David Laventhol

David Laventhol, "Committee to Protect Journalists board chairman from 2002 to 2005, has four decades of experience as an editor and publisher. Most recently, he served as publisher and editorial director of Columbia Journalism Review, from 1999 until 2003. Prior to his appointment at Columbia Journalism Review, he was editor-at-large for Times Mirror Co. from 1994 through 1998; president of Times Mirror 1987-93; and publisher and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times 1989-93. As president of Times Mirror, Laventhol supervised the company's 20 operating units. As publisher of the Times, he directed the country's second largest metropolitan daily newspaper. Under his leadership, the Times won three Pulitzer Prizes, including a 1992 award for spot news for its coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

"Laventhol began his career in 1957 at the St. Petersburg Times, where he was a reporter and news editor. In 1963, he joined the New York Herald Tribune as city editor. Three years later he moved to The Washington Post, where he was assistant managing editor. While at the Post, he developed and launched the newspaper's Style section, which became a standard for the industry. Laventhol moved to Newsday in 1969 as associate editor, was named executive editor in late 1969 and then editor in 1970. In 1978, he became publisher and chief executive officer. At Newsday, Laventhol directed the planning and development of the Sunday edition of Newsday, which began publishing in 1972, and he supervised the development of New York Newsday, a new city edition developed in the mid-1980s. Under his leadership, Newsday won many major journalism awards, including the 1974 Pulitzer Gold Medal for Meritorious Public Service for its 30-part series, "The Heroin Trail." Published in 1973, the articles traced the flow of illegal narcotics from the poppy fields of Turkey to the towns of Long Island.

"Laventhol is a member of the board of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the Century Association, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a past chairman of the Pulitzer Prize board, the International Press Institute, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and a former director of the United Negro College Fund, the National Parkinson's Foundation, and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Born in Philadelphia in 1933, Laventhol received his bachelor's degree in literature from Yale University in 1957, and a master's degree in English from the University of Minnesota in 1960." 


 * Development Advisory Board, Investigative Reporters and Editors