El Paso Times editor resigns in effort to save newsroom jobs

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The executive editor of the El Paso Times is leaving the newspaper after being directed by its parent company to cut newsroom staff.

Robert Moore plans to step aside Oct. 6 in an effort to preserve reporting positions at the paper, the Times reported .

“For most of the past 31 years, I have had the opportunity of a lifetime to serve El Paso and work with many, many remarkable journalists who shared a passion for telling important stories about a community we love,” Moore said.

His resignation coincides with the departure of Lilia Castillo Jones, the president of the Times and several sister properties in New Mexico, whose position was eliminated by the USA Today Network, a division of the Gannett publishing company. The Times has eliminated several positions in the past year, and layoffs have occurred this week at other Gannett papers nationally.

Moore, 57, has twice served as the top editor at the Times. He left in 2006 to become executive editor of the Fort Collins Coloradoan before returning to El Paso five years later.

He has received a number of journalism awards, including the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award from the National Press Foundation and the Mayborn Award for Community Leadership from the Texas Press Association.

His career has been marked by efforts to promote transparency by public leaders and by holding government officials accountable. The Times under his leadership launched an investigation earlier this decade into a cheating scheme by the El Paso Independent School District that denied students the right to a proper education, the paper reported.

Executives with USA Today Network say they’ll work quickly to name Moore’s replacement.