Gil Thelen

Published: Jan 9, 2006

Gil Thelen is publisher and president of The Tampa Tribune, a 225,000 circulation daily paper in Tampa, Florida. The Tribune is a national leader in multimedia journalism.

Thelen joined the Tribune in 1998 as executive editor. He became publisher in 2003.

He was executive editor and vice president of The State newspaper, Columbia, S.C., from 1990 to 1997. The Society of Newspaper Design in 1996 named The State one of the three best, American, midsize papers on content and presentation.

From 1987 to 1990, Thelen was editor and executive vice president of The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. The American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1990 named The Sun News as one of 10 examples of excellence among small newspapers.

Thelen served in a number of assistant editor positions at The Charlotte Observer from 1978 to 1987, the last as assistant managing editor for news.

Thelen was a Washington correspondent from 1966 to 1978, first for the Associated Press, then Consumer Reports magazine and finally the Chicago Daily News.

He is a graduate of Duke University and did postgraduate work at Cornell University. He teaches often at colleges and universities, is an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and has been a Pulitzer Prize juror. He has been chairman of ASNE's education committee, chairman of the ASNE Change Committee, served on the Journalism Values Institute and is a member of the ASNE Credibility Project. He chaired ASNE's Interactive Media Committee in 2001-2002 and chairs the Leadership Committee in 2003-04.