March 23 Tim Ryan memo on Monty Cook leaving as editor of the Baltimore Sun

From: Ryan, Tim

Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 4:01 PM

Subject: Organizational Announcement

Monty Cook, SVP and Editor of The Baltimore Sun, will be leaving at the beginning of April to return to his home state of North Carolina and his alma mater.  Monty will be the executive producer and lecturer for the Reese Felts Digital News Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.  In this role, Monty will lead an experimental digital news and audience research initiative with the goal of helping news organizations adapt to the new media landscape.  The centerpiece of this project will be a digital newsroom where students will gather and disseminate news for publications designed to reach a wide audience across multiple platforms.

Mary Corey, Head of Print, will serve as interim editor as we conduct an internal and external search.  Trif Alatzas, Head of Digital, Sam Davis, Assistant Managing Editor, Budget and Administration, and Andy Green, Head of Opinion, will report to Mary during this period.

Monty has made many contributions in his six year career with the Baltimore Sun Media Group.  Since he joined us as Deputy Managing Editor in 2004, he led a number of significant innovations here at BSMG, including the launch of b, our free daily aimed at young adults, and the transformation of our newsroom into a true digital powerhouse.  Total page views to baltimoresun.com increased 8.4 percent in 2009 to more than 434 million, and local visits to the site grew each month, to nearly 4 million in December.  Monty also created one of the first newsroom social media positions, director of audience engagement, and a team of community coordinators who were tasked with interacting with and growing Sun audiences online in a number of topic areas.

During Monty’s tenure as editor, our newsroom produced a number of significant local stories of tremendous impact on the community, including an investigation into the Baltimore City Foundation, carbon monoxide poisoning at the Cove Village apartment complex in Essex, coverage of the trial and resignation of Mayor Sheila Dixon, and the paralyzing Baltimore snowstorms of this past winter.

While I will miss Monty here at BSMG, please join me in wishing him success in his new position and the best to him and his family in their move to North Carolina.

Tim Ryan