Sewell Chan

Executive editor

Update: July 2, 2024: Sewell Chan will join Columbia Journalism Review in fall 2024 (details below)

Sewell Chan is an American journalist and editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune. Previously he was with the Los Angeles Times. Chan also worked at the New York Times.

The son of immigrants from China and Hong Kong, Chan grew up in Queens in New York City and attended New York City public schools. The first in his family to graduate from college, Chan graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Social Studies. He studied with a Marshall Scholarship for graduate work at Oxford University in 2000, receiving a MPhil degree in Political Theory.

He began his career as a local reporter in 2000 at the Washington Post. He serves on the boards of Columbia Journalism Review, Freedom House and Harvard Magazine. He is a member of PEN America, the Council on Foreign Relations, and numerous journalism organizations. He was elected to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2022 and in 2023 joined the national judging panel of the Livingston Awards.

From 2000 to 2004, Chan wrote for The Washington Post, covering municipal politics, poverty, social services, and education. He moved to The New York Times in 2004, joining The Times's Washington bureau as a correspondent covering economic policy.

In February 2011, Chan was named a deputy editor of the Times Op-Ed page and Sunday Review section. Chan became an International News Editor from 2015 to 2018 at The New York Times. He then joined the Los Angeles Times in 2018 which named him deputy managing editor, overseeing a team of journalists who developed content for digital, video, and print platforms.

Promoted to editor in 2020, Chan oversaw editorial and op-ed pages. As editorial director, he examined the Los Angeles Times' troubled history with communities and journalists of color. After this effort, he publicly apologized for the newspaper's history of racism.

Chan joined The Texas Tribune in 2021 as editor-in-chief. He oversaw coverage that earned a 2021 editorial writing Pulitzer Prize.

Update:

Announced on Thursday, June 27th, 2024:

Beginning September 16th, 2024, Mr. Chan will head Columbia Journalism Review. Having served on the CJR board, Mr. Chan will take over as editor, a role previously held Kyle Pope. He will be leaving the Texas Tribune, which he has led since 2021.