Rick Green

Richard A. Green, a veteran journalist who has led award-winning newsrooms in five states, is editor of The Courier Journal and courierjournal.com, a post he has had since May 2018. Green has been in the media business since age 15, starting at his hometown newspaper in Coshocton, Ohio, as a reporter and photographer while in high school. He wrapped up his journalism studies in 1987 at Ohio University, and his career in the USA TODAY Network – which includes The Courier Journal -- spans 33 years.

He has been a reporter and senior editor at The Cincinnati Enquirer, executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California, and editor and then president and publisher at The Des Moines Register in Iowa. In 2015, he returned to Cincinnati as president and publisher before tackling a new newsroom assignment in late 2016 to be editor and vice-president of content at the North Jersey Media Group. That organization includes The Record and NorthJersey.com in Bergen County, a densely populated area of communities just across the George Washington Bridge from New York City, 30 community weekly newspapers and two magazines.

Green said his focus at The Courier Journal is conceiving and delivering journalism of consequence in innovative ways, which means a sharp focus and a reinvigorated commitment to revelatory investigative journalism work and memorable storytelling across Kentucky. It seems to be working: The Courier Journal has earned national attention recently for its coverage of local and statewide issues, including the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s controversial pardons and commutations as he was leaving office in 2019.

Green has strong family ties to Kentucky. His birth mother was born and spent her childhood in Louisa in Eastern Kentucky, and his wife, Laura Lydon Green, is a 1986 graduate of Presentation Academy in Louisville, and her parents, brother and his family still call Louisville home. Their son is a senior at St. Xavier High School.

“At a time of tremendous transformation in our industry, one important constant remains: Great journalism, told and shared in new and sophisticated ways,” Green said.

“I have such great respect for The Courier Journal staff and a deep love of Louisville and our commonwealth. We are focused on stories that make a difference across the state; focusing laser-like on those public service issues that touch readers’ lives.”