Bill Keller, Former Editor of The Times, Is Leaving for News Nonprofit

Bill Keller, a columnist at The New York Times and its former executive editor, will leave the paper to become editor in chief of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism start-up focused on the American criminal justice system.

Keller, 65, will be at The Times through early March before assuming his leadership post at The Marshall Project. Formed late last year by Neil Barsky, a journalist turned Wall Street money manager, The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering criminal justice. Barsky, 56, worked as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal before pursuing a career in finance. He was a research analyst at Morgan Stanley before starting a hedge fund, Alson Capital, which at its peak had $3.5 billion under its management. He shut down the fund in 2009 and has recently turned to filmmaking, directing “Koch,” a 2012 documentary about former Mayor Edward I. Koch of New York. The website, scheduled to start in the second quarter of this year, plans to raise money from foundations and individual donors and is modeled on other nonprofit news organizations. Its budget is projected to be about $5 million a year, which would pay for a staff of about 30.