Steven Ginsberg Named Editor of The Athletic

The Athletic, the sports website owned by The New York Times Company, announced on Thursday that Steven Ginsberg, a top editor at The Washington Post, would become its executive editor.

In a note to staff members, David Perpich, the publisher of The Athletic, said that Mr. Ginsberg would join the publication on Jan. 3 in the newly created role.

“We conducted an intensive search and interview process during which it became clear that Steven is the right leader for The Athletic’s newsroom,” Mr. Perpich wrote. “He is a champion of ambitious and creative journalism who has a love for breaking news, beat reporting, analysis and investigative scoops.”

Mr. Perpich added that Mr. Ginsberg “shares our vision for The Athletic to be the best destination for sports journalism in the world.”

The Times bought the The Athletic in January for $550 million. Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief executive of the Times Company, told analysts at the time that she expected the sports site to take three years to turn a profit. It has lost nearly $29 million in the past three quarters while under The Times’s ownership.

Mr. Ginsberg, 50,will lead the site as it further integrates into the Times Company and pushes to expand its subscriber base. In Mr. Perpich’s letter to The Athletic newsroom, Mr. Ginsberg said his goal as executive editor was “to build on what you have created, to continue bringing together the world’s best journalists to create the world’s best sports journalism site.”

Mr. Ginsberg is currently a managing editor at The Post, overseeing the publication’s major news sections. He started at the news organization in 1994, and worked as a reporter on The Post’s business and metro desks before becoming an editor in 2007. He was named national editor in 2017, and was a top candidate to take over as executive editor of the paper when Martin Baron announced his retirement in 2021. That job ultimately went to Sally Buzbee from The Associated Press.

Mr. Ginsberg’s departure is the latest in a stream of top executives and journalists exiting The Post. In recent months, Shailesh Prakash, the chief information officer, and Kat Downs Mulder, the chief product officer, left for other opportunities. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Carlos Lozada joined The Times’s Opinion section as a columnist in September.

Mr. Ginsberg’s move to The Athletic was first reported by Semafor.