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.

“It’s a chance to build something from scratch, which I’ve never done before,” Mr. Keller said, “and to use all the tools that digital technology offers journalists in terms of ways to investigate and to present on a subject that really matters personally.”

Bill Keller, increasingly an embarrassment at theas a columnist--after an up and down tenure as chief editor-- announced tonight he is exiting the paper, just a month after he drew wide scorn for a column bullying a cancer victim , which was not mentioned in therelease.Keller had also recently supported a U.S. attack on Syria --apparently learning nothing from his boosterism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq . He also famously mocked Julian Assange (after exploiting all those WikiLeaks leaks). Did not allow his paper to call torture torture. Held that James Risen scoop--for a year--that might have elected Kerry in 2004. Mocked Baby Boomers with far less money that he has for expecting so much in "entitlements." I could go on.But maybe he gave up his gig after failing to get Obama to bomb Syria--and the cancer victim to stop tweeting.