Stuart Warner Named Editor of Phoenix New Times

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stuart Warner will become editor-in-chief at Phoenix New Times on January 23.

Warner has more than 30 years of management experience at news organizations, most recently as senior content coach at the Arizona Republic, where he supervised reporters covering immigration, the border, the environment, the legal system, and higher education. His writers have won more than 15 national and Gannett awards, including the Sidney Hillman Award for "Pipeline of Children," a 2014 series that used text, photography, and video to tell the stories of children fleeing Central America for the United States. His reporters Bob Ortega and Daniel Gonzalez were winners of the Virg Hill Journalist of the Year Award. Warner has also coordinated the Pulliam Fellowship Program for the Republic, recruiting top college interns from around the country and maintaining contacts with the nation's top journalism programs.

"I learned quickly that Phoenix is one of the hottest news towns in the country, and I look forward to helping New Times continue its long tradition of finding the stories here that others don't," said Warner.

Prior to joining the Republic, Warner was on or near the ground floor of two major digital news operations. He served as national projects editor for AOL News, where he supervised national reporters on long-form projects and helped Dana Chivvis develop her narrative skills, which she later put to good use as a producer of the runaway hit podcast Serial. He also was a contract editor for The Daily, the first daily news operation designed specifically for tablets.

From 1999 to 2008, Warner was special projects editor and writing coach at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, where he specialized in developing young talent. During his time at the Plain Dealer, five reporters he worked with were finalists for the Livingston Award.

Warner has played a major role in three Pulitzer winners as a writer, editor, and supervisor, and he hands-on edited three other Pulitzer finalists. He was the lead writer on a 15,000-word narrative that helped the Akron Beacon Journal win the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting. He was managing supervisor of the Beacon Journal team that won the 1994 Pulitzer Gold Medal for "A Question of Color," a 16-part series on race relations in Akron. And he edited the columns that won Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz the 2005 Pulitzer for commentary.

A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Warner began his career as a sports editor and sportswriter at the Lexington Herald-Leader.