Seth Liss is Poynter’s new digital editor. He’ll oversee Poynter’s website and newsgathering operations.
Liss is currently the online managing editor for WAMU, a public radio station in Washington, D.C. Before that he was an online content editor at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and a producer at the San Jose Mercury News.
“Seth has led three major digital news operations on both coasts, and he has a proven track record of success,” Poynter Institute President Tim Franklin said in a statement. “He’s committed to generating high quality news and information that is useful, relevant and timely to readers who care about journalism and the media industry.”
- Liss.
Reached by phone, Liss said his first priority would be a redesign for Poynter’s website, to “get it up to date and get a look to it that matches the content.” He will also look at overall strategy, including the ways readers consume Poynter content and how they share it on social media. He has no immediate plans to add staff, he said.
“My passion has always been to do journalism, and educating and assisting reporters,” Liss said. That’s my overarching reason for wanting to take this job.”
Julie Moos, who was previously the director of Poynter.org, left the institute in March 2013 to join McClatchy. Managing Editor Mallary Tenore left later the same year to become director of the nonprofit Images & Voices of Hope. Sandee Oshiro has served as interim editor since last October.
Liss and his wife, Julie Patel, a reporter for the Center for Public Integrity will move with their 2-year-old son to St. Petersburg, Fla., where Poynter is based. He’s a Florida native, from Miami Beach, and says he won’t miss the weather where he is now: “It was a long, cold winter in D.C.,” he said.
