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Poynter’s Neil Brown named co-chairperson of the Pulitzer Prize board

The Times won dozens of national and state awards during Brown’s tenure, including six Pulitzer Prizes.
 
Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute, has been named co-chairperson of the Pulitzer Prize board.
Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute, has been named co-chairperson of the Pulitzer Prize board.
Published June 8, 2022|Updated June 8, 2022

Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute, has been elected co-chairperson of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Brown will lead the board with Tommie Shelby, the Caldwell Titcomb professor of African and African American studies and a professor of philosophy at Harvard University.

Prior to joining Poynter in September 2017, Brown was the editor and vice president of the Tampa Bay Times. He was named executive editor in 2004 and editor in May 2010, when he oversaw journalism published in the Times and its website tampabay.com. The Times won dozens of national and state awards during Brown’s tenure, including six Pulitzer Prizes.

He also launched PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking website that has been replicated worldwide.

“It is a great honor to serve as co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, a distinguished and dedicated group of creative leaders who aim to uphold standards for excellence in journalism, arts and letters,” Brown said in a statement. “Together we will carry on the work of ensuring the Pulitzer Prizes remain trusted and relevant.”

Brown joined Times Publishing Co. in 1988 as Congressional Quarterly’s managing editor in Washington, D.C. He came to the Times in 1993 as world editor, overseeing national and international news and then as managing editor and executive editor. He was named to the Times Publishing Co.’s board in 1997 and became a vice president in 2001.

Shelby began teaching at Harvard University in 2000. He is the author of “Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent and Reform,” which won the 2018 David and Elaine Spitz Prize for best book in liberal or democratic theory and the 2016 Book Award from the North American Society for Social Philosophy. He also wrote “We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity.”