Veteran journalist Katrice Hardy has been appointed executive editor of The Dallas Morning News, becoming the first Black person to run the 125-year-old daily, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
Hardy, who also will be the first woman to hold the top job at the Dallas newsroom, will take up her duties next month. She succeeds Mike Wilson, who resigned last September after six years as the newspaper’s top editor and is now deputy sports editor at The New York Times.
For the past 16 months, Hardy has been editor of The Indianapolis Star, the Gannett-owned daily that shared this year’s Pulitzer Prize for national reporting with The Marshall Project, AL.com and Invisible Institute for their investigative collaboration, “Mauled: When Police Dogs Are Weapons."
Her Indianapolis job also included serving as Midwest editor of the USA Today Network, where she oversaw two dozen other Gannett-owned newsrooms and 300 staff members in three states. One, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, was a finalist in two categories for this year's Pulitzer Prizes — breaking news and public service — for its reporting on the police slaying of Breonna Taylor and the more than 180 consecutive days of protest it provoked in Louisville.
The Port Allen, Louisiana, native graduated from Louisiana State University in 1995. She began her journalism career at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk Virginia, where she rose from intern to managing editor over 20 years.
In 2016, she moved to Gannett, which appointed her executive editor of The Greenville News in South Carolina and regional editor for 13 Gannett-owned newsrooms in seven Southern and Southeastern states.
The announcement of Hardy's appointment came one day after another leading Texas daily newspaper, the Houston Chronicle announced the promotion of Maria Douglas Reeve from managing editor to become the first Black person to run the 120-year-old publication.
