Janelle Irwin Taylor
Tampa Bay Times business columnist Graham Brink has been promoted to Editor of Editorials for the Tampa Bay Times, the paper announced Wednesday.
Brink will be only the fourth person to hold the position in the last 56 years.
“I’m both excited and humbled to take on this important role,” Brink said. “In these difficult times, our independent spirit is needed now more than ever.”
Brink currently writes three columns a week on business and economics in the state of Florida and Tampa Bay area.
He’s worked at the Times since 1997 when he joined as an intern. Since then he’s served as a reporter covering issues in Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties.
Brink formerly served as an editor for the paper’s metro section in 2007, a business editor for nearly six years and, in 2014, was promoted to metro editor.
He was named assistant managing editor of metro and business in 2016 and began doing a business column in 2018.
“As the editor of our editorial pages, his perspective will reach to the broader range of issues that deserve the Times’ attention,” said Paul Tash, chairman and chief executive of the Times. “Graham also will push to expand our editorials and commentary, especially in the digital dimensions.”
Brink begins his new role as editor of editorials in June and will replace Tim Nickens who is retiring at the end of May.
Nickens has served as the paper’s editorial page editor since 2008 and won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on an editorial campaign to put fluoride treatments back into Pinellas County’s drinking water, a contentious issue that, beyond health implications, shifted Pinellas County politics in the early 2010s.
