Peter Bale, former Vice President and General Manager of Digital operations at CNN International, has been named Chief Executive Officer at the Center for Public Integrity, the global nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in Washington, DC.
Bale succeeds William E. Buzenberg, who has served as Executive Director since 2007 and overseen countless award-winning investigations, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Breathless and Burdened.
“We are thrilled to have Peter Bale join the Center for Public Integrity as our new Chief Executive Officer," said Bruce Finzen, the Center’s Board Chair.
"Peter brings more than three decades of experience as a distinguished reporter, editor, manager and digital leader to the Center. He has exactly the experience and passion for great journalism that is necessary to lead the Center on a continued upward path, and assure that the vital multimedia investigative reporting that the Center is known for will reach an ever expanding audience," added Finzen.
Bale, 52, joins the Center after three years at CNN International, where he ran CNN.com and other digital products outside the United States. The International edition of the CNN site recorded double-digit growth in users, engagement and revenue during his tenure heading teams in Atlanta, London, Dubai and Hong Kong.
“The Center for Public Integrity is a powerful force for good. I am hugely privileged to join,” said Bale. “Its history of award-winning investigative reporting, combined with innovation and global reach through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, means it has a strong base to have even greater impact.”
Bale is a frequent speaker on media and the impact of the internet on journalism. He is on the board of the Global Editors Network and has been a regular presenter for Speakers for Schools, a British nonprofit aimed at inspiring young people.
A Reuters correspondent and editor for 15 years, Bale worked with the international news agency in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and held senior roles in London.
He left Reuters to pursue internet journalism and was a founder of FTMarketWatch, an award-winning site from the Financial Times and MarketWatch. He was later Online Editorial Director of The Times and The Sunday Times in London.
He also spent more than four years at Microsoft, where he was Editorial Director of MSN in the UK and then International Programming Director, responsible for content on more than 40 MSN sites around the world.
Born in New Zealand, Bale worked on newspapers and reported on politics before joining Reuters in Sydney, Australia. He is a dual UK and New Zealand citizen, and tweets under @peterbale.
Bale is expected to begin work at the Center early in 2015, at which time Buzenberg will be moving to Boston to begin a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.