- Poynter’s new president, Tim Franklin, met with Poynter staff on Thursday. Photo by Kristen Hare
On Tuesday night, Tim Franklin was editing State of the Union stories for Bloomberg News.
On Thursday afternoon, he stood in the dining room at the Poynter Institute, where he was introduced to staff as Poynter’s new president.
“He’s another son of the Hoosier State,” said Paul Tash, Times Publishing Company CEO and chairman of Poynter’s board of trustees. “I hope you won’t hold that against him.” Franklin and Tash both graduated from Indiana University.
Tash told staff that Franklin will start Feb. 10. Franklin first came to Poynter as a young editor when he worked at the Orlando Sentinel, Franklin said, and has been back and called on Poynter since.
“Poynter, for me, is a passion,” he said. “It’s a special place.”
In his career, Franklin said he’s worked at places that have been rocked by changes and a place that has risen through those changes. After two and a half years in Washington, D.C., he’s seen how quickly the media industry is changing.
“These are times like we’ve never seen before in American journalism,” Franklin said. “This is not a time to hunker down. It’s not a time to be victims of change. This is a time to instigate change, and I want Poynter to be a leader in instigating change.”
Franklin told staff that he plans to take the first 100 days in his new job to meet with Poynter’s board, alumni, staff and others in the industry to put together short- and long-term plans for Poynter’s future.
“We need to move quickly,” he said. “We don’t need to move impulsively, and we shouldn’t do that, but we do need to move quickly.”
