Nancy Barnes

Nancy Barnes (born 1961) is an American journalist and newspaper editor. She is currently editor and executive vice president of news at the Houston Chronicle but will become the senior vice president for news and editorial director of National Public Radio on November 29, 2018. She was the editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune from 2003-2013. She is also a member of the Peabody Awards board of directors, which is presented by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Career

External audio
Houston Matters, Nancy Barnes Leaves The Houston Chronicle For NPR, 5:34, Houston Public Media

Barnes earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the University of North Carolina.

In 2013, while Barnes was editor at the Star Tribune the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for local news for reporting on infant deaths at day care facilities. It also won the Gerald Loeb Award for Breaking News and two 2013 Edward R. Murrow Awards for multimedia journalism.

While she led the Chronicle the paper won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. It was a Pulitzer finalist in 2017 for reports on the denial of special education to tens of thousands of Texas students, and a 2018 finalist for its reporting on Hurricane Harvey.

At NPR Barnes will succeed Christopher Turpin, who is acting news chief, following the firing of Michael Oreskes over sexual harassment allegations. Barnes will become the fourteenth person and fourth woman to head NPR's news division since the position was defined in 1979.

Barnes spoke with Texas Monthly in May 2018 about sexism in the workplace, following the Me Too movement and revelations about Harvey Weinstein. She believes that the most blatant forms of workplace sexism are now being revealed because many women are now in positions of power and not afraid to speak about the problem.

She hasn't experienced "predatory behavior" herself, but decries more subtle forms of sexism which she has experienced.

"When I was in my late twenties, I was interviewing for a job at a newspaper, and I told the editors that I was pregnant. That was it. They told me, 'Well, we really need somebody who’s going to be around this summer, but we’ll hire you after your baby is born.' I think these male editors intended to eventually hire me, but they didn’t want to be bothered by having an editor go out on maternity leave. Iraq invaded Kuwait that summer, the paper merged with another, and there were no reporting jobs to be had for a long time. That could have completely derailed my career if I hadn’t been so persistent."