Pro vs. Chron: how the new editor of the Houston Chronicle is playing against type. (on Media)

Texas Monthly, September, 2002 by Evan Smith

HOW'D WE DO TODAY?" [paragraph] It is Tuesday, July 2, and Jeff Cohen--the editor of the Houston Chronicle for all of four weeks--is holding up the front page of the morning paper, which he has annotated with lines and scribbles. His eleven o'clock meeting with his top editors has barely begun, but already the small talk has given way to self-analysis, which is definitely not business as usual at the Chron. Previously, this gathering was solely about what should be on the next day's page one; since the 47-year-old Cohen's arrival, everyone also comes prepared to critique their colleagues' work--and their own.

Around the conference room table, eyebrows arch and heads bob as Cohen--compact and intense, with dark hair and a perpetual squint--moves from story to story....