N&O top editor Bill Church is leaving for a new post. ‘It has been a true pleasure.’
Bill Church — who joined The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun as executive editor in September 2021 and led the newsroom through the end of a pandemic, two national news events and a host of efforts aimed at expanding the audience for local coverage — is leaving for a new post across the country.
Church will become executive editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, a move that will take him back to a family-owned newspaper and place him and his wife, Darla, closer to children and grandchildren in Texas and Oregon.
Robyn Tomlin, chief news officer for The McClatchy Co., which owns The N&O, brought Church to Raleigh to fill the position she vacated when she was promoted.
“Bill has been an incredible steward of The News & Observer during a time of tremendous change in the media industry,” Tomlin said after Church announced his plans during a regular video staff meeting Thursday. “He has strengthened and diversified the staff, invested deeply in training and talent development and embraced purposeful experimentation. Most of all, Bill has kept The N&O focused on producing essential journalism that serves readers, the community and citizens across the state.
“North Carolina’s loss is New Mexico’s gain.”
A focus on audience, accountability
During his tenure at The News & Observer, Church launched a string of audience-focused newsletters, including On The Market, RDU on the Rise, The Western Wake Report and the North Carolina Observer. He increased the frequency of the Under the Dome newsletter and elevated The N&O’s presence on TikTok.
And Church put an emphasis on public accountability and investigative reporting, especially the prize-winning Big Poultry project that exposed how state legislators have shielded one of the state’s biggest industries from pollution regulations and how processors have shifted the financial risks to contract farmers.
A Japanese-American, Church was the first person of color to serve in The N&O newsroom’s top leadership role in its more than 150 years of publication. He focused on staff morale, turning daily 15-minute remote meetings into flying-emoji celebrations of revelatory reporting, writing and photography, as well as birthdays, anniversaries, new pet acquisitions and babies’ births.
He also found ways to get News & Observer employees away from the home offices they had created during the COVID-19 pandemic and back to the Fayetteville Street nerve center for “Toolkit Tuesdays” and potluck lunches.
They also gathered there to strategize on stories or to debrief after an event was over, such as the 2022 mass shooting at Hedingham or the UNC shooting in 2023.
Church is known for an open-door policy and a large collection of cartoon and novelty socks, which he sometimes wore around the carpeted newsroom without shoes. He would have been silent as a Ninja if not for his old-school journalist’s facility with profanity and a compulsive need to crack the last joke.
Embracing life in North Carolina
Church started his newspaper career in 1976, right out of high school, covering sports part-time for his hometown paper in Del City, Okla. He continued as a sports reporter for a while after graduating from the University of Oklahoma, then moved into editing.
He held editing jobs in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, New York and Oregon before going to The Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla., which won a Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting under his watch. Church rose to the rank of vice president of news and director of standards and staff development after GateHouse Media merged with Gannett.
In his three years here, Church embraced North Carolina life. He and Darla traveled the state from the mountains to the coast, visiting local snack shacks and tourist sites, attending hockey and basketball games. He referenced some of the adventures in a weekly column for N&O readers.
Tomlin said the search for a new executive editor would begin immediately. She said Thad Ogburn, currently the newsroom’s managing editor, will serve as interim executive editor.
Church broke the news of his move by giving a shout-out to the staff he’ll leave behind.
“I want to thank y’all,” he said. “This is The News & Observer. It’s got a long legacy, but its long legacy isn’t in the institution. It’s all about you in the first place. So I just want to thank you. It has been a true pleasure to serve as your editor.”
This story was originally published August 29, 2024 at 12:26 PM.
