Washington Post names AP veteran its first woman top editor

The Washington Post has chosen Associated Press veteran Sally Buzbee to lead its newsroom, marking the first time a woman has been named top editor at the prestigious paper.

Buzbee, 55 (inset), started her career at the AP as a reporter and rose to become the organization’s executive editor and senior vice president, based in New York.

She will assume the helm of the 143-yearold Washington Post and its nearly 1,000-person newsroom June 1, the paper announced Tuesday.

Buzbee, who’s led the AP since early 2017 after working as its Washington bureau chief, distinguished herself by investing in the respected global news operation’s visual storytelling and complex investigative work.

Under her leadership, the AP won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for its compelling coverage of atrocities in war-torn Yemen. The AP also was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for its coverage of the Trump administration’s migrant family separation policy.

“The Washington Post is an institution with a rich journalistic legacy that is on the cutting edge of digital media,” Buzbee said in statement Tuesday.

She described The Post as at the “forefront of journalism’s future,” a place that “presents an enormous opportunity for growth.”

“It will be an honor to lead this incredible group of journalists,” she said.

In a Tuesday morning memo to staff, publisher Fred Ryan said he was “thrilled” to announce Buzbee’s new role.

“She has led one of the world’s largest and most respected news organizations. During her years as the AP’s Cairo-based Middle East bureau chief, she oversaw coverage of the Iraq War and other conflicts in a challenging and dangerous news environment,” he wrote.

“As the AP’s former Washington bureau chief, Sally is also thoroughly familiar with the sophisticated, fast-paced political reporting that distinguishes the Post, having led coverage of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections,” he wrote.

Buzbee joined the AP in 1988 as a reporter in her home state of Kansas and later worked in Los Angeles, San Diego, Cairo and Washington. She became assistant bureau chief for news in Washington in 1996, running spot news coverage and managing foreign affairs and national security coverage.

She succeeds ex-star editor Martin Baron, who left the Post at the end of February.