Memo from Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee on newsroom leadership changes

As I announced separately just now in a note with CIO Shailesh Prakash, Kat Downs Mulder will move to a joint role as chief product officer and managing editor. In the newsroom, Kat will continue to oversee Video, Audio, Photo, Graphics, Design, Audience, the Universal Desk, Emerging News Products, the Multi-Platform Editing Desk, Lede Lab and the Next Generation and other initiatives. In addition, she will now also run the product teams and newsroom engineering. We are excited about this hybrid role, leveraging Kat’s experience in both the newsroom and product, a dual focus that will help accelerate our digital innovation. She will report jointly to Shailesh and me, effective immediately.

We are expanding Krissah Thompson’s portfolio as managing editor, adding oversight of Features and the climate/environment team, two coverage areas that are key to our efforts to attract younger and more diverse audiences. Krissah will maintain her focus on coverage of race, gender and identity and her work to build a stronger culture of belonging in our newsroom, and will now take on recruitment and newsroom training. In a little more than a year as managing editor, Krissah has contributed significantly to our efforts to promote diversity and inclusion and our coverage of the pandemic and climate. It’s been clear since the moment I joined The Post that Krissah should take on additional responsibilities. Her new role begins immediately; she will continue reporting to me.

After a distinguished run as a masthead editor, Tracy Grant has requested a return to writing. Tracy has made incomparable contributions as managing editor working on news operations, budget and personnel since 2018 and before that as a deputy managing editor and senior editor. After working on a forthcoming magazine piece, Tracy expressed a keen desire to focus full-time on reporting and writing. She will move to a new role on Jan. 1 and we will have more to say soon about her responsibilities. Tracy has been vital to The Post on many fronts, including the growth of the staff, maintaining safety and expanding training, and I know the newsroom joins me in expressing deep gratitude to her.

As part of these changes, we will soon post a job for a new managing editor to oversee significant portions of the news report, including the many coverage areas included in National — politics and government, the team covering the United States, and the health & science, national security and national enterprise desks. To this portfolio we will add Metro and Sports. We will seek candidates internally and externally for this managing editor role, which will report to me.

We will also post for a new position of deputy managing editor for news operations, who will work closely with me, the managing editors and department heads on budget, administrative issues and newsroom standards. This person will be a liaison between the news department and many other key parts of The Post, including our colleagues in Finance, Human Resources and Security. We will seek candidates internally and externally for this position, which will report to me.

These changes will help ensure that we are focused on producing more of the revelatory journalism for which The Post is known, and help ensure that we can present that journalism in the most innovative ways possible. I deeply appreciate the input and ideas that so many of you have shared since I began this job and hope these new assignments and roles will continue to provide the support that you, our talented journalists, deserve and need.