BGov editor named Chronicle of Higher Ed editor

The Chronicle of Higher Education Inc. has named Michael G. Riley, editorial director of Bloomberg Government, to be its chief executive officer and editor in chief.

He succeeds Philip W. Semas, who is retiring after 44 years at The Chronicle, the last 10 as president and editor in chief.

In addition to the weekly newspaper The Chronicle of Higher Education, the company publishes the biweekly Chronicle of Philanthropy, Arts & Letters Daily, and a number of specialized Web sites.

Early in his career, Riley was a correspondent for Time magazine in Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, and Atlanta. He was named Southern bureau chief at age 32. In a joint venture of Time and CNN, he created and managed allpolitics.com, one of the first national political Web sites.

For eight years Riley was editor of The Roanoke Times, where he re-engineered the news department to focus on Internet strategy and foster rapid growth in online revenue. During his tenure the newspaper won numerous awards for both its print and digital operations.

In 2007 Riley became editor and senior vice president of Congressional Quarterly. Following CQ-Roll Call’s acquisition by the Economist Group, he became editorial director of Washington-based Bloomberg Government.