SAN FRANCISCO, March 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The San Francisco Chronicle, Northern California’s largest newspaper, announced today it has named Christina Kahrl as its new Sports Editor.
Prior to joining the Chronicle, Christina spent the last 10 years working at ESPN and was one of the founding editors of Baseball Prospectus. At ESPN, Christina started out as a writer and editor, working from the network’s Chicago bureau. She was promoted to MLB Senior Editor after the 2016 World Series and most recently was a Senior Editor on the Night Desk working out of the network’s Los Angeles bureau.
“We’re excited to bring in Christina as our new Sports Editor and look forward to the new perspective she will bring to our Sports pages,” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the Chronicle’s editor-in-chief. “As the Bay Area sports scene recovers from COVID-19, we look forward to providing our community the best coverage and deepest insights into the plans and performance of players, coaches, management and owners.”
This is a homecoming for Christina, who grew up outside Sacramento and went to the University of Chicago in the hopes of becoming a history professor. But while studying for her Master’s in Public History from Loyola-Chicago, Christina’s interests shifted toward baseball, specifically the statistics that underpin the game. Soon, she was helping found one of the first startups in sports journalism.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to cover one of the most dynamic sports scenes in the country,” Christina added. “The Chronicle has a superior quality team of editors and I’m eager to work with them to provide Bay Area residents the coverage they deserve.”
Baseball Prospectus was a pioneer in the use of sabermetric analysis that began by publishing books loved by baseball geeks and early Fantasy Sports players, but is now a popular site for baseball lovers of all kinds. Like many startups, Baseball Prospectus didn’t pay a living wage, so she combined her love of history and sports in a job with Brassey’s, a book publisher that specializes in military history but was branching out into sports. For five years, she served as an acquisitions editor for books that focused on sports history and analysis across multiple sports.
Eventually, Baseball Prospectus became a success and she was able to devote herself to it full time. In 15 years at Baseball Prospectus, she served as a writer, columnist, managing editor and editor-in-chief before leaving for ESPN, having helped launch the careers of multiple journalists, media and team analysts--and two current MLB general managers.
In addition to her journalism work, Christina is a nationally known advocate for transgender civil rights. She has served on the boards of GLAAD, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Equality Illinois, Chicago House (and the Trans Life Center), and One Northside (in Chicago). She has worked with the Chicago Police Department and the Justice Department on improving police interactions with transgender citizens. In 2014, Christina was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.
About the San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfchronicle.com) is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by Hearst Corporation in 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. With name-brand voices and a keen editorial eye, The Chronicle is an authority that still surprises. Follow us on Twitter @SFChronicle.
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