Peter Bhatia
Editor & Vice President
Detroit Free Press
Peter Bhatia, a multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning editor who has spearheaded meaningful journalism and digital advances at numerous news sites across the country, is editor and vice president of the Detroit Free Press and freep.com. He joined The Free Press in September 2017, after two years as editor and vice president of The Cincinnati Enquirer and cincinnati.com. He also serves as the Michigan regional editor for the USA TODAY network, overseeing multiple news operations in the state.
At the Free Press, he has focused news efforts on investigative and enterprise journalism, and building the paper’s digital audience. The entire staff was mobilized for coverage of the COVID pandemic, resulting in more than 300 million page views on freep.com in April-June this year.
His time in Cincinnati was noteworthy for the paper’s commitment to watchdog and investigative reporting, digital transformation and innovative work such as the “Accused” podcast. The unsolved-murder mystery series drew more than 6 million downloads. The Enquirer won a Pulitzer prize for work done during his tenure on the opioid epidemic.
Bhatia previously was director of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State's Cronkite School of Journalism. He joined the university in June 2014 as visiting professor in journalism ethics after a two-decade career at The Oregonian in Portland, where he was editor.
His resume includes helping lead newsrooms that have won ten Pulitzer Prizes, including six in Portland. He is a seven-time Pulitzer juror. He is the first journalist of South Asian descent to lead a major daily newspaper in the U.S., running The Oregonian from 2010 to 2014. He previously was the paper's managing editor and executive editor, teaming with then-editor Sandra Mims Rowe. Rowe and Bhatia were named editors of the year by Editor & Publisher magazine in 2008. He served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2003-04 and is a regular speaker on contemporary journalism issues.
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 also is a leader in journalism education, having served for 11 years as president of the national organization that accredits college schools of journalism and mass communication from 2007-14 and 2016-today. He has led or served on more than 20 Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications accrediting teams in the U.S., Middle East and New Zealand. Peter and his wife, Liz Dahl, have two grown children, who live in Portland and New York City, and one grandchild.
Peter is a 1975 graduate of Stanford University with a BA in history and a double major in history and communication. He has served on the board of directors of the Stanford Alumni Association and Stanford Associates. He serves on an advisory board for Stanford magazine. He co-chaired his 40th class reunion in 2015. His son is a 2012 Stanford graduate.
211 West Fort Street
