associated Press Managing Editors and a former president of The Press
 Club of Houston Educational Foundation.  He is a member of the American
 Society of Newspaper Editors and also serves on advisory journalism councils
 for Baylor University and the University of Nebraska.
 
 

SOURCE  Houston Chronicle