Ex-NY Times biz editor Murphy to help run investigations

New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet sent out the following announcement:

As we have steadily built investigative muscle across the newsroom, the Investigations department over the last decade has consistently been home to ambitious journalism. Today we are announcing that Dean Murphy, an associate masthead editor, will join Rebecca Corbett in leading the department.

Dean comes to Investigations with a deep background in reporting — both domestic and foreign — and in managing, as the BizDay editor for four and a half years and the weekend editor for more than a year. He leads with humanity, humor and high standards.

In BizDay, he oversaw such landmark projects as an examination of the riches of Chinese princelings, the iEconomy series about Apple’s worldwide business practices and the investigation of the safety of General Motors cars. While working as weekend editor, he also ran the Trump Rules team, which examined regulatory rollbacks at the E.P.A. and elsewhere, producing some of our most distinctive work on the Trump administration.

Dean will work with Rebecca, one of the newsroom’s most prominent editors and leaders. She has most recently won accolades for her role in the Harvey Weinstein coverage, but she has long been a force behind some of The Times’s most consequential journalism in both Washington and New York.

Together they will oversee the department, but Dean and Rebecca will each continue to have broader roles in the newsroom. As Dean has done in his current job, he will work with Matt, helping to drive and vet investigative and enterprise work around the paper. In his newsroomwide role, he will particularly focus on organizing quick-hit investigative efforts, with the ability to draw on resources from other desks.

Rebecca, as a masthead editor, is admired as a journalist of extraordinary range and rigor. Beyond working with reporters on Investigations, she will continue to edit high-impact cross-desk investigative and enterprise work, focusing on some of the most important stories — both long and short term.

We now have built substantial investigative groups around various subjects — politics, BizDay, tech, Washington, international — and we will take steps shortly to rebuild the metro investigative team. We are looking to Dean and Rebecca to help ensure that our investigative reporting remains the leader in the field.