Kristin Roberts Becomes First Woman to Lead News in Company’s 162 Year History

McClatchy named Kristin Roberts Vice President of News. She will lead a newly-expanded News group that comprises the company’s 30 newsrooms across 14 states, news operations and McClatchy Studios, the company’s long-form audio and video documentary production unit.

She is the first woman to lead News in the 162-year history of the company. In this top editorial role, Roberts will report to President and CEO Craig Forman, effective May 27, 2019.

“Kristin is a superb newsperson and a skilled digital innovator,” said Forman. “We are confident that her experience, vision and ingenuity will serve the company well as we accelerate our digital transformation.”

Roberts said, “McClatchy’s newsrooms are led by thoughtful and creative journalists whose teams are delivering essential local news and information to our readers and viewers every day. I’m thrilled to partner with them as we experiment on new platforms and launch ever-more ambitious projects to serve our growing audience.”

Roberts will become a member of McClatchy’s executive management team, which will be evenly composed along gender lines with her arrival. Roberts’ promotion continues a tradition of women in leadership at McClatchy. Eleanor McClatchy, the company’s pioneering CEO from 1936 to 1978, expanded the company into other markets and into new mediums including radio and TV.

Roberts will helm a team of strong, accomplished and pioneering regional editors who collaborate to ensure newsrooms deliver local journalism that is essential to the communities they serve: In the West region, Lauren Gustus; the Central region, Mike Fannin; and in the Carolinas, Robyn Tomlin.

Before joining McClatchy, Roberts served as National Editor at POLITICO, where she guided all coverage of the 2016 presidential race to produce in-depth reporting on the candidates and their campaigns that broke news and consistently led the field. She came to POLITICO from National Journal, where as Managing Editor she oversaw newsroom-wide operations. Roberts began her career at Reuters, spending 13 years covering Wall Street and economics in New York and Miami and moved to Washington to cover defense and foreign policy before taking on newsroom leadership roles.

Roberts holds master’s degrees from Georgetown University and Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from The George Washington University.

In other personnel news, the company expanded the leadership role of Scott Manuel, Vice President, Customer and Product, adding McClatchy New Ventures Lab and partnerships with such platform companies as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple to his management portfolio. As part of his work with these partners, he will lead the company’s pioneering collaboration with Google on The Compass Experiment for local news.

“Adding McClatchy New Ventures Lab to Scott Manuel’s Product and Customer team will accelerate the integration of what’s next in immersive storytelling into our customers’ user experience,” said Forman. “In addition, Scott’s deep management experience and proficiency in technology position him well to lead our collaborations with leading platform companies, especially our latest project to launch three new local news outlets with Google — The Compass Experiment.”

McClatchy operates 30 media companies in 14 states, providing each of its communities with strong independent local journalism in the public interest and advertising services in a wide array of digital and print formats. McClatchy publishes iconic local brands including the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. McClatchy is headquartered in Sacramento, Calif., and listed on the New York Stock Exchange American under the symbol MNI.

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