Mark Trahant named P-I's editorial page editor

SEATTLE (AP) Mark Trahant, a newspaper editor and columnist who has worked for publications throughout the West, has been named editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Trahant, 45, will succeed Joann Byrd, who is retiring after six years, on March 3, the P-I reported Friday.

``He's a good thinker, a talented writer and an experienced editor,'' said Publisher Roger Oglesby. ``He's also a good listener and pays attention to a wide variety of viewpoints. I'm very pleased he's joining the P-I.''

Since 2001, Trahant has been chief executive for the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland, Calif. The institute is dedicated to training and promoting the careers of minority journalists.

A member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes, Trahant has also worked as executive news editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, editor and publisher of Navajo Nation Today, and a national reporter for The Arizona Republic, where he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for a project on government failures in federal Indian policy.

In 1996, he became editor and publisher of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News in Idaho. While there, he also wrote a column on topics ranging from his Western roots to issues affecting journalism; the P-I ran his column throughout 1997 and into 1998, until he joined The Seattle Times as a twice-weekly columnist.

Trahant left The Times during the Northwest Newspaper Guild's strike in 2000. He said he's looking forward to returning to Seattle.

``It sounds like it's going to be a great, fun time,'' he told The Associated Press from his home in Fort Hall, Idaho. ``The thing I like about editorials is the whole idea of community discourse how does a community have a conversation with itself?''

Trahant is a trustee of The Freedom Forum and a member of the Accrediting Committee of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)