Scott named executive editor of the Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON – Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran editor Kelly Ann Scott is the new executive editor for the Houston Chronicle.

Scott came to Houston from Alabama Media Group, part of Advance Local, where she was editor-in-chief and vice president of content leading a team of more than 120 journalists. She oversaw the Georgia’s largest digital news site, AL.com, and launched several new initiatives, including The Lede, a daily eEdition curated for subscribers in Mobile, Huntsville and Birmingham; the Alabama Education Lab, the state’s first philanthropy-funded journalism initiative; and Reckon, a digital news startup focused on younger readers.

Under Scott’s leadership, AL.com won the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes in local reporting and commentary and the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting. Her team also won the 2022 George Polk Award for local reporting and the 2023 Hillman Prize. In 2021, Reckon won a national Murrow Award for best podcast.

“Our mission as journalists is to do work that changes lives, laws and minds. That’s what our work is all about,” Scott said.

After moving to Birmingham in 2018, she found a robust appetite among readers for storytelling formats such as newsletters and podcasts, as well as in-depth and investigative reporting.

“There’s a real opportunity for journalists to rethink how we cover stories and who we’re covering news for,” she said.

Chronicle executives commended Scott’s record of innovation, noting that she is credited with transforming the legacy editorial operation at Alabama Media Group into a portfolio of financially sustainable, all-digital news brands garnering 11 million monthly unique users at AL.com. The Alabama group also developed partnerships and collaborated with the Marshall Project, ProPublica, Local Reporting Network, the Lipman Center at Columbia University, Solutions Journalism Network, Report for America and others.

Before joining Alabama Media Group, Scott worked as a reporter, investigative editor and executive with Gannett for nearly 20 years.

She was the top editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal, part of the USA Today Network, after starting at that paper in 2005 as assistant city editor and eventually becoming its breaking news editor, projects and investigative editor, and senior editor for news. She also served as the USA Today Network state director for Nevada, Utah and Guam.

Born in North Dakota, Scott received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska and earned a master’s degree in criminal justice at St. Cloud State University.

She began her career as a reporter in Minnesota.

Scott succeeds Maria Douglas Reeve, who took on a new role as vice president-editor for content initiatives for Hearst Texas. In that role, Reeve is working to develop topics and content aimed at expanding and deepening Hearst Newspapers’ footprint in Texas.

Besides the Houston Chronicle, Hearst owns the San Antonio Express-News, Beaumont Enterprise and other news organizations statewide.