Rusty Coats, an online vet in the newspaper industry and a good friend of ours, has been named VP of interactive for the newspaper division of The E. W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP) Company. Coats, 42, will lead the newspaper division’s Internet strategy, working closely with the division’s publishers. EWS is the newspaper part of the company which just split off from the cable/interactive part called Scripps Interactive.

Coats most recently served as managing director of product and audience development for Media General (NYSE: MEG), where among other things, he negotiated and implemented MG’s involvement with the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) newspaper consortium. Scripps is also a founding partner in the consortium. More details in the release.