Bob Heisse, executive editor of the Centre Daily Times, will leave the newspaper to take the same position with the State Journal- Register in Springfield, Ill. Heisse will assume his new post in early March.
“I want to thank Bob for his very capable leadership and commend him for his great accomplishments for the Centre Daily Times. I wish him all the best with his future endeavors,” said Susan Leath, the CDT’s president and publisher.
During Heisse’s 10-year tenure, the CDT won dozens of awards for its reporting, including the President’s Award, the highest honor given out by its parent company, McClatchy, for the newspaper’s coverage of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. Under Heisse’s leadership, the CDT continued its streak of 14 consecutive years as best paper in its class, as determined by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.
Multi-part investigations into affordable housing and low income residents also earned special accolades.
“There’s a lot of people in need in Centre County,” Heisse said. “They need help and I think we’ve done a lot of good work to raise awareness of their needs.”
Heisse guided the CDT through a difficult time for journalism, as the newspaper industry in recent years has struggled to cope with cutbacks and adapting to new technology and media platforms.
“What’s changed dramatically is how many different ways people can now access the news,” he said. Despite that, “There’s no better times for journalism than now. We can tell stories and reach people in so many different ways.”
A Lancaster native, Heisse attended Penn State and wrote for The Daily Collegian, the student newspaper. Prior to his time at the CDT, Heisse served as city editor of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg for 18 years. In September 2011, he was elected the national president of the Associated Press Media Editors, an association of editors at AP’s 1,400 member newspapers. He is a former president of the Pennsylvania Society of Newspaper Editors and the Pennsylvania APME.
In Springfield, Heisse will take charge of a larger newsroom and the responsibility of covering state politics from a capital city.
“As a capital city paper, everyone’s going to read you,” Heisse said. “So much is happening at that state level that the impact of reporting on that is going to be great at a time when there aren’t as many reporters out there.”
Walt Lafferty, publisher of the Journal-Register, praised Heisse’s understanding of the new era facing print media.
“He has a vision of the media landscape we’re in today, all the different channels of how we produce content and connect to our readers,” Lafferty said. “He gets it.”
With more than 50 full-time newsroom staff members at his new paper, Lafferty said, “He’ll have more resources to do better things.”
Cliff White can be reached at 235-3928.
