Observer editor said she joined the paper in awe. By September, she’ll leave that way, too
When a then-23-year-old Sherry Chisenhall was offered a job with the Charlotte Observer in 1986, she was so shocked that she forgot to ask about the pay.
She made a second rookie mistake weeks later — working her last day, a Friday, in Biloxi, Miss., and then agreeing to start work that Monday in Charlotte.
Chisenhall, now 58, said she walked through the double doors at the top of the escalator in the old Observer newsroom at Tryon and Stonewall with feelings of “awe and reverence.”
In September, she says she’ll leave that way, too.
The Observer’s editor and president announced her departure Monday morning, telling her newsroom staff that she is leaving on her own terms and with full confidence in the paper’s mission and continued vitality.
Chisenhall said she is stepping aside to take an extended break after guiding the newsroom through an 18-month gauntlet in which Charlotte was struck by the global pandemic and daily social-justice protests ignited by the police killing of George Floyd. Meanwhile, North Carolina played a pivotal role in one of the most contentious election years in U.S. history.
During the same period, The Observer, like many papers around the country, closed down its newsroom, forcing editors and writers to cover two of the biggest stories of their careers from their homes.
“There was no kind of road map to navigate all of that,” Chisenhall said Monday during a phone interview. “I can’t be more proud that our team covered history on top of history on top of history.”
In all, Chisenhall spent 19 years at the paper in two stints, working in every newsroom department other than editorial and business.
She started as a copy editor in the heyday of American journalism. She leaves after two decades of the industry going through print circulation declines, shrinking staffs and a future far more dependent on online readers.
Kristin Roberts, senior vice president for news at McClatchy, the Observer’s owner, described Chisenhall at the Monday staff meeting as a “first-rate newswoman” who had a daily commitment to “the kind of journalism that we all got into journalism to do.”
Roberts said Chisenhall leaves the paper on firm footing as McClatchy plans to fully invest in the paper’s future, including “a commitment to the newsroom to find and hire an extraordinary editor to be the next leader. That is my highest priority.”
Chisenhall was a lifer. She said she first knew she wanted to be a journalist as a seventh-grader at McCray-Dewey Junior High School in Troy, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.
She was an early adherent to community journalism. Her first byline had to do with complaints about the school lunch menu. At the Observer, she learned about the region from the outside in — moving from the copy desk to writing and editing jobs in Rock Hill, Hickory and Gastonia.
She spent 14 years at the Observer before leaving. In 2000, she became managing editor of the Wichita Eagle, lured back to the Midwest by Rick Thames, a longtime colleague at the Observer who had been hired to run the Kansas paper. Chisenhall said her new boss asked for a two-year commitment. She stayed for 16 years.
When Thames left after being hired as the Observer’s editor in 2004, Chisenhall replaced him in Wichita. Twelve years later, Thames brought her back to Charlotte as managing editor. When Thames retired in 2017, Chisenhall was quickly named as his replacement. She took on the title of president in June 2020.
Thames, now an executive in residence at Queens University, said he kept recruiting Chisenhall “because she is a natural leader and an exceptionally strong journalist.”
“She understands what people need in their news reports and she knows how to achieve that,” said Thames, a visiting professor at the university’s Knight School of Communication.
“Sherry also has a great sense of humor that helps keep a newsroom on an even keel through tough times. I’m sorry to see the Observer lose her.”
Earlier this month, Chisenhall invited Cora Spencer, a 9-year-old burgeoning journalist from Davidson, to join the morning remote news meeting at the Observer where the stories that the staff is doing or should be doing are discussed. She said she saw a little of herself in Cora, particularly in their shared zeal and reverence for reporting the news.
“I still have that reverence for the Observer today. That makes it all the harder to say that this is a time for me to step back and find some balance in life. This is a job where everybody else’s needs come first if you’re doing it right,” she said.
“It makes it easier to step away when you feel good about the newsroom, the path that everyone is on,” Chisenhall said. “You have to feel especially good when you meet someone like Cora. She just made me smile. Half-joking I told the editors on our call the other day, ‘Y’all gonna work for Cora one day.’”
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 11:12 AM.
