Education Week will soon bid adieu to its longtime executive editor and welcome, after a search, someone to fill a new position with the dual title of editor-in-chief and chief content officer.
Gregory Chronister will retire sometime this year after nearly 32 years at Education Week, including 17 years as managing editor and serving since 2006 as executive editor.
“This is a really a very natural and planned part of our leadership transition here,” said Michele J. Givens, the president and CEO of parent Editorial Projects in Education, based in Bethesda, Md.
Givens took over key roles at the helm of the nonprofit organization last year when Virginia B. Edwards, the president of EPE and editor-in-chief of Education Week, stepped down after 27 years. Givens, whose background is in the business side of the operation, did not take on the role of editor-in-chief.
“We are most eager to find the best possible editor-in-chief for what we believe is a plum opportunity,” Givens said. “This person will have big shoes to fill. Some of the secret to our success here has been long-tenured leadership.”
She is looking for someone with a strong news and journalism background to lead a newsroom that reports on education policy on multiple platforms—print, digital, and video.
Givens lauded Chronister for agreeing to put off his own departure during the recent period of transition at the organization.
“Greg had been planning for some time to retire and was graceful to continue to support me and our work here,” Givens said.
Chronister is known as a meticulous editor with a deep knowledge of the intellectual history of education policy as well being Education Week‘s style maven—the enforcer of the publication’s particular usage rules.
“I have had a great 30-plus years here,” Chronister said in an interview. (With “in an interview” being a phrase he often insists upon to distinguish from canned press release quotes or to signal to readers that an Education Week reporter really did speak to a well-placed source.)
“Education Week is in good shape journalistically and financially,” he added. “I feel confident that I can move on and enjoy a change of pace in my life knowing that Education Week is in great hands and that it’s time for a new generation to take on more responsibility.”
Chronister said he told a newsroom gathering last week that “it’s been my longtime ambition to clean my apartment.”
Givens said that EPE hopes to fill the new editor-in-chief and chief content officer position by June.