Changing of the guard afoot for top leaders in journalism
NEW YORK — The “help wanted” list for top management jobs in journalism is getting long.
Searches for new leaders at brand names like The Washington Post, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times are coming at a time of rapid change in the news industry and increased attention paid to diversity in decision-making roles.
The two latest openings came last week when Marty Baron, the executive editor who transformed The Washington Post over the past eight years, and ABC News President James Goldston both said they will step down over the next two months.
The Los Angeles Times is further along in its search for a successor to Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine. The Reuters news agency is looking to replace its editorin-chief, Stephen Adler, who is retiring on April 1.
HuffPost and Vox Media need leaders too.
Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, is the subject of speculation, both because his job is the golden ring of journalism and he’s 64 years old. By tradition, the Times’ top editor steps down before reaching 66.
CNN chief Jeff Zucker, whose name was frequently invoked by former President Donald Trump during his administration’s battles with the media, is expected to announce soon whether or not he will move on.
Baron and Goldston cited the end of an intense election cycle and its exhaustive pace of news as a natural time to turn the page.
The moves offer news organizations a chance to anoint a new generation of leaders at a time the businesses need to be nimble and, following a reckoning brought on partly by society’s reaction to George Floyd’s death May 25, mindful of having a staff and stories that reflect their communities.
“What we’re going to have to do is really look at a lot of people who aren’t the usual suspects,” said Jill Geisler, an expert on media leadership at Loyola University of Chicago’s communication school.
Diversity issues have roiled several news organizations in the past year.
The Los Angeles Times publicly came to terms with both how the paper historically fed into the city’s racism with its coverage, and how it still lacked minority writers and managers.
The Washington Post named Krissah Thompson the newspaper’s first managing editor for diversity and inclusion. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s top editor resigned after many staffers were angered by a headline over a story about post-Floyd unrest.
This past week, CBS put two executives on administrative leave to investigate charges of intolerance to minorities and women at some of its local news operations.
With that backdrop, “one of these companies might want to make a statement,” said Richard Prince, who blogs about minority issues in the news industry.
One was already made in December when longtime MSNBC President Phil Griffin stepped down and was replaced by Rashida Jones, a Black woman who has moved up the ranks at NBC News.
The news organizations looking for leaders are far more complex than they used to be.
Baron’s Post has nearly double the employees it had when he started eight years ago, with a robust video unit and data journalism. Goldston’s successor won’t just supervise “World News Tonight,” but “The View” and the FiveThirtyEight blog too.
The news industry’s financial troubles over the past two decades has thinned the usual pipeline of leaders, Geisler said.
The best new ones may not have high profiles.
New leaders will have to be responsive to their staffs and be able to inspire those who work for them to produce great journalism, she said.
It’s a time, she said, that demands creativity.