Houston Landing CEO - Peter Bhatia

Peter Bhatia, a multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning editor who has spearheaded meaningful journalism and digital advances at numerous news sites across the country, is chief executive officer of Houston Landing, a non-profit, non-partisan, no-paywall local news site that launched in spring of 2023.

Previously, he was editor and vice president at the Detroit Free Press from 2017-2023, and served as a regional editor for Gannett, supervising newsrooms in Michigan and Ohio.

He was named the Benjamin C Bradlee editor of the year in 2021 by the National Press Foundation. He was honored as Gannett’s employee of the year in 2022. He won the 2018 Robert McGruder Diversity Award, presented by Kent State University for commitment and service to the profession.

Prior to Detroit, he served two years as editor and vice president of audience engagement at the Cincinnati Enquirer, where he led the paper to its first-ever news Pulitzer Prize, for a project that documented the impact of opioid addiction on the Cincinnati area. Bhatia came to Cincinnati from Arizona State's Cronkite School of Journalism. He joined the university in June 2014 as a visiting professor in journalism ethics after a 21-year career at The Oregonian in Portland, where he was editor.

His resume includes helping lead newsrooms that won 10 Pulitzer Prizes, including six in Portland. He is a seven-time Pulitzer juror. He is the first journalist of South Asian heritage to lead a major daily newspaper in the U.S., running The Oregonian from 2010 to 2014. He served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2003-04.

Bhatia was executive editor of The Fresno Bee, managing editor of The Sacramento Bee, editor of the York (Pennsylvania) Dispatch and Sunday News, managing editor of the Dallas Times Herald, deputy managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner and a reporter and editor at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.

He is a leader in journalism education, having served 13 years as president of the national organization that accredits college schools of journalism and mass communication. He has led or served on more than 25 Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications accrediting teams in the U.S., Middle East and New Zealand. He was honored with the Gerald M. Sass award for service to journalism education in 2022.

He is a 1975 graduate of Stanford University with a B.A. in history and communications. Peter and his wife, Liz Dahl, have two grown children who live in Spokane and Los Angeles, and two grandchildren.

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