Executive Editor
Bloomberg News
Aspirations for ASNE
ASNE, like most journalism organizations, is at a crossroads. And crossroads are exciting places to be. I’ve been delighted to be part of ASNE’s Board for the last few years, and I’d like to continue my role on the Board, helping the leadership of ASNE help navigate the path for the organization and its members. We need to help ourselves and our members figure out apps and paywalls and how to do investigative journalism with smaller staffs; how to engage younger readers and how to be local and national at the same time. We need to figure out how to make partnerships work and how to motivate our newsrooms. We need to refocus on diversity and freedom of information. I’ve been involved in just about every aspect of journalism – from a big national paper (The Wall Street Journal) to a small local paper (Lexington Herald-Leader) and two regional papers (The Oregonian and The Philadelphia Inquirer) – and now with a huge, multiplatform organization – Bloomberg. I like to look at problems from all sides. I’d like to help ASNE do the same.
Career
Bennett was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from June 2003 to November 2006, and prior to that was editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. She also served for three years as managing editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland.
Bennett served as a Wall Street Journal reporter for more than 20 years. She held numerous posts at the paper, including auto industry reporter in Detroit in the late '70s and early '80s, Pentagon and State Department reporter, Beijing correspondent, management editor/reporter, national economics correspondent and, finally, chief of the Atlanta bureau until 1998, when she moved to The Oregonian.
In 1997 Bennett shared the Prize for national reporting with her Journal colleagues, and in 2001 during her tenure at The Oregonian, that paper won a Pulitzer for public service.
She is the author of five books, including "In Memoriam" (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; "The Man Who Stayed Behind," co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg (1993), and "Death of the Organization Man" (1991).
In addition to ASNE, she is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, The Pennsylvania Women’s Forum, and is on the board of directors of the Temple University Press and of the Rosenbach Museum, a Philadelphia museum of rare books. She was elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2003 and became co-chair in 2010. She is also on the board of the Loeb Awards.
ASNE Activities
An incumbent, Bennett joined ASNE in 2000 and was first elected to the Board of Directors in 2009. She has chaired the Readership Issues Committee and co-chaired the Diversity Committee, as well as having served on the Leadership Development Committee and as a convention floor manager. She is currently serving her second appointment to the ASNE Awards Board.