Baltimore Sun Editor J. Montgomery Cook, who oversaw a reorganization of the newsroom last year to merge print and online operations, is leaving the newspaper for a job in academia.
Cook will step down at the end of March to teach journalism at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He accepted a position as executive producer and lecturer for an experimental digital news and audience research effort, a new initiative funded with a $3.5 million donation.
Mary Corey, The Sun's head of print, will fill in as interim editor while the company searches for a permanent replacement, Publisher Timothy E. Ryan said. Corey grew up in Cockeysville and joined the paper as an editorial assistant in 1987.
Cook was promoted to the top newsroom job Jan. 1 of last year, when Timothy A. Franklin left to launch a sports journalism center at his alma mater, Indiana University. Four months later, The Sun laid off nearly a third of the newsroom - 61 employees - as it struggled in the midst of a deep recession and the bankruptcy of its owner, Tribune Co.
Cook said Tuesday that it was a "very painful" time for everyone involved. But he said he was proud of the work his staff did afterward. "We were able to rise from that and realize the important work we do as journalists survives everything," he said. "It has to. Readers depend on us."
As part of the reorganization that followed, baltimoresun.com employees joined the newsroom and worked closely with reporters and editors who had long been separated from the online side of the company. Cook considered that a critical step, and he sees his new academic role as a continuation of the work he's done at The Sun to mesh new media with old.
Cook joined the paper in 2004 as deputy managing editor, later launching b, the free daily tabloid. His journalism experience includes stints at The Washington Post, the Akron Beacon Journal and the Orlando Sentinel.
Jean Folkerts, dean of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said Cook was a good fit because he'd designed a new product, worked with an online operation and managed a newspaper in "a transitional period."
"What we hope to accomplish is both a newsroom but a testing lab at the same time, a place where we can test content, different business models [and] marketing approaches so we can help the editors in our state and elsewhere develop new approaches to this revolution in the media that's going on," Folkerts said.
"As an alumnus of UNC, Monty is seizing an opportunity to build something new at his alma mater, and we wish him well," Ryan said in a statement.