PERSONS.

Associations: At the Newspaper Association of America, Judith Burrell has been named to manage the group's diversity department. Burrell, the NAA senior vice president of communications and publisher of its monthly magazine Presstime, has been with the organization since 1996; previously she had been in the Clinton Administration. Burrell takes some of the responsibilities of Toni Laws, who recently retired. ... Also at the NAA, Jason Klein has been named chief executive of the Newspaper National Network, the New York City-based, for-profit advertising sales partnership between 23 publishing companies and the NAA. Klein comes to the NNN after having served as chief executive of Times Mirror Magazines and Time4 Media (a division of AOL Time Warner); he has also worked as a consultant and served as a vice president of the late Times Mirror Co. Klein replaces Nicholas Cannistraro Jr., who retired late last year. ...

Publishers: At Texas' Abilene Reporter-News, George Cogswell III has been named publisher; previously he was circulation and marketing services director at the Treasure Coast Newspapers (Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune, Vero Beach Press Journal) of Florida; all are Scripps properties. Cogswell has been a circulation executive with Scripps since 1997; previously he was with Freedom Communications and began his career in 1985 as a district circulation manager at the Middlesex News in Framingham, Mass. ...

Top editors: At the Southern Illinoisan of Carbondale, Meta Minton has been named editor. A south Illinois native, Minton had been editor of Texas' Midland Reporter-Telegram since 1998 and has worked extensively in Illinois, including a stint at the Edwardsville Intelligencer, where she was editor and associate publisher (both Edwardsville and Midland are owned by the Hearst Corp.). Minton replaces Managing Editor Gerald Garcia, who resigned last month. ... At the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill, N.J., Derek Osenenko has been named executive editor; previously he held the same position at Florida Today (both are Gannett properties). Osenenko joined Gannett in 1989 at New York's Poughkeepsie Journal. ... At Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal,

Jan Leach has resigned effective March 1, citing her struggle to "juggle demands for editor, mother, wife, community involvement and more." Leach has been a top editor at newspapers including the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Arizona Republic. ...