Straus Media Names New Editor in Chief of Local News Group
Former New York Post media columnist Keith J. Kelly assumes helm of Our Town, West Side Spirit, Chelsea News and Our Town Downtown
| 14 Dec 2022 | 01:23
Straus Media President and Publisher Jeanne Straus with incoming Editor in Chief Keith J. Kelly. Photo: Christina Scotti
Straus Media announced that it has hired New York Post veteran Keith J. Kelly to be the next Editor in Chief of its Manhattan-based weekly newspapers and web sites. The publications include Our Town, West Side Spirit, Chelsea News and Our Town Downtown.
Kelly succeeds Alexis Gelber, a former editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, who is stepping down at year end after six years in the top spot at the weekly chain.
Publisher Jeanne Straus said of the change in leadership, “we’re incredibly appreciative of the sensational job Alexis has done leading the papers. She’s done an outstanding job. We’re thrilled to welcome Keith to the team and look forward to seeing his knowledge of New York’s neighborhoods and passion for hyperlocal news reflected in print and online.”
Kelly stepped down from the New York Post after a 23 year run in July 2021 but continued to freelance for the Post as well as Crain’s New York Business, the Village Sun, the Daily Mail Online and others.
Earlier in his career, he worked at the New York Daily News under Pete Hamill, at Advertising Age as a senior editor and Magazine Week as its editorial director among other stops.
“While I’ve enjoyed covering the rapidly changing media scene over the years, I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed covering hyperlocal media more recently – everything from Ukrainian refugees, politics, entertainment, real estate, religion, community board hearings and of course neighborhood police and fire news.”
“In a sense, I’m coming full circle since I started my career at the North Shore News Group working as a reporter on the Smithtown News and the Northport Observer.”
Kelly lives in Stuyvesant Town with his wife Pat Walsh who is an RN at Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital. They have three sons.
“The only thing my wife wanted to know when I told her I was thinking of returning to a full time gig,” he said was: “’Do they have an office?’”
“She remembers full well the darkest days of the pandemic when she’d head off to work at the hospital each morning and I turned the living room of our two bedroom apartment into a mini makeshift newsroom by day.
“Now as the city makes a comeback, I’m excited to dig in to hyperlocal news at Straus Media “ said Kelly. “Alexis did a wonderful job steering it through the pandemic.”
He takes over Jan. 1.