Kenneth F. Bunting

Kenneth F. Bunting became the first full-time executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition in 2010. Before joining the NFOIC and the Missouri School of Journalism, he spent parts of four decades as a journalist, executive and newspaper industry leader.

When the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication in 2009, Bunting was Associate Publisher. Previously, he had been Executive Editor and Managing Editor. During Bunting’s 12-year tenure as the ranking editor, the "P-I," as it is known in the Northwest, won more national and regional awards for journalistic excellence than at any other time in its 146-year history, including Pulitzer Prizes in 1999 and 2003.

Bunting also worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he was Senior Editor; the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, Cincinnati Post, San Antonio Express-News and Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

In 2004, Bunting was among five inaugural inductees into the Journalism Hall of Excellence at Texas Christian University, his alma mater. He has contributed to two books: An anthology, The Passionate Editor, published in 2004, and a college media studies textbook, An Ethics Trajectory: Visions of Media Past, Present and Yet to Come, 2008. He was editor for the late Molly Ivins when her column first went into national syndication. It was, at the time, the most successful column launch in newspaper syndication history.

He and his wife Juli, a former broadcast journalist, now reside in Columbia, Mo. They have one son, Maxwell, who still resides in Seattle and is a sophomore at Shoreline College.