Education is arguably the most important issue in Texas, as today’s students are tomorrow’s workforce and innovators. We are committed to expanding and deepening our education coverage.
Sewell Chan
Sewell Chan was The Texas Tribune’s editor in chief from October 2021 to September 2024.
During his three-year tenure the Tribune won a National Magazine Award and a Collier Prize for State Government Accountability and was a Pulitzer finalist — all for the first time. It also won five national Edward R. Murrow Awards, two for overall excellence.
During Chan’s tenure the Tribune was acclaimed for its coverage of the Uvalde mass shooting, the impeachment trial of the Texas attorney general, numerous elections and campaigns, natural disasters, and debates over abortion, transgender rights, public education and more.
Chan recruited award-winning journalists and diversified the Tribune’s staff; built out its photo team; rebooted the Tribune’s premium politics newsletter, The Blast; and forged new partnerships with the Associated Press and FRONTLINE. He launched the Tribune's regional reporting initiative, providing coverage of areas of Texas that are severely underserved. He helped to manage the transition from the Tribune’s founding CEO, Evan Smith, to its second CEO, Sonal Shah, and to put the Tribune on a more sustainable footing and cultivate the next generation of leadership.
Chan left the Tribune in September 2024 to return to his hometown of New York City and serve as executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review.
Before joining the Tribune, Chan was previously a deputy managing editor and then the editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021. Chan worked at the New York Times from 2004 to 2018, as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy Op-Ed editor and international news editor. He began his career as a local reporter at the Washington Post in 2000.
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T-Squared
T-Squared: Welcoming new fellows in photojournalism, reporting and marketing
They’re joining us thanks to partnerships between the Poynter Institute and Stand Together Fellowships, The New York Times and the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and Google News Initiative and the Institute for Nonprofit News.
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T-Squared
T-Squared: The regular 2023 legislative session is behind us. We were with Texans the whole way.
The Tribune’s editor-in-chief on covering the 2023 Texas legislative session.
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T-Squared
T-Squared: Matt Adams, Dan Keemahill and Carlos Nogueras join The Texas Tribune
Adams will oversee audience growth and engagement. Keemahill is a data journalist working on investigative stories. Nogueras will be our first Permian Basin reporter, based in Midland-Odessa.
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T-Squared
T-Squared: Tribune wins Texas Managing Editors awards for investigative, freedom of information and feature reporting
Texas Tribune journalists were also finalists or honorable mentions in numerous other categories.
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Politics
Texas Observer will continue publishing after staff crowdfunds more than $300,000
The crusading liberal magazine had planned to lay off its staff and shut down. But the board has now reversed course.
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Politics
Texas Observer editors protest layoffs, launch crowdfunding to save the 68-year-old magazine
Journalists at the progressive publication expect to be laid off this week. Relations between the board and senior staff have severely eroded.
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Politics
Texas Observer, legendary crusading liberal magazine, is closing and laying off its staff
The 68-year-old progressive publication, which published Ronnie Dugger, Molly Ivins and Kaye Northcott, hit financial troubles and wasn’t able to broaden its audience, board members said.
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The 2023 Texas Tribune Festival
T-Squared: This year’s Texas Tribune Festival is Sept. 21-23
Texas and America are at a pivotal moment. With the 2024 elections looming, we have a cornucopia of talks and ideas planned.
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T-Squared
T-Squared: Matt Ewalt is The Texas Tribune’s new director of events and live journalism
He is currently the vice president for education at the Chautauqua Institution, where he curates and produces programming for one of the oldest and most respected lecture series in the country.
