Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president for digital innovation for American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio since January 2010, has been laid off, along with four members of the software development team he supervised. MinnPost reports that the move comes as APM and MPR “grapple with an unspecified end-of-budget-year deficit.” Spokesman Bill Gray told MinnPost that the shift will consolidate software jobs in St. Paul among existing staff, “taking advantage of existing technology” instead of custom development.
As part of the changes, Mike Reszler was promoted to v.p. for digital media; he joined MPR in November 2007 as managing editor for online news and is a veteran journalist with experience at Knight Ridder and MediaNewsGroup. In his new post Reszler also oversee the Public Insight Network, APM’s growing source database marketed to news organizations (Current, Jan. 24, 2011). “Having an award-winning journalist in charge of PIN strengthens our commitment,” Gray told MinnPost, “so the focus on PIN and journalism won’t be hurt.”