Charles Apple

Steve Buttry — editor, online innovator, keen industry observer — announced today he was leaving the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Gazette to join a new start-up news venture in Washington, D.C.

It’s at least the second time Steve has moved to the D.C. area and the third time he’s left Iowa.

A 1976 graduate of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Steve spent six years as managing editor of the Evening Sentinel of Shenandoah, Iowa and then six more years as national editor of the Kansas City Times and Kansas City Star. After a year as editor of the Daily News of Minot, N.D., Steve joined the Omaha World Herald in 1993 and then the Des Moines Register in 1998 as a writing coach. He moved back to Omaha in 2000 and then, in 2005, became Director of Tailored Programs at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va. He was named editor of the Gazette in 2008 and then moved into his current position — a coach for C3, “Complete Community Connection” — for Gazette Communications — in February 2009.

He’ll make the move next month, he writes in his blog.

Steve writes he’ll become…

…Director of Community Engagement for a new digital startup (new enough that we don’t have a name yet) that will be launching this year, covering local news in the Washington metro area.

Jim Brady, former executive editor of washingtonpost.com, is leading this operation for Allbritton Communications, owner of Politico and several television stations, including WJLA and News Channel 8 in Washington. Jim is a leader and pioneer of digital journalism and I am delighted and honored that he has invited me to join this effort.

He’ll put into practice a lot of the stuff he’s written about, he says.

Find a story about Steve’s move in Editor & Publisher.

Find Steve’s blog here. Find his Twitter feed here.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Innovative ideas, Job changes, Web news design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.