Knight Center Names Warhover 'Executive Editor for Innovation'

By: E&P Staff Tom Warhover, the executive editor of the Columbia Missourian, was named Wednesday to the newly created position of "executive editor for innovation" of the Knight Center in Editing Excellence at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Warhover will lead an effort to transform the daily "into newsrooms of the future, experimenting with new approaches to content and delivery while honoring the best traditions of public service, integrity and independence," the Knight Center announcement said.

"Editors across America are scrambling to keep up with unprecedented change in our industry, but get tugged back to the daily demands of running a newsroom," said Jacqui Banaszynski, the j-school's Knight Chair, and head of the Center in Editing. "This new role recognizes that the top person in the newsroom must be, above all, a leader of change while protecting the profession's best principles."

Warhover, a former editor from The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, has been executive editor of the Missourian since 2001. During his tenure Roger Fidler created the newspaper's digital, downloadable edition called eMprint Missourian. The e-edition is directed by Rob Weir, who is in his second year as a Knight Editing Fellow. The 11-month old twice-weekly edition has 5,000 subscribers.

"We need to plan for the newsroom of the next 10 years, and we need to do it in the next 12 months," Warhover said in a statement. "The pressure is on all of us. How can the Missourian help the industry? Through enlightened trial and error."

The Knight Center in Editing also has named two new Editing Fellows in the fourth year of a professional-in-residence program. Lisa Clausen, a designer at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, "will direct reporters covering family issues and design systems for collaborative planning within multi-media newsrooms," the Center said. Will Dean, formerly a features editor at the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News, will coach journalists on developing content across media platforms, and will developing business beat coverage at the Missourian.

Reuben Stern, the Missourian's senior news editor, has been named the paper's managing editor.

The Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism was established with a $1.5 million endowment from Knight Foundation.