Buzbee named executive editor at Washington Post

Sally Buzbee

Sally Buzbee, senior vice president and executive editor of The Associated Press, in New York, Dec. 13. 2018. (AP Corporate Communications)

The Washington Post today named Sally Buzbee executive editor of The Washington Post, effective June 1.

“Sally Buzbee has an exceptional record of achievement and a tremendous wealth of experience in leading a global news organization,” said Fred Ryan, publisher and CEO of The Post, in a statement. “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. She is widely admired for her absolute integrity, boundless energy, and dedication to the essential role journalism plays in safeguarding our democracy.”

Buzbee has been executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press since early 2017, overseeing the AP’s global news operation, which produces content for over 15,000 news outlets from nearly 250 locations worldwide.

As executive editor, Buzbee expanded the AP’s digital storytelling and increased its commitment to visually compelling investigative work. In 2019, the AP won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for their investigation detailing atrocities of the war in Yemen. Their coverage detailing the Trump administration’s migrant family separation policy was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

“The Washington Post is an institution with a rich journalistic legacy that is on the cutting edge of digital media,” Buzbee said in a statement. “This puts The Post at the forefront of journalism’s future and presents an enormous opportunity for growth. It will be an honor to lead this incredible group of journalists.”

Buzbee served as the AP’s Washington bureau chief from 2010 through 2016, where she led AP’s coverage of the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections and their polling and race-calling operations, as well as coverage of the White House, Congress and the Pentagon.

During that time, the Washington bureau produced strong national security investigations and won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting on the New York police department’s surveillance of Muslims in and around the city.

For five years beginning in November 2004, Buzbee served as the AP’s Middle East regional editor based in Cairo. In that position she led AP’s news coverage of the Iraq war and other regional conflicts, and managed the staff, budgets and security for AP’s Middle East region.

Buzbee joined AP in 1988 as a reporter in Kansas and has worked as a reporter in Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington. In 1996, she became assistant bureau chief for news in Washington where she ran spot news coverage and oversaw in-depth foreign affairs and national security coverage.

Buzbee succeeds Marty Baron, who left The Post at the end of February 2021.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.