Chris Fusco had figured his tenure as executive editor of The Press Democrat and its sister publications would last longer than it did. He insists it was as rewarding, and as memorable, as he’d anticipated when he took the job in December 2023.

Fusco is leaving Sonoma County to become the Sacramento Bee’s executive editor, also overseeing McClatchy Media’s four other California newsrooms. His last day with The Press Democrat will be Sept. 15.

“This is an incredible newsroom, filled with incredibly talented people,” Fusco said. “It has been an inspiration getting up for work every morning and going into the newsroom to see how people work beside you. I’d like to think I gave you all the space to allow you to do what you do, while providing enough support to bring out your best work.”

Chief Digital Officer Annika Toernqvist will lead the newsroom on an interim basis as the company looks for Fusco’s successor.

“Chris is a talented and skillful editor and we appreciate his leadership and contributions to The Press Democrat,” said Frank Pine, executive editor of MediaNews Group, the newspaper’s parent company. “We wish him the best in his new role and will begin the search for his successor immediately.”

Fusco takes pride, he said, in The Press Democrat being able to maintain high-quality print publications during his 21 months here while seeing 8%-plus growth in digital subscribers — a calculus few publications have matched in recent years.

The South Side Chicago native also called out some of the significant awards his publications earned over the past year and a half. He mentioned Andrew Graham’s sprawling investigation of DEMA, a local homeless services provider that’s been eyed by federal investigators, and the National Headliner Award reaped by reporters Emma Murphy and Martin Espinoza for their series on safety issues at Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport.

Also, “I think some of our finest work happened earlier this year, when we saw problems unfolding in Santa Rosa City Schools and paired up our emerging education reporter, Adriana Gutierrez, with veteran columnist Kerry Benefield,” Fusco added. “Similarly, the budget upheaval at Sonoma State University — with Marisa Endicott immediately jumping into action alongside Austin Murphy, and Gus Morris evolving into this combination sports reporter and investigative reporter.

“When you see people blossom like that, it’s a rewarding part of the job. And something I hope I can continue to do in the next job.”

That new position, Fusco said, was too intriguing to ignore. In his new role with McClatchy Media, he’ll lead the Bee’s Sacramento newsroom, and serve as regional editor overseeing the Fresno Bee, the Modesto Bee, the Merced Sun-Star and the Tribune of San Luis Obispo.

“The Sacramento job presents an opportunity in a larger market,” Fusco said. “The Bee and its sibling publications reach all down the Central Valley, and all the way to the coast. It was an offer I couldn’t pass up.”

Before joining The Press Democrat, Fusco, 52, had spent much of his career in leadership positions at larger publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Houston Chronicle, and at the small, independent Lookout Local in Santa Cruz.

He believes the work published at The Press Democrat and its affiliated publications, the North Bay Business Journal, Petaluma Argus-Courier, Sonoma Index-Tribune, La Prensa Sonoma, Sonoma County Gazette and Sonoma magazine holds its own against any news organization he’s worked in.

“People call this a small or mid-sized market,” Fusco said. “But it’s a room of journalists with a big-city mentality, and I think our readers appreciate that and understand it.”

And they’re highly engaged. Fusco noted that he received more daily emails and letters in Santa Rosa than he did in Houston or Chicago.

He helmed The Press Democrat newsroom during a time of uncertainty and all-consuming change. In May, Sonoma Media Investments, which had been a beacon of local ownership for 13 years, sold the paper and its sibling publications to Denver-based MediaNews Group, part of hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which controls the largest privately owned network of newspapers in the country.

It redubbed the local operation the Press Democrat News Group.

Fusco called that process, and the steady drumbeat of rumors surrounding it, a blessing and a curse.

“I hope I was a force for good in the newsroom,” he said, “helping you all navigate those changes both on the management side and on the Guild side,” the latter being a reference to the newsroom’s unionized workers.

He thanked members of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, the union that represents the company’s reporters, photographers and copy editors, for “making this latest transition as smooth as it could possibly be.”

He won’t soon forget the North Bay, he said — its people, its wine and food, and the rolling hills that provided a thousand new cycling routes for the editor and his wife, travel writer Lori Rackl.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On X @Skinny_Post.