San Francisco-based MarketWatch.com has announced that it has hired Merc’s Therese Poletti as a technology columnist and the Chron’s Benjamin Pimentel as a technology reporter. The MarketWatch press release says:

“Poletti, an award-winning staff writer at the San Jose Mercury News for the last seven years, will deliver real-time breaking news commentary to MarketWatch.com’s audience of institutional and retail investors while providing fresh views of large, ongoing news topics in technology. Pimentel, previously a reporter with 14 years of experience at the San Francisco Chronicle, will cover manufacturers and fabrication equipment vendors in the semiconductor industry.

And the brain drain of major metro newspapers continues.