Timothy A. Franklin, who has led The Baltimore Sun through five award-winning and tumultuous years, announced yesterday that he would step down as editor to take a job in academia. He will be succeeded by J. Montgomery Cook, who for the past year has been director of content development for The Baltimore Sun Media Group. Cook will begin Jan. 1.
Franklin, 48, will start a sports journalism center at Indiana University, his alma mater, and hold an endowed chair. As editor, he said he was proud of the investigative and watchdog journalism the newspaper has produced and its moves to bolster its online presence. He also took on Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. when the governor banned his staff from talking to Sun journalists.
But Franklin also was editor during a turbulent period for the newspaper industry, which has seen its business model erode and advertisers dwindle. Franklin said it was "gut-wrenching" to preside over the reduction of the newsroom staff, from 384 when he started in January 2004 to about 225 today.
"When I got here, I don't think anybody saw the economic storm that was coming or fully saw the changes in the industry that were coming," said Franklin, who said his departure was voluntary. "It's been gut-wrenching. It's been painful."
Franklin said the paper has an innovative leader in Cook, who joined The Sun in 2004 after working with Franklin at the Orlando Sentinel. Cook, 44, was The Sun's deputy managing editor for presentation until last January, when he became the company's director of content development and oversaw the launch of b, a free daily aimed at young adults.
Cook said he will focus on extending The Sun's brand to the widest audience possible, reaching new readers in a variety of forms, from print to online to mobile devices. He said he expects the paper's readership to be larger, across all platforms, in five years than it is today.
"Daily journalism must survive, in whatever form or platform it can exist on," he said. "I want to be a part of finding a way to make that happen."
Cook said he is considering restructuring the newsroom to make it more nimble in responding to breaking news and getting news online. "We will still bring the best local daily journalism to [readers'] doorsteps and computer screens every single day," he said. "The mission and the values do not change."
Cook, a native of Lenoir, N.C., and a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he was humbled to lead The Sun.
