BREAKING: Wilpers Out at the Examiner; SF Editor To Head DC Paper

Much bigger Revolving Door news: John Wilpers, the freshly shorn editor of the Examiner since its launch earlier this year, has resigned.

More soon….

> His departure was not expected.

> Wilpers is a native Washingtonian whose newspaper career has included both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, and Vermont’s Burlington Free Press. More recently he had worked at the Boston Metro, the city’s free daily before coming down to launch the Examiner.

> Possible word that a San Francisco Examiner editor may be brought in to head the D.C. paper. Is Executive Editor Vivienne Sosnowski east-bound?

> UPDATE 4:50 PM: Confirmed that Vivienne Sosnowski will take over the Washington paper as of January 3rd. Sosnowski came to the Examiner empire in August 2004 from Canada and Vancouver’s reliably conservative paper, The Province, where she’d be editor since 2000. Before that, she was executive editor of Toronto’s National Post and managing editor of the more liberal Vancouver Sun.

Here’s more on the her controversial tenure at the Province.

> From the AP: “Vivienne Sosnowski, currently executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner, will replace Wilpers, said Ryan McKibben, chief executive officer of [Philip Anschutz's] Denver-based Clarity Media Group. The job title at the Washington paper will become executive editor.

“Replacing Sosnowski as executive editor in San Francisco will be Malcolm Kirk, a senior editor for CanWest Publications Inc. and recent Editor-in-Chief of the Calgary Herald. He is also a former managing editor of the Vancouver (Canada) Province.”

…

“Wilpers said had spent several years commuting from Boston and ‘it’s time for me to reconnect with my family and for me to find a work situation that is more harmonious with my personal life.’”

“‘I am proud of the job that has been done over the past year in transforming the three Journal Newspapers into the Washington Examiner and proud of the role that I played in that success,’ he said.”

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