The Texas Tribune named Sewell Chan, a senior editor for the Los Angeles Occasions, as its new editor-in-chief on Thursday.
Mr. Chan, 43, is the editor of the Los Angeles Occasions editorial web page and oversees its editorial board and opinion part. He’ll be shifting to Austin, the place The Tribune relies, in September, beginning on October 18th.
“The choice was actually in regards to the potential and the chance to work at a totally completely different kind of establishment in a totally completely different state and, sure, the prospect to run a company, which I feel shall be actually thrilling,” stated Chan in an interview.
4 months in the past, two of The Tribune’s leaders – Editor-in-Chief Stacy-Marie Ishmael and Chief Product Officer Millie Tran – resigned after a yr in workplace. Her determination to depart got here as a shock to Evan Smith, government director of The Tribune.
Mr. Chan, a local of New York Metropolis, started his profession with the Washington Submit. In 2004 he joined the New York Occasions, the place he labored as a Metro reporter, Washington correspondent, assistant opinion editor and worldwide information editor.
He joined The Los Angeles Occasions in 2018 as assistant editor-in-chief and have become editor of the editorial web page final yr. Below his supervision, Robert Greene gained a Pulitzer Prize for a sequence of editorials on the prison justice system. Mr. Chan was one of many inner candidates to go the Los Angeles Occasions newsroom after editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine left final yr. The job went to Kevin Merida in Could.
The Tribune, a nonprofit digital publication recognized for its rigorous reporting of politics and policymaking within the Lone Star State, was launched in 2009. Chan stated he felt about their civic mission and help base “throughout political rifts, geographical boundaries, throughout races and ethnic communities.” He added that The Tribune’s nonprofit construction was “an necessary a part of the answer” for is a information media business struggling to search out sustainable sources of revenue.
“I do not imagine in chains and newspapers owned by non-public fairness or hedge funds as a result of I feel native funding, native engagement for these regional information manufacturers is so necessary to the mission and in addition to gaining and regaining the belief of readers.” stated.
Chan stated The Tribune would stay a key publication for the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election.
“All the foremost forces in America, from local weather to expertise and regulation to the way forward for voting and reproductive rights, come collectively in Texas,” he stated.
Mr. Smith, who helped discovered The Tribune after twenty years at Texas Month-to-month, stated in an interview that Mr. Chan “has an distinctive sense of what the information is and must be.”
“He is an exceptionally light, empathetic, and cooperative particular person, and after a yr and a half of the information that has taken a horrible toll on all of us, I feel we are able to all profit from being in restoration mode, and I feel Sewell’s persona is ideally suited to that, ”stated Mr. Smith.
Mr Smith added that The Tribune had a median of greater than 4 million distinctive guests to its web site this yr, greater than double the pre-pandemic viewers.
