Sewell Chan

Chan, the son of immigrants from China and Hong Kong, grew up in Flushing, Queens and attended New York City public schools and Hunter College High School,[1] where he was the co-editor of the school's independent newspaper, The Observer.[2] His father was a taxi cab driver. He graduated from Harvard University with an AB in Social Studies in 1998 and received a Marshall Scholarship for graduate study at Oxford University.[3] He received his MPhil in Politics in 2000. He interned for The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1995, The Wall Street Journal in 1996, and The Washington Post in 1997 and 1999.[4]

From 2000 to 2004, Chan wrote for The Washington Post, where he covered municipal politics, poverty and social services, and education.[5]

After moving to The New York Times in 2004, Chan developed a reputation as a prolific reporter.[6] From 2007 to 2009, Chan was the founding bureau chief of City Room, the newspaper's local news blog,[7][8] which "helped spark The New York Times' digital evolution."[9] Under Chan, City Room was part of The Times's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news reporting which led Eliot Spitzer to resign as governor of New York.[10]

In January 2010, Chan joined The Times's Washington bureau as a correspondent covering economic policy.[11]

In February 2011, Chan was named deputy editor of the Times Op-Ed page and Sunday Review section.[12] While in that role, Chan was named in 2014 to the Out magazine Out100 list of the most compelling lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the world.[13]

From 2015 to 2018, Chan was International News Editor at The New York Times, working in London and then New York.[14][15]

In August 2018, the Los Angeles Times named Chan a deputy managing editor to "supervise a team of journalists responsible for initiating coverage and developing content for its digital, video and print platforms."[16]

In April 2020, Chan was promoted to editorial page editor, in charge of overseeing the editorial and op-ed pages.[17] He was the lead author of a 2020 editorial examining the Los Angeles Times' fraught history with communities of color and journalists of color and apologizing for the newspaper's history of racism.[18][19] After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Chan faced criticism for publishing a full page of letters devoted to Californians who had voted for Trump.[20] Under Chan's leadership, editorial writer Robert Greene was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, for his coverage of criminal justice reform in Los Angeles.[21]

Chan was named The Texas Tribune Editor-in-Chief effective October 2021.[18][21]

• 2021 Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership, CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism[22]
• 2021 Special Citation for Excellence in Journalism, Society of Professional Journalists (for the Los Angeles Times editorial, "An examination of the Times' failures on race, our apology and a path forward")[23]
• 2014 Young Leader, American Council on Germany[24]
• 2012 Marshall Memorial Fellowship, German Marshall Fund of the United States[5]
• 2010 National Advisory Board Member, The Poynter Institute[25]
• 2009 Young Leader, French-American Foundation[26]
• 2003 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism, The Carter Center[27]

• New York Times articles by Sewell Chan
• Appearances on C-SPAN