Explain Yourself ...

Changes in Work & Money ...

We'll be making some changes in the Work & Money section Sunday. We're moving some of our regular Monday features to Sunday. In turn, the Wall Street Journal Sunday section will no longer appear in the Star-Telegram.

Frankly, we like the Wall Street Journal content. It's excellent personal finance news and information. And it has fans among our readers. But for whatever reason, it never quite attracted the broader audience that we had hoped might find it useful. Perhaps some readers didn't realize that the Journal content was very useful and oriented toward "your money."

In any case, we're opting to use our resources -- newsprint -- for more local copy. The Monday section will also retain its local focus, as well as some of its popular features.

Steve Kaskovich, our assistant managing editor/business, will be fielding e-mails (and calls) on Monday from any readers curious about the change.

--Rex Seline.

Dog bites

We'll report this more fully in the morning, but the state's Attorney General says he's filed charges  against Mannatech, owner Samuel Caster, and other related entities. In fact, what Greg Abbott says might sound familiar. Almost like he was reading _ not a script but our clips. Maybe this will jar your memory: The Texas attorney general's office isn't talking about why it has taken no action against Mannatech Inc., a North Texas dietary supplement marketer deemed nine months ago to be a threat to public health and safety by the Department of State Health Services. That's the start of our story published June 25. About a month earlier, we had this story where some of the company's claims were loudly disputed. Today Abbott said, in this release, that Mannatech is accused of operating an illegal marketing scheme in violation of state law. We may be barking up the wrong tree, but didn't see any mention of the Star-Telegram's watchdog journalism work. Here are links (1) (2) (3) to other past stories. __Larry Lutz

Very nice recognition for hard work ...

At a big dinner in New York last night, staff writer Heather Landy learned that she had won a prestigious honor: the Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting. The judges recognized her work that uncovered the fudged resume of Radio Shack CEO Dave Edmondson. He resigned a week after the revelations were disclosed in 2006.

The Loeb awards are often referred to as the Pulitzers of business journalism, and this is one of the highest individual honors a Star-Telegram staffer has received in recent years.

This is what the judges said in their citation:

"Also nominated in the medium newspaper category, Landy’s piece is testament to how quality beat reporting can serve as an effective public watchdog. Displaying remarkable ingenuity, the reporter discovered the resume inflation of Radio Shack’s chief executive officer and tenaciously pursued leads until the truth came out and the CEO resigned."

We couldn't agree more.

--Rex Seline

Touching a nerve ...

One measure of the impact of a columnist is the response he or she generates. By that standard -- and many others, actually -- columnist Mitchell Schnurman is a star. Those of you with access to the print version, check out the Letters to the Editor Friday. I count five letters in response to his Sunday column on American Airlines and its unions, and one in response to a news article by Trebor Banstetter on American CEO Gerard Arpey. Interesting reading.

Schnurman was named one of the top business columnists in the nation this week by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. To paraphrase Lou Grant of the old Mary Tyler Moore show, Mitch has spunk. (Lou went on to tell Mary Richards that he didn't like spunk.)

--Rex Seline