Sally Buzbee, the first woman in 144 years to head the Washington Post

For the first time since 1877, the year of its foundation, the Washington Post will have a female director. Sally Buzbee, 55 years old, director ofAssociated Press, will take up his post from 1 June: “It will be an honor to lead this incredible group of journalists,” he said.

Born in Walla Walla, Washington state, she grew up in the Bay Area and in the suburbs of Dallas and Kansas City. She graduated from high school in Olathe, Kansas, and holds one degree in journalism from the University of Kansas and an MBA from Georgetown University.

He began his journalistic career in 1988, as a reporter for theAssociated Press in Topeka, Kansas. In 1995 he joined the Washington Post and becomes deputy chief. Back in Associated Press in 2004 and becomes editor from the Middle East, where it covers the war in Iraq, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and the growth of terrorist cells between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In 2010 she was promoted to deputy editor and leads the New York editorial office. In 2012 follows the elections which will lead to the presidency of Barack Obama and in 2016 those who will elect Donald Trump.

Sally Buzbee succeeds Martin Baron, who has won ten Pulitzer Prizes and several other journalistic awards in eight years as director. The newspaper that Buzbee goes to direct, after years of crisis, was restored when Jezz Bezos, owner of Amazon, has acquired the ownership for $ 250 million. Since then it has a staff of one thousand journalists, compared to 580 in 2013, and its audience has gone from a daily circulation of less than 500,000 copies to three million digital subscribers: it is second only to New York Times.

The search for a new director began in January when Baron, 66, with one month’s notice, announced his resignation. «Every day, when I work, I think of the women who preceded me in this profession that we love so much and that they have broken down so many barriersSally Buzbee explained. “And I am grateful to them practically every day of my life, because I know it took work and courage. I really feel that they have paved the way for the things that are happening now. ‘

Sally Buzbee, now head of one of the major American newspapers, was preceded by other established journalists: Alessandra Galloni, Italian, became the first director of Reuters in the agency’s 170-year history. Roula Khalaf has been directing the Financial Times, Rebekah Mary Wade is in charge of the Sun and Zanny Beddoes ofEconomist, while the director of Guardian is Katharine Viner. Rashida Jones is president of MsNbc, mentre Kimberly Godwin at Abc News.