Jim Roberts Added to Times Masthead

To the Staff:

When Jim Roberts became editor of digital news a couple of years back, it was a good occasion to remind ourselves of the goal of newsroom integration: To diminish and eventually eliminate the difference between newspaper journalists and Web journalists; to make Web journalism as natural to us as writing and editing.
We've all come a long way but few of us can claim to have achieved that ultimate state of fully integrated print-digital consciousness. Jim is the exception who proves the rule, the guy for whom online Times journalism is just Times journalism. Under his leadership, the Web newsroom and the continuous news desk have blended into an indistinguishable whole, transferring skills and news values to and from into the rest of the newsroom and winning admirers on both sides of what used to be a print-digital canyon (which is now, in no small measure because of Jim's efforts, only a little wider than a crack in the sidewalk).
In recognition of his work, Jim is getting a promotion to Associate Managing Editor. His responsibilities, many of you will be immensely relieved to learn, remain the same, except that this gives him a place at the masthead table.
Bill Keller & Jon Landman