Anne Kornblut Leaves Washington Post for Facebook

Washington Post associate editor Anne Kornblut will leave the paper for a job at Facebook, where she’ll be director of strategic communications. Kornblut oversaw the paper’s coverage of Edward Snowden‘s NSA revelations, which won a public service Pulitzer Prize in 2014. She joined the Post in 2007 after stints at the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the New York Daily News.

Here’s the memo, from national editor Cameron Barr:

Bad news like this doesn’t stay secret for long, so let me make it official: Anne Kornblut, an exceptional journalist and a treasured colleague, is leaving The Washington Post to become Director of Strategic Communications at Facebook.

This is surely an old-media-blossoms-into-new-media moment. We can take heart that a colleague with such an accomplished background as a reporter and editor is joining the leadership of a social media company that serves as a conduit for news for an amazingly large audience. We can also console ourselves by remembering that she and Jon will be able to continue residing on the same coast and to maintain the rewarding family life for Arlo and Audrey that they have enjoyed for the past year and a half.

The crowning accomplishment of her time in the newsroom was her stewardship of our coverage of the Snowden documents, an effort that demanded rigorous, high-stakes line editing and coordination among reporters, researchers, graphic artists and editors across the newsroom. The result was a series of stories that educated Americans about official intrusions into the privacy of their communications and won a Pulitzer Prize for public service. As deputy National editor since April 2013, Anne helped guide some of our best work, such as Carol Leonnig’s probe of the Secret Service and our unstinting reporting about the ACA rollout. She also honed her capacities for empathetic listening, adroit decisionmaking and long-term planning, qualities that have helped this newsroom prosper and will undoubtedly aid her in her new role.

Anne came to The Post in 2007 to cover Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, an experience that led to her 2009 book about women in politics, “Notes from the Cracked Ceiling.” She covered the first years of the Obama White House and became a deputy politics editor in 2012. Before coming to The Post, Anne worked at the New York Times and before that the Boston Globe, where she won the 2001 Aldo Beckman award for overall White House coverage.

Anne has asked the we spare her the ritual of caking, but we will find an opportunity or two to celebrate her success at The Post and wish her well at Facebook the next time she visits Washington. In the meantime, please be sure to friend our friend so we can all track what will be a shining run at a company that on a good day draws a billion users.

Cameron

Andrew Beaujon

Senior editor

Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.