Kathleen Carroll, the executive editor at The Associated Press and its top editorial staffer, will retire at the end of the year.
She has led the AP for 14 years.
In a statement, Carroll said her departure will allow time for “family events,” including her son’s college graduation in the spring.
“Plus, sleeping in on weekdays for a while,” she added in the statement.
The Associated Press will begin a search for Carroll’s successor, which is slated to conclude by the beginning of the year.
Carroll would appear to be going out on a high note, with the news cooperative recently having won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for its far-reaching investigation into exploitative labor practices in the seafood industry.
Before her most recent hitch at the AP, Carroll was chief of Washington and international bureaus for Knight Ridder, according to the announcement:
Before that she was an editor in AP’s Washington bureau, at the San Jose Mercury News and at the International Herald Tribune, and a journalist for the AP in Texas, New Jersey and California. Carroll began her career at The Dallas Morning News, where she cut her teeth on the tough Dallas police beat while still an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The Associated Press is among the most influential and far-flung news organizations in the world. Every day, an estimated 50 percent of the world’s population sees news from the organization, according to the AP.
