• by Ray Schultz , November 19, 2024

Sally Buzbee, who left The Washington Post earlier this year under fraught circumstances, is joining Reuters as news editor for the U.S. and Canada, effective Dec. 11. 

Buzbee will oversee all text and visual journalists in North America. She succeeds Kieran Murray who is moving within the company to a new role focused on planning, creating and executing newsroom conferences and other events.

Buzbee will work closely with global visuals editors, including Jo Webster, Tom Platt and Rickey Rogers, and will report to Mark Bendeich, global managing editor for politics, economics & world news.

Financial journalists will continue reporting to Tiffany Wu, global managing editor, Business News. 

“I have admired Sally for years, and I am so excited that she will be joining the Reuters family in this key role,” says Alessandra Galloni, editor in chief. “Her journalistic chops, her management experience, her global understanding, and her positive and pragmatic approach are just what we need in this time of upheaval for the world and for the news industry.”

Buzbee served for three years as executive editor of The Washington Post and before that as the executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press. 

While at the Post, she oversaw coverage that won several Pulitzer Prizes, including the 2022 public service award for an examination of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

During her tenure at AP, the organization won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting for its national security coverage. 

Buzbee was named executive editor of the Post, the first woman to serve in that role, in 2021. But she left the Post in June of this year after reportedly clashing with incoming CEO Will Lewis.

According to The New York Times, Buzbee and Lewis disagreed over planned coverage of a ruling in a UK phone-hacking case in which Lewis is mentioned but is not a defendant. Lewis questioned Buzbee’s judgment when she insisted an article would run, the Times wrote.

In September, Buzbee accepted a two-month visiting fellowship at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for journalism, her plan being to explore the role of journalism in shaping the election.