Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal since 2005 and a 21-year employee, has announced his resignation from the newspaper. His last day will be Jan. 29.
Otterbourg, 48, said he is leaving for two reasons. "I want to try something else while I am young enough to do it," he said, adding that he hasn't found another job.
"Also, I have some disagreements with Media General's plans for our newsroom," he said. "I'm not in favor of consolidating our editing."
Media General Inc., the owner of the Journal and other media outlets, is considering consolidating the copy-editing and design functions of its three largest newspapers -- Winston-Salem, Richmond and Tampa, Fla. -- in one location. It already has created such news centers for its community newspapers in North Carolina and Virginia.
"I appreciate Ken's concerns about the impact on the (newspaper's) quality," said Carl Crothers, the newspaper's vice president and executive editor. "We are going to make sure that the newspaper's quality will not be affected."
Otterbourg, a native of New York, graduated in 1983 from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, with a bachelor's degree in economics. He worked as a news assistant at The Wall Street Journal and a reporter at The Register-Citizen in Torrington, Conn., before coming to the Journal in 1986 as a business reporter.
Otterbourg left the Journal in 1988 to take a job at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, but returned to Winston-Salem two years later to report from the General Assembly in Raleigh. He was later promoted to assistant metro editor and became the newspaper's metro editor in 1996.
In 2002, he was named the Journal's assistant managing editor for news, and in December 2004, he was promoted to managing editor to replace the retiring Jim Laughrun.
"Ken Otterbourg has been instrumental in the success of this newspaper, especially journalistically, in the past 15 or 20 years," Crothers said. "I think readers ought to understand the depth he brought to journalism in Winston-Salem. He's a young man, and he will have a lot of opportunities."
Crothers said that Otterbourg will be replaced. His departure also means the end of
"Otterblog," which he began posting on www
.journalnow.com in January 2006. His blog discussed media and Journal topics, including ethics, coverage, and general issues.
Otterbourg said he plans to take some time off, "decompress and think about ways to make a living." He said he may consider pursuing freelance writing or pursuing other media jobs.
"I haven't given up on journalism," he said.
Otterbourg oversaw layoffs in the Journal's newsroom and reduced coverage that began in 2006.
"All layoffs are tough," he said. "It makes it a rough job, but not unbearable."
Crothers said that the past three years have been tough on newsroom managers and editors. A lot of talented editors like Ken have left the industry," Crothers said. "That's not good."
Otterbourg said that during his tenure, the newspaper's proudest moments have occurred when its staff challenged the "status quo" on local, state and national coverage.
He and Crothers cited several series in the Journal, including: infant mortality in 1996, race relations in 1998, the rise and fall of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in 1999, the state's eugenics program in 2002, and Darryl Hunt in 2003. Hunt served nearly 19 years in prison for the murder of a newspaper copy editor before DNA led authorities to another suspect.
"All of those stories unraveled what people thought was the truth," Otterbourg said. "The truth sometimes can be a messy business."
jhinton@wsjournal.com
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