Overview
Sherry Chisenhall is the retired president and editor of the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina and the Herald of Rock Hill, South Carolina. She previously worked at the newspaper for 14 years in various roles, including assigning editor, reporter and copy editor.
Chisenhall left Charlotte in 2000 for the Wichita Eagle, serving first as managing editor, followed by 12 years as executive editor and senior vice president for news. In Kansas, she was a trustee of the William Allen White Foundation, formed in 1945 to support the journalism school at the University of Kansas, and was an advisory board member for the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University.
She returned to the Observer in 2016 as managing editor and was named executive editor a year later.
Chisenhall’s news teams in Charlotte and Wichita have won dozens of journalism awards for news coverage, investigative reporting, feature writing and visuals, as well as innovative work such as podcast series. Journalists in Wichita also published a book on behind-the-scenes police work that led to the capture of the BTK serial killer.
Chisenhall has been a four-time juror for the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, and a judge for the New England Newspaper & Press Association awards and the News Leaders Association awards. She has been a panel speaker on news collaboration at the Knight Media Forum and the 2021 Collaborative Journalism Summit.
Chisenhall serves on North Carolina Press Association board of directors. She was among the founding editors of the North Carolina News Collaborative and the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative. She is a member of the Online News Association and a past member of the News Leaders Association and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
She is among the distinguished women leaders serving on the advisory board for the Widener Global Leaders Program at Wichita State University’s W. Frank Barton School of Business.
A native of south-central Illinois, Chisenhall earned a B.S. in journalism and political science from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. She began her career as a copy editor and page designer at the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi.