As a 9-year-old girl, Sarah Dussault spent summer breaks running around The Mercury News newsroom where her father, a features copy editor, would hand her plastic cylinders stuffed with marked-up news pages to send with a whoosh into pneumatic tubes to the building’s type shop.
“It was just the coolest thing in the world,” she said.
Now, three decades later, Dussault, 45, has been named Senior Editor of the Bay Area News Group, overseeing the newsrooms of The Mercury News and East Bay Times.
She replaces Bert Robinson, a relentless First Amendment advocate who started his journalism career as an intern at The Mercury News 40 years ago and led the news group to a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. He is moving to Florida to be close to family.
For Dussault (pronounced Doo-sew) to earn the top job, ”it’s absolutely surreal,” she said. “I’m just very proud and honored to be trusted in this role. These are great newspapers with a tradition of journalism excellence that we will continue.”
Dussault has played key roles in the news organization’s operations and coverage of its biggest stories during her 7-year tenure here, most recently as managing editor of visuals and sports.
“She is a tireless champion of our journalists and the work we do for our communities,” said Frank Pine, executive editor of the Bay Area News Group and MediaNews Group.
Dussault, a San Jose State graduate, got her start in journalism as a photographer and spent her early career at the Brownsville Herald in Texas, the Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Napa Valley Register. After 11 years at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, where she rose to director of photography, Dussault returned to San Jose in 2016 to join the Bay Area News Group.
Throughout her career, as the newspaper industry confronted tremendous change and downsizing, Dussault said she has learned to navigate through constant pivots.
“As my colleagues were struggling with the new playing field around them, I always wanted to step up and help them get through it and lead people through change,” she said.
She praised Robinson as an “amazing mentor,” and one of the “smartest editors I’ve ever known.”
“He has been a strong force at this newsroom for the last 40 years and his tenacity has brought us so many stories that shined a light on problems in our community and gotten them fixed,” she said.
Dussault said she plans to continue the news group’s role as a community watchdog as well as offer readers the high quality news, sports and entertainment they’ve come to expect.
“Not surprisingly, there were a number of very qualified candidates vying for this important role, but Sarah’s commitment to our journalists, devotion to the people of the Bay Area, and collaborative leadership style quickly elevated her to our top choice,” said Sharon Ryan, publisher and president of Bay Area News Group.
Dussault lives in Dublin with her husband, Scott, and three children, whom she cheers on from the sidelines of their youth baseball, softball, soccer and rugby games. Her father, John Orr, left the paper years ago and continues to live in Santa Clara. He said he’s proud of her and “so impressed because I know what it’s like to work in a newspaper.”
Dussault begins her new role Monday.
“The Bay Area is a vibrant, complicated place to live, and I want our newsroom to continue to be known as the leading source to help our community navigate it,” she said. “We will continue to work toward deep connections to the community and tell stories not just of the big guys but the little guys too.”
