E&E News executive editor Zaneski to depart

The following was sent out on Monday at Politico:

Team —

We are writing to share some important news about a deeply important figure at POLITICO: Cy Zaneski has told us that this summer he’ll be concluding an incredible 21-year run with E&E News, including more than eight years as its executive editor.

Cy’s tenure saw E&E evolve from a small trade publication into a central part of the national energy and environmental policy conversation, and a core part of POLITICO’s global newsroom and subscriber footprint.

When POLITICO entered discussions in late 2020 to buy E&E, Cy was the first person POLITICO’s editorial leaders met with — and his passionate commitment to his team and the great journalism it produced, as well as his irreverent sense of humor and generosity of spirit, were immediately evident.

Those traits became absolutely indispensable as E&E entered the POLITICO family months later. Cy helped ensure that the ship stayed steady, as he had many times before at E&E, and that the journalism thrived — during peak pandemic, no less, when everyone was working from home. He developed relationships with newsroom leaders, HR, the business and product teams that allowed E&E to move gracefully into POLITICO’s publishing operation.

Anyone who knows Cy understands that he is, at heart, a newspaper guy. And he brought that joyful and ambitious ethos to E&E in 2005 following an award-winning career as a reporter for The Miami Herald and The Virginian-Pilot and editing jobs at the National Journal and The Baltimore Sun.

As E&E’s stature grew, Cy’s leadership made it a deeply respected, much-loved source of news and analysis on topics ranging from electric vehicle development to the eventful tenures of former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to violent confrontations over public land in the American West.

As E&E’s executive editor starting in 2018, Cy mentored dozens of editors and reporters, many of whom are thriving as reporters and editors in our newsroom now, and many of whom have gone on to distinguished reporting and editing careers throughout the industry.

Cy, by nature, is not an attention-seeker. But we felt it was important to share his decision because it comes during the process of unifying our newsroom energy and environmental teams, and because of Cy’s outsize imprint for our publication.

Cy won’t be leaving us immediately; he’ll be here until June, editing and mentoring and reporters. There will be more tributes to come, and we’ll celebrate him properly later this spring.

Joe
Debra
Jonathan
Alex
John

NOTE: Zaneski is not retiring.