Boardman named Seattle Times managing editor

The Seattle Times has selected David Boardman to replace Alex MacLeod as managing editor when MacLeod retires at the end of June. Boardman, vice president of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., has worked at The Seattle Times since 1983, most recently as assistant managing editor for investigations, business and sports.

Jacqui Banaszynski is being named associate managing editor for special projects and staff development, a position created to draw on her unique talent as a writer/editor/teacher. She is currently assistant managing editor in charge of the Sunday newspaper.

"The Times is fortunate to have an editor of Dave's ability and drive ready to step into the role of managing editor," said Executive Editor Michael R. Fancher. "The staff knows him as a leader and trusts his commitment to the highest journalistic standards. The newspaper remains in capable hands."

"Jacqui's role will be to improve the newspaper through special content projects and special training efforts," said Fancher. "No one in the country brings her blend of skills to the newsroom, and this position is being designed to maximize her impact."

Boardman has guided improvements in sports and business coverage and has been the lead editor on many of The Seattle Times top investigative stories. He directed two Pulitzer Prize-winning team projects and edited three other stories that were Pulitzer finalists. The winners were an investigation of abuses in the federal tribal-housing program, which took the 1997 Pulitzer for investigative reporting, and coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath, which won the 1990 Pulitzer for national reporting. The finalists were an investigation of how clinical trials are conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (2002), an examination of Washington state's affirmative-action policies (1999), an investigation on how hazardous industrial wastes are turned into fertilizers (1998) and an exposé of sexual misconduct by U.S. Sen. Brock Adams (1993).

Boardman has also been the recipient of numerous other major national awards, including the Goldsmith Prize in Investigative Reporting from Harvard University, the Worth Bingham Prize in Investigative Reporting, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and the Associated Press Managing Editors Public Service Award.

He is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Board of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror.

In his nearly 20 years at The Times, Boardman, 46, has worked as a reporter, copy editor, local news editor, assistant city editor, city editor and metro editor. Prior to joining The Times, he worked at the Anacortes American, the Skagit Valley Herald and the Tacoma News Tribune. He has a bachelor of science in Journalism from Northwestern University in Illinois and a master of communications from the University of Washington. After graduation from Northwestern, Boardman worked as a volunteer on a construction project in Liberia. He is married and has two teen-age daughters.

"This opportunity is a dream come true for me," Boardman said. "As far as I'm concerned, this is the best journalism job in America -- helping lead a newsroom of creative, talented people who are committed to this remarkable region. This is a very, very good newspaper that will only get better in the years to come."

Banaszynski, 50, came to The Seattle Times in 1997 as assistant managing editor for local news. Before that she was senior editor for enterprise at The Oregonian and project editor and reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where she won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1998 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for international reporting. Banaszynski has won numerous other national and regional awards as a reporter and as an editor. She holds the Knight Chair in editing at the Missouri School of Journalism. She is on the visiting faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, does journalism training workshops around the world and has served as a Pulitzer juror.

Fancher said he has not yet determined what other staffing changes might occur as a result of these promotions but has no immediate plans to fill vacancies that will be created when Boardman and Banaszynski assume their new roles on July 1 of this year.

MacLeod has worked at The Seattle Times for 26 years, the past 17 as managing editor. MacLeod, who announced earlier this month that he will retire in June, followed in the footsteps of his father, Henry MacLeod, who worked at The Seattle Times for 43 years, also as managing editor for part of that career.

In announcing his plans to the staff on Feb. 3, MacLeod said "It is because of all we have accomplished, because of all the talent seasoned and new, because of the strong leadership throughout the news operation that I feel this is a good time to leave. There will continue to be challenges at least as great as those that have come before, but there is no doubt in my mind that this newsroom is ready for anything and poised for more greatness."

The Seattle Times Company is a 106-year-old locally owned family business. Founded in 1896 by Alden J. Blethen, The Seattle Times is a fourth- and fifth-generation family business. The family's flagship newspaper, The Seattle Times, is the largest daily newspaper in Washington state (532,000 readership) and the largest Sunday newspaper in the Northwest (1,035,000 readership). Other Blethen-owned newspapers in Washington are the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Yakima Herald-Republic and Issaquah Press. The company also owns Blethen Maine Newspapers: Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram; Kennebec Journal in Augusta; Morning Sentinel, in Waterville; and Coastal Journal, in Bath. The company owns four Web sites: seattletimes.com, NWclassifieds.com, NWsource.com and MaineToday.com.