Publishers Weekly has announced three new editorial promotions. Senior editor for digital media Jonathan Segura has been named executive editor. Rachel Deahl is now news director; she was formerly senior news editor. Daniel Berchenko moves from copy chief to managing editor. The changes were announced on the heels of the news that longtime co-editorial director Michael Coffey is retiring as of June 2014 and that Jim Milliot will take over as editorial director.
Jonathan Segura’s new role involves expanding Publishers Weekly’s digital reach and moving the organization toward a digital-first environment. Rachel Deahl, who writes the “Deals” column as well as about business trends, technology and rights, takes on the day-to-day activities of the e-newsletter PW Daily. Daniel Berchenko is now responsible for managing the editorial production process of the magazine.
Jonathan Segura studied journalism at the University of Nebraska–Omaha and worked at The Reader (Omaha) and the Omaha Weekly before attending Columbia University’s fiction M.F.A. program. After a stint at Playbill, he was hired as the Web reviews editor at Publishers Weekly in 2005, then served as deputy reviews editor before taking on the role of senior editor, digital media. He is the author of Occupational Hazards (Simon & Schuster, 2008), a novel, and has also written for GQ, NPR and The Paris Review. His GQ essay “The Game of His Life” was anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing 2013 (Mariner Books, 2013). Segura lives in Brooklyn.
Rachel Deahl attended Tufts University, where she received a B.A. in English literature. Before joining Publishers Weekly in 2005 as a news editor, she covered book publishing for the start-up online magazine The Book Standard. Prior to The Book Standard, she was an assistant editor at Working Mother magazine. She has spoken about book publishing at various conferences, including SXSW, and her writing about books and culture has appeared in, among other publications, Slate, Nylon and The Boston Globe Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn.
Daniel Berchenko has been working in the publishing industry for 15 years since graduating from the University of Kansas. Before joining Publishers Weekly as copy chief in 2012, he was a copy editor at Photon International magazine. Prior to that, he worked for Barnes & Noble.com as a product manager and merchandising manager. He was also a consultant for the Strand Bookstore, creating an SEO strategy for the company’s website. He has edited several books—including, most recently, a catalogue of the work of artist Cheyney Thompson—and is a regular contributor to Mute magazine in London. Berchenko lives in Brooklyn.
Founded in 1872 and published continuously since then, Publishers Weekly is the venerable trade magazine of the book publishing industry. PW publishes 52 issues per year, including 9,000 book reviews, eight e-newsletters, two blogs, PW Select (a monthly supplement) and a robust website that reaches one million unique visitors per month.
