Veteran Chicago Tribune editor Rochell Sleets is leaving the newspaper after 16 years to become managing editor of Newsday, the Long Island-based daily newspaper.
Sleets, 45, who rose through the editorial ranks to become co-news director at the Chicago Tribune, will head up the daily news operation at Newsday, a venerable tabloid once owned by Tribune’s former parent company.
“It was a really difficult decision,” Sleets said Wednesday. “I’ve broken history here as the first Black person to be news director. To have that opportunity to be able to make that impact in a beautiful, complicated city, I don’t take for granted.”
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She previously worked as an editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Kansas City Star.
“Obviously, it is disappointing to see such a talented journalist and passionate leader leave our newsroom,” Mitch Pugh, executive editor of the Tribune, said in a memo to employees. “Rochell’s influence on the Tribune has been profound.”
Sleets and her husband, who have four adult children, will be moving to Long Island for her new role at Newsday, which starts Feb. 27. Her last day at the Tribune will be Jan. 20.
“I felt at this point in my career, now that we’re empty-nesters, it was time to see what that next thing was,” Sleets said. “And when Newsday made the call ... it felt like a really good fit.”
One of the nation’s largest independent newspapers, Newsday is owned by Patrick Dolan. In 2008, Tribune Co., the former parent of the Chicago Tribune, sold Newsday for $650 million to Cablevision, a Long Island-based cable provider owned by the Dolan family. In 2016, Dolan reacquired Newsday after it was packaged as part of the $17.7 billion sale of Cablevision to European telecom giant Altice.
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