Monday, February 10, 2014

Keller leaves 'NYT' for Marshall Project website

Bill Keller, former editor of The New York Times, is leaving the paper to become editor-in-chief of the Marshall Project, a new nonprofit news site that will cover criminal justice.

"The Marshall Project is an irresistible opportunity to take some of what I've learned from The Times's past decade of reinvention, to learn some new things, and to build a modern journalistic enterprise from scratch," Keller said in a statement released by The Marshall Project, which plans to launch in mid-2014.

Keller, who is a columnist at the paper after serving as executive editor from 2003 to 2011, will assume the new job on March 1.

The Marshall Project is founded by Neil Barsky, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who went on to start a hedge fund. Barsky will serve as the site's publisher.

"Bill Keller's career as a reporter, editor and columnist exemplifies the principles of intellectual independence, fairness and creativity that will help the Marshall Project have an immediate impact," Barsky said in a statement.

Funded by foundations and individuals, the Marshall Project said it will have an annual operating budget of $4 million to $5 million and a full-time staff of 20 to 25 journalists.

Prior to taking the top newsroom job at the Times, Keller served as Moscow and Johannesburg bureau chief, foreign editor and managing editor. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1988.

The Marshall Project joins a small but growing pack of nonprofit online news operations that focus on a topic or a particular news gathering approach.

With one in 31 American adults under the supervision of the criminal justice system, the site hopes to publish stories that "will hold the system more accountable for delivering on its promise of humane and effective justice," Keller said.

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"We can create a national hub w! here aggressive reporting, rigorous analysis and stimulating conversation converge," he said. "This is a subject that defines us."

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