Sports designer, movie editor, science writer named

The following staff changes have been announced in the last week:

Josh Penrod has joined the design staff as senior designer, sports. Josh will serve as lead designer on a talented staff of designers in one of the greatest sports cities in the world. Josh most recently worked as the lead news designer for sports at the New York Times, working through three Olympics, a Giants' Super Bowl win and a Yankees' World Series title. He previously worked as a designer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, the State (Columbia, S.C.); the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, S.C.; and the Aiken Standard in Aiken, S.C.

Julie Makinen will rejoin The Times staff, succeeding Tim Swanson as movie editor for the Entertainment Department. Julie has spent the last year and half in Hong Kong as deputy business editor of the Asian edition of the International Herald Tribune, fulfilling a longtime desire to live and work in Asia. Prior to that, she held a variety of editing and reporting jobs at The Times and at the Washington Post. As movie editor, Julie will supervise a talented team of reporters, bloggers, columnists and critics covering Southern California’s signature industry, mainly for Calendar and latimes.com. Over the course of her career, she has captained investigative projects, overseen front-page breaking news stories ranging from the Wall Street meltdown to Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game, and edited columns, blogs and Column One stories. In 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she spent several weeks in Baghdad helping to edit and coordinate coverage. An early advocate of the Web, Julie is equally at home online and in print. At the Herald Tribune, Julie coordinates reporters and editors on three continents, assigning and editing business and technology stories for print and for nytimes.com.

Eryn Brown will be joining the Health/Science team as a general assignment science reporter. She’ll be reporting both on large scientific discoveries and on the practical science behind current events. As The Times’ Letters editor, a position she’s held since 2008, Eryn has been distilling the often passionate and personal views of L.A. Times readers. In her new job, she’ll be distilling the often passionate but scientific work of researchers and scientists. Her beat will be a broad one, covering science as it touches an array of disciplines and departments. Eryn previously worked at Fortune magazine in New York, writing features about technology, dot-com culture and heavy industry. She moved to Los Angeles in 2002, where she freelanced for The Times (including the Los Angeles Times Magazine), the New York Times, Wired and other publications. She joined The Times’ editorial board in January 2006, where she wrote about the economy, water policy and healthcare.

Comments

[Amy Alkon]

It's extremely disturbing that the LAT is promoting a woman to science reporter who lacks a science background. It's no small thing to report on science, and to know when studies have limitations that make their findings invalid.

A recent example in the media -- a study out of University of Texas on "cougar" sex: I've read the study, and every single report in the media I read on it had sloppy errors in it.

I know times are tough but papers need to invest in training science reporters and not just promote any diligent young reporter with a notebook and a pen and a few years experience in other areas.

Here's one thing you can pass on to your reporter, from an epidemiologist who helps me be rigorous about in my assessment of studies: "There is no thing as a perfect study -- every study of humans has major flaws that handicap any attempt to draw general conclusions from it (often, however, one can draw specific conclusions, like that the authors are incompetent). Some studies just have fewer or smaller flaws than others on their topic -- so learn to think along a continuum, not just 'good data' or 'fudge.'"

Also, you don't just read one study on a topic -- you look at a body of work and see if they have similar findings.

To learn stats -- jeez, or start -- pick up a book an anthropologist/university prof recommended to me: Biostatistics: The Bare Essentials.

Really, it's just shameful that you're promoting this woman out of nowhere to report on science. It's not like reporting on cute cat stories or quoting some Wall Street guy.

To the reporter: If you want guidance on how to do what you need to do to train yourself, please contact me, and I mean that in a helpful way, not a condescending one.