Los Angeles Times announces Terry Tang as Op-Ed and Sunday Opinion editor

Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Editorial Page Editor Sewell Chan made the following announcement:

We are delighted to announce that Terry Tang is the new Op-Ed and Sunday Opinion editor, reporting to Sewell Chan. She joins the masthead Monday.

Tang joined The Times in July 2019 from the American Civil Liberties Union, where she served as director of publications and editorial for two years.

Before that, she worked at the New York Times for 20 years: as an editorial writer, op-ed editor (during which she oversaw coverage of the 9/11 attacks), deputy technology editor, metro desk major beats editor, co-founder and editor of Room for Debate (an online platform for rapid-response commentary), assistant editorial page editor and deputy editorial page editor. In that last role, she was also the first Asian American on the New York Times masthead.

Tang graduated from Yale and New York University Law School and, after briefly practicing law, became a reporter for the Seattle Weekly and then an editorial writer and columnist at the Seattle Times. She was a Nieman Fellow in 1992-93.

In her memo for the job, Tang wrote: “California has become more complex, more ethnically diverse, more crowded, more cultured, more interesting, more united politically and more unequal than even a generation ago. An important mission of the Op-Ed pages is to capture this complexity and contradictions.”

Tang will build on the great work of Sue Horton, who is moving to the newsroom as a senior editor but will continue to edit several Op-Ed columnists. She will lead a stellar team that includes Susan Brenneman, Valerie J. Nelson and Maret Orliss.

Tang’s family emigrated from Taiwan, via Japan, to Los Angeles in 1965. She grew up in Gardena, where her mother still lives. Tang and her husband, Bill, now live in Redondo Beach. They have four adult children.