Washington Post names Sally Buzbee as executive editor, replacing Marty Baron
Sally Buzbee, senior vice-president and executive editor of the Associated Press, was named on Tuesday as the new executive editor of the Washington Post, succeeding the retired Marty Baron.
Buzbee has been AP’s top editor since 2017, supervising coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump’s presidency, the #MeToo movement, Brexit, protests over racial injustice and the 2020 US election. Her work helped yield top awards including Pulitzer prizes in feature photography and international reporting.
Fred Ryan, the Post’s publisher and chief executive, pointed to Buzbee’s achievements and experience in leading a global news organization.
“In an extensive search that included many of the best journalists in America, Sally stood out as the right person to lead the Post going forward,” he said. “She is widely admired for her absolute integrity, boundless energy and dedication to the essential role journalism plays in safeguarding our democracy.”
Buzbee, 55, was previously the AP Washington bureau chief and before that Middle East editor, among many other positions in an AP career stretching back to 1988.
The Post had been under pressure to avoid picking another white man. Cameron Barr and Steven Ginsburg, deputies to Baron, were reportedly among contenders to succeed him. Kevin Merida, an African American editor once of the Post but who moved to ESPN, was widely discussed but was named executive editor of the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
The widely revered Baron led the Post from 2013, guiding a resurgence under the ownership of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Baron retired earlier this year at age 66. He is now working on a book about Trump, Bezos and the future of journalism. The Guardian understands the price tag for the book reached $1m.
In March, discussing the Post’s award-winning coverage of the Trump presidency, he told the Guardian: “I think we confronted circumstances that we had not really confronted before: a president who made false statements, who made misleading statements, who lied with such consistency.”
Asked about the paper’s competitive relationship with the New York Times, which surged back to prominence in the Trump years, Baron said: “I don’t see it as a war. Other people characterized it that way but we have a great staff, they have a great staff, we compete like all other news organizations. That makes us better and it means that everybody has to stay on their toes and we did that.
“Certainly we felt competitive and during many weeks it felt like they would win one and then we would win one and then they would win and then we would win. It’s good for the public to have competing news organizations, otherwise you become complacent and there’s no room for complacency these days.”
The AP has also competed for scoops and readers in a such tumultuous times. In a statement on Tuesday, Buzbee said she had been ‘blessed to have one of the best jobs in journalism, and I’m excited to take on a whole new challenge.
“The Post has a strong legacy, a committed staff, and is doing some of the most innovative work to engage new audiences.”
Bezos, the richest man in the world, interviewed candidates in Washington last week. But Buzbee may find him to be a hands-off boss.
Baron told the Guardian: “I don’t talk to him that much, to tell you the truth – hardly ever. It’s not like we have one-on-one conversations with any frequency whatsoever.
“He’s got a bunch of other interests. I’m sure he reads us closely but he just doesn’t get involved in the dayto-day of our newsroom. He has not questioned anything that we’ve written about Amazon or about him at all.”
Buzbee is from Olathe, Kansas, and joined the AP as a reporter in Topeka. She was correspondent in San Diego, and then in 1995 joined the Washington bureau. In 2004 she became AP’s Middle East editor, in Cairo, leading coverage of the war in Iraq, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Darfur crisis and terrorism in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and elsewhere.
In early 2010 she was promoted to deputy managing editor and led the founding of the Nerve Center, AP’s New York hub. Later that year, she was named chief of the Washington bureau, where she oversaw coverage of the 2012 and 2016 elections, the White House, Congress, the Pentagon and the polling and investigative teams.
Buzbee will begin her new position on 1 June. The AP is immediately launching a search for a new executive editor.