Peter Canellos to be Politico’s No. 3 editor

The big local media news this morning is that Peter Canellos, who recently took a buyout offer from The Boston Globe, is moving back to Washington in order to become Politico’s executive editor. He will be number three under Susan Glasser, who has only held the number two spot for a few weeks. (The editor-in-chief is John Harris. See correction below.)

That rustling sound you hear is every reporter in Boston getting his/her resume to send to Peter Canellos, c/o @politico.

— Amy Derjue (@derjue) October 6, 2014

Do the Glasser-Canellos moves signal a shift toward substance and away from Politico’s infamous “win the morning” orientation? Let’s hope so. At the Globe, Canellos was known for taking a cerebral approach in his stints as Washington bureau chief, metro editor and, finally, editorial-page editor. He also oversaw the Sunday Ideas section.

In 2009, several months after Canellos was chosen to run the editorial pages, my WGBH colleague Adam Reilly profiled him for The Boston Phoenix. Canellos told Reilly his goal was to make the pages smart and unpredictable:

“Opinion is free. What we have to do is emphasize anything that rises above that cacophony,” says Canellos. “That means our columnists have to have a much more distinctive voice, and our columns and editorials have to be much better written than the cacophony — more authoritative, more credible, more reliable.”

This is good news for Canellos and for Politico.

Correction: I originally reported that Canellos would be the No. 2 editor.

@dankennedy_nu @politico @reillyadam @derjue Actually, Canellos will be No. 3, with Glasser No. 2 and John Harris No. 1

— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) October 6, 2014