Geoff Kelly named associate editor

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Geoff Kelly is the new associate editor at Investigative Post. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel

Geoff Kelly has been promoted to associate editor of Investigative Post.

Kelly has covered government and politics since joining Investigative Post in April 2019. 

“Geoff has an encyclopedic knowledge of government and the community at large,” said Jim Heaney, Investigative Post’s editor and executive director. “He’s also got a wealth of editing experience, which will suit him well as he steps into our No. 2 position.”

He succeeds Susan Schulman, who shared management of the newsroom until her retirement last month.

Heaney and Kelly will share editing duties, enabling Geoff to continue reporting and Jim to continue to devote time to fundraising and other aspects of the business side of the operation. 

“We have a smart, hard-working newsroom, and I look forward to helping my colleagues make their stories as good as they can be,” Kelly said.

Prior to joining Investigative Post nearly five years ago, Kelly was editor and publisher of The Public, a weekly newspaper he co-founded, for four-and-a-half years. Before that he did two tours as editor of Artvoice for a total of 10 years. He also edited an alternative weekly in Pittsburgh for two-and-a-half years.

His byline has appeared in The Nation, The Buffalo News, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among other publications.

Kelly, 55, grew up in East Aurora and graduated from Canisius High School. He returned to Buffalo after graduating from Middlebury College and — except for a couple years in Pittsburgh, followed by a couple years in the Middle East — has lived here ever since.

He has reported extensively for Investigative Post about the City of Buffalo’s precarious finances. Readers voted his reporting Investigative Post’s top story in each of the past two years: in 2023 for the story of a city fire department clerk who was paid not to work for eight years, and in 2024 for a piece about a legal dispute involving WBEN talk show host Tom Bauerle. Last January he launched a weekly newsletter, PoliticalPost. Sign up for it here.

Investigative Post is coming off a strong 2024, producing a record number of stories and experiencing a surge in website traffic and newsletter subscribers.

Plans for this year include:

• Continued coverage of Buffalo’s fiscal problems and the upcoming election for mayor.
• Expansion of our urban affairs reporting with the addition this summer of a full-time reporter through the Report For America program.
• Continued coverage of economic development initiatives and the effectiveness of government subsidy programs.
• In-depth coverage of government’s response to domestic violence and the impact of the presidency of Donald Trump on Western New York.
• Keeping an eye on the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. now that Byron Brown is in charge.
• The growth of collaborations with news outlets including WKBW, News 7; the Niagara Gazette; the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle; Challenger Community News; and the Investigative Journalism Bureau, affiliated with the Toronto Star and University of Toronto.
• Implementation of All In Media, a program designed to promote journalism as a career for high school and university students of color.

“We’ve got a big year ahead of us and I’m pleased Geoff is going to help me steer the ship,” Heaney said.

Investigative Post staff