Journalism veteran to lead Charlotte Observer newsroom
Matt Leclercq, senior managing editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, will be the new editor of the Charlotte Observer.
Leclercq previously was an editor at USA Today in Washington and at Gatehouse Media in Austin, and he had a long career at The Fayetteville Observer that saw him rise from a reporting role in 1999 to become the North Carolina paper’s executive editor; he served in that top job from July 2017 to June 2019.
He is a native of New Orleans and studied journalism and communications at UNC Chapel Hill.
“The Observer’s news team is the best in Charlotte,” said Greg Farmer, executive vice president of local news at McClatchy Media, “and Matt’s leadership will bring more urgency to our journalism and ensure our readers get more of the local news and information they want every day.”
The Observer’s previous executive editor, Rana Cash, resigned earlier this spring after spending nearly five years in the position.
Leclercq takes over leadership of the Observer newsroom at a pivotal time for both the city of Charlotte and the media industry.
The Charlotte metro area continues to attract thousands of people to the region each year. From April 2020 to July 2025, the Charlotte region added more than 278,700 people on both sides of the Carolinas border, for a total of 2.9 million people last year. Those figures put the area in the top 10 nationally, Census Bureau estimates released in March found.
Said Farmer: “Matt’s passion for Charlotte and this state will lift our journalism and better connect the work we do with the local audiences we exist to serve. Observer readers tell us every day what they care most about. Matt is focused on reflecting that in everything we do.”
In addition to the Observer, privately owned McClatchy Media publishes more than two dozen U.S. newspapers — also including the Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and The Kansas City Star — as well as several celebrity and women’s lifestyle magazines, including Us Weekly and Woman’s World.
This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 11:09 AM.
