John Walcott, McClatchy's Washington bureau chief since 1997, is leaving the job to take a similar post at a business news website.

Walcott, 61, told staffers Monday evening, with McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt at his side.

“When you are my age and an opportunity knocks, you have to think before you decide not to answer,” Walcott told me. “An opportunity to do what still makes this bureau so good.”

That opportunity is with SmartBrief.com, a business website that Walcott will lead as chief content officer and editor in chief.

“It is a company that is growing and an opportunity for me as I get toward the end of my career to see how we can preserve the virtues of journalism and marry that with the new technology.”

SmartBrief's announcement stated:

SmartBrief is proud to announce that John Walcott will join the company as chief content officer and editor in chief. Walcott, the Washington bureau chief of The McClatchy Co., is an award-winning editor and journalist. As Ken Duberstein, former chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan, put it: “John Walcott has long been one of the best and fairest journalists in Washington, and he doesn't pull any punches. Never has and never will.”

Walcott, who joined the bureau when it was still under Knight Ridder, is credited with seeing it through some of the best investigative reporting and foreign coverage in the business.

While under Knight Ridder, the bureau was credited with being among the few D.C. outlets to question the claims of weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“I think McClatchy has proven that virtually all of what this bureau does defies what has happened in the industry,” he said, noting how Washington coverage has shrunk during his time in the city. “Cox, Newhouse, Copley, Media General. They have all closed. McClatchy is the exception.”

The staff e-mail announcing Walcott's departure is below:

FROM: Gary Pruitt and Heather Fagundes

SUBJECT: John Walcott

DATE: Sept. 27, 2010

We're sorry to announce that John Walcott has decided to resign as bureau chief of the McClatchy Washington Bureau. John has accepted a position as chief content officer and editor in chief with SmartBrief, Inc., an electronic newsletter publisher. His last day with McClatchy will be Oct. 27.

We can't thank John enough for his leadership and many contributions to the bureau and McClatchy.

John arrived at McClatchy with our 2006 acquisition of Knight Ridder and the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, where he had distinguished himself for leading a team of reporters in the critical coverage of the run-up to the war in Iraq. In 2008, the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University named John the first recipient of the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence in recognition of what it called his “dogged” pursuit of the truth about the Bush administration's allegations of Iraqi ties to terrorism and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

John was instrumental in the successful integration of the McClatchy and Knight Ridder Washington bureaus, and he continued that strong reporting tradition. Earlier this year, as most of you know, three McClatchy Washington Bureau reporters were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the winners of a Gerald Loeb Award from the UCLA school of management for their coverage of Goldman Sachs, Moody's and the causes and consequences of the nation's financial crisis.

“Leading McClatchy's Washington Bureau has been the greatest honor of my nearly four decades in journalism,” John said. “The reporters and editors who are the bureau are second to no one in their devotion to good journalism, which is not simply recording what important people say and then rushing to report it before anyone else does, but holding what they say up to scrutiny so the American people can hold them accountable.”

While we are sorry to see John go and wish him all the best in the future, let us assure you that we remain committed to the McClatchy Washington Bureau and its ability to consistently provide outstanding regional, national and international news coverage. A search for John's successor will begin immediately.