WaPo Names Sally Buzbee As New Executive Editor

Sally Buzbee

The Washington Post has named longtime journalist Sally Buzbee of the Associated Press as its executive editor, marking the first time a woman has been appointed to lead the 144-year-old news organization.

Buzbee, AP’s executive editor and senior vice president, will take over leadership of The Post’s nearly 1,000-person newsroom next month, said publisher Fred Ryan, who made the announcement to the newspaper’s staff on Tuesday.

She succeeds Martin Baron, who retired at the end of February after serving as editor since 2013. Her appointment ended a search that began 10 weeks ago, following Baron’s retirement.

Buzbee, 55, has headed AP’s news operations since 2017, and has been with the organization since she began her career as a journalist in 1988. The venerable wire service, headquartered in New York, is one of the largest news organizations in the world, with about 2,800 journalists. Like The Post, it produces hundreds of news articles, feature stories and photos every day that are distributed to news outlets worldwide. It also produces audio and video reports that are carried on TV and radio stations.

Buzbee’s experience overseeing international newsgathering made her an attractive candidate as The Post expands its operations abroad, Ryan said. The newspaper has announced plans to open news hubs in London and Seoul this year that will enable its newsroom to report stories around-the-clock. It will also open bureaus in Sydney and Bogota, expanding its total to 26 outside the United States.

Buzbee also has Washington ties. From 2010 to 2016, she was AP’s Washington bureau chief, and was in charge of its coverage of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, as well as its coverage of Congress, the White House and federal agencies. During an earlier stint in Washington in the 1990s, she was the AP’s assistant bureau chief for news, running spot news coverage and overseeing the foreign affairs and national security beats.

“The Post has such a rich journalistic legacy, and such a terrific staff,” she said in an interview Tuesday morning from her home in New York City. “It’s exciting to join this organization at a time of growth and innovation.”

In a memo to employees on Tuesday, Ryan wrote that “we looked for someone steeped in the courageous journalism that is The Post’s hallmark, and who can extend our reach to news audiences in the U.S. and abroad. We sought a bold leader who can manage our dynamic newsroom and bureaus across the globe. . . . We looked for some who shares our values of diversity and inclusion, and who is committed to prioritizing them in our news coverage as well as our hiring and promotion.”