O.C. Register Names Editor, Circulation Executive : Management: Tonnie L. Katz will head the news department, succeeding N. Christian Anderson.

In a move that signals continuity, the Orange County Register has chosen a new editor from one of two principal newsroom executives.

Tonnie L. Katz, 47, one of two managing editors of the Register, was promoted Friday to succeed N. Christian Anderson, 42, who was appointed executive vice president and associate publisher earlier this week.

Also on Friday, John Walsh, 41, was promoted to vice president of circulation. Walsh came to the Register last fall from the Journal Register Co., a newspaper group headquartered in New Jersey. He succeeds John Schueler, 43, who became executive vice president and general manager.

The promotions were announced in a newsroom-wide meeting Friday afternoon.

Anderson recruited Katz in 1988 from the San Bernardino Sun, where she was managing editor. She joined the Register as an assistant managing editor, and Anderson promoted her to managing editor in 1989. Richard Cheverton, the Register’s other managing editor, is in charge of strategic planning, while Katz oversaw day-to-day operations.

Katz was formerly managing editor for the now-defunct News-American in Baltimore and Sunday projects editor for Newsday in Long Island, N.Y. She was not available for comment Friday.

She joins the ranks of seven other women across the country who direct the news departments of newspapers with a circulation of more than 100,000, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Katz and Anderson are credited with being co-architects of the Register’s so-called “newsroom without walls,” begun in early 1990. The concept, which took apart traditional newspaper coverage areas to better reflect the interests of modern readers, created such jobs as a shopping malls reporter and a hobbies reporter. Transportation and traffic are covered more frequently, and by separate reporters.

Katz’s interests are apparent in the Register’s frequent Page 1 stories on health news, colleagues say, and she often promotes unconventional stories for such display: The Register publishes mall hours on the front page the day before Christmas, for example.

She has been a champion of shorter stories. As a rule, only two of the stories on the Register’s first Metro page can “jump” to inside pages of the section.