Opinion editor Colleen Nelson departing The Kansas City Star to lead The Sacramento Bee
Colleen McCain Nelson, vice president and editorial page editor of The Kansas City Star, has been named executive editor of The Sacramento Bee.
Nelson has led the opinion section of The Star since 2016 and has also served as the national opinion editor for parent company McClatchy since 2018.
“We’re thrilled about Colleen’s well-earned promotion but sad to lose the best editorial page editor in the country,” said Star President and Editor Mike Fannin. “She has built a world-class team in Kansas City, reinvigorated our opinion journalism and set a very high bar for her successor.”
Nelson will begin her new role Jan. 19.
In addition to overseeing the Sacramento Bee team, she will also supervise local editors who lead The Modesto Bee, The Fresno Bee, the Merced Sun-Star and The Tribune of San Luis Obispo.
Nelson, who previously covered President Barack Obama’s White House for the Wall Street Journal, said she was excited to lead coverage of Sacramento, capital city of the nation’s most populated state. For decades, McClatchy was headquartered in Sacramento, home to the company’s first newspaper.
“It’s a great news town,” she said, “and the chance to lead the entire newsroom and the team there was just a rare opportunity.”
Nelson in 2010 won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing while working at the Dallas Morning News.
In her time at The Star, she has reshaped the newspaper’s opinion staff and strategy during a time when many local news organizations pulled back on opinion content.
The opinion page is now quicker to respond to the day’s news, encouraged to break news on its own and is laser-focused on local issues, she said.
“You can read 100 takes on President Trump’s latest tweet,” Nelson said. “But our editorial board is the only place you can find reported commentary on what’s happening with the Kansas City Police Department.”
Nelson said the strategy, also employed at sister newspapers across the McClatchy chain, has shown results in driving readership and subscriptions.
Last year, The Star’s Melinda Henneberger was a Pulitzer finalist for editorial writing that offered “fierce and unflinching defense of the women of Missouri on issues of abortion access, sexual assault and domestic violence,” according to Pulitzer judges. She also was a finalist the previous year, for commentary.
During Nelson’s tenure, the editorial board wrote extensively about how the Kansas City Police Department has impeded investigations into its own officers, protecting them from legal scrutiny. During the pandemic, The Star editorial board highlighted the efficacy of mask mandates and condemned public officials who compared public health measures to Nazi Germany.
Opinion writers also partnered with Star reporters on several investigative projects, exposing a racist culture in the Kansas City Fire Department, reporting on the root causes of gun violence in Missouri and examining The Star’s own failings in its past coverage of Black Kansas Citians.
“We’ve seen that strong editorials and strong columns can actually change the course of events. I am just so proud of the work that every member of this team has done,” Nelson said. “I feel so lucky that I’ve gotten to spend the last four years working with what I think is probably the best editorial board in the country. I would put them up against anyone.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
