On Monday, the Tampa Bay Times announced that Mark Katches will become the newspaper’s executive editor. The Poynter Institute owns the Times, and the Times’ last executive editor, Neil Brown, is now Poynter’s president.
Katches comes to Florida from The Oregonian, where he has been editor since 2014. He’s also served as editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where he led a newsroom that won two Pulitzers, and he helped start California Watch at the Center for Investigative Reporting.
According to a press release, “Katches’ background positions him to build on the Times’ strong record of investigative and enterprise journalism, and to help advance the Times’ digital initiatives and position the company for the future.”
The Tampa Bay Times reports that since Katches joined The Oregonian in 2014, that news organization grew its audience online by 70 percent.
“While he recognizes the challenges facing the news business, Mark also sees great possibilities here at the Times, and he brings a contagious zeal for the work,” Times Publisher Paul Tash told the Times.
Those challenges include newsprint tariffs and shrinking newsrooms, including the Times’, as they work to transform their business model from print to digital.
Katches, who is 55, starts on Aug. 20.
