Michael A. Anastasi

Michael A. Anastasi is Vice President of Local News for the USA TODAY Network and Gannett, the nation’s largest news organization. In the role, he oversees the company’s more than 220 newsrooms across 46 states, including such notable titles as the Detroit Free Press, the Arizona Republic, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Indianapolis Star, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Des Moines Register. Prior to that appointment in May 2023, he was Gannett’s South Region editor and, from November 2015 to December 2024, vice president and executive editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. He was senior vice president and executive editor of the Los Angeles News Group from 2012-2015.

In 2021 Anastasi was named co-laureate of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award, a global honor that recognizes the best human rights and social justice reporting in the world. Under his leadership, the Los Angeles News Group received the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting in 2015 while The Tennessean received the Peabody Award in Public Service and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2024. 

Anastasi is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach, where he won a Hearst Award as a student and later taught a class in digital reporting techniques. Since 2015, he and his wife Julie have funded a scholarship within the College of Liberal Arts, which in 2024 became fully endowed and will continue into perpetuity.

Anastasi holds a Master of Arts degree in Leadership and Public Service from Lipscomb University and is a two-time Pulitzer juror.