Charles Layton biography

Charles Layton biography

Charles Layton wrote the Project on the State of the American Newspaper's first report on statehouse coverage that appeared in American Journalism Review's July 1998 issue. He has written two follow-up parts of the series, including the cover article of AJR's 2002 magazine. The former assigning editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer is a co-editor of the book "Leaving Readers Behind; The Age of Corporate Newspapering," which has been called the most comprehensive examination ever conducted of the U.S. newspaper industry.

At the Inquirer for 20 years, Layton supervised foreign correspondents, edited special projects and investigative stories, and created a special team of reporters to cover science, medicine and the environment. He was one of the first journalists in the country to recognize the importance of the AIDS epidemic, toxic waste pollution and the phenomenon of homelessness in America's cities. As managing editor of The Inquirer Sunday Magazine, he supervised three reporting projects that won Pulitzer Prizes.

Since leaving the Inquirer in 1996, he has written and edited for the American Journalism Review, The New York Times Magazine and other publications. As a writer, he received the 2000 National Press Club Award for Press Criticism. He and his wife, the writer Mary Walton, worked last year as Knight International Press fellows in Ecuador, lecturing at universities and conducting journalism workshops at Ecuadorean newspapers. Early in his career Layton covered state government and politics in Louisiana and Delaware.

He currently lives in New Jersey.

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