Neil Brown

Neil Brown is the president of The Poynter Institute. He joined Poynter in September 2017, after serving as the editor and vice president of the Tampa Bay Times.

Brown has spent four decades as a journalist, news company executive and media industry leader. He recently completed nine years as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, the past two years as co-chair.

A native of Chicago, Brown is a graduate of the University of Iowa, Phi Beta Kappa, with a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism. He began his newspaper career as a reporter and editor at The Miami Herald, covering government and politics in Miami and working in bureaus in Key West, Tallahassee and West Palm Beach.

Brown joined the Poynter Institute/St. Petersburg Times publishing family in 1988, serving as managing editor in Washington, DC at Congressional Quarterly, which was created by Nelson Poynter, the longtime editor and owner of the Times.

Brown joined the Poynter-owned St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) in 1993 as world editor in charge of national and international news. He rose to managing editor and executive editor and was named editor in May 2010.

During Brown’s leadership of the Times, the paper won more national and state awards than at any time in its history, including six Pulitzer Prizes in eight years. He also launched PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking website that has been replicated nationally and inspired similar efforts worldwide.

Poynter and its staff of more than 80 journalists and educators leads the nation in training journalists in craft, ethics and leadership. Poynter is now home to PolitiFact, the International Fact-Checking Network, the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership and a news literacy initiative called MediaWise. Poynter works with journalists and citizens in the U.S. and more than a dozen countries.