Chronicle Executive Editor Nancy Barnes to leave Houston for position at National Public Radio

Houston Chronicle Executive Editor Nancy Barnes will leave the paper to become senior vice president of news for national Public Radio. Houston Chronicle Executive Editor Nancy Barnes will leave the paper to become senior vice president of news for national Public Radio. Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Chronicle Executive Editor Nancy Barnes to leave Houston for position at National Public Radio 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Houston Chronicle Executive Editor Nancy Barnes — whose five-year tenure brought the newspaper its first Pulitzer Prize — announced Tuesday that she will leave the organization next month to become senior vice president of news for National Public Radio.

Barnes, 57, who also served as executive vice president and editor of Hearst Texas Newspapers, guided the Chronicle's coverage of Hurricane Harvey as well as investigations that garnered multiple national awards.

Chronicle President and Publisher John McKeon said a national search will be conducted for Barnes' replacement, with a transition plan still in the works.

"I want to say really emphatically: I liked my job, I loved the newsroom, I'm very proud of the work we've done," Barnes said. "The opportunity to really take a leap in a different direction doesn't present itself every day, and I wanted to go for it."

Barnes joined the Houston Chronicle in 2013 and led the newsroom to a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2015.

During her tenure, the Chronicle received widespread acclaim for its investigations into grand jury abuses, the statewide denial of special education services to schoolchildren and chemical regulation failures in Texas.

McKeon said he will "forever be appreciative" of the contribution Barnes made to the Chronicle. He expects to appoint one or two people to fill Barnes' responsibilities amid a search for her permanent replacement.

"Nancy has done a fantastic job at developing the talent in the newsroom and the kind of strategic direction we've been hoping to accomplish," McKeon said. "She's really laid the foundation for us."

Barnes, 57, joined the Chronicle after serving as executive editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune from 2007 to 2013.

In 2015, then-Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary; Falkenberg is now the Chronicle's editor of opinion. The Chronicle was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2017 for coverage of the special education system and in 2018 for its coverage of Hurricane Harvey.

Barnes will become the top editorial director at National Public Radio, which boasts 36.6 million monthly listeners across roughly 1,000 stations nationwide. The organization maintains 17 international and 17 domestic bureaus, employing about 380 staff members in its news division. Her position at NPR was previously held by Michael Oreskes, who resigned in November 2017 amid multiple allegations against him of sexual harassment.

In a statement Tuesday, NPR President and CEO Jarl Mohn said Barnes "has the news judgment to guide our storytelling, believes in the power of the NPR mission ... and has the business acumen to think creatively about how we can bring journalism to even more eyes and ears."

Barnes' departure means the Chronicle will have lost its top two editors in five months. Former managing editor Vernon Loeb, who was the second-highest-ranking newsroom leader, was named politics editor of The Atlantic in June. His position has not been filled.

The Chronicle's next editor is expected to maintain Barnes' work on increasing digital subscriptions, a key factor in maintaining the organization's finances in the face of dwindling print subscription numbers. While the Chronicle has avoided large-scale layoffs in the past few years, legacy newspaper organizations across the country continue to grapple with declining print advertising revenue and subscriber losses. The Chronicle has about 200,000 print subscribers and 20,000 digital-only subscribers, McKeon said.

"It's been very clear we need to get even more serious than we have in the past in growing subscriber revenue," Barnes said.

Barnes said she was approached in May by a recruiter working with NPR, ultimately accepting the new job last week. She will be based in Washington, D.C.