Sandra Shea Named New ‘Daily News’ Ed. Page Editor

Daily News senior writer Sandra Shea has been named the new editorial page editor of the Daily News. Shea replaces Frank Burgos, who is leaving to become managing editor of The Record in Bergen County.

Shea has been at the paper since 1990. (She’s the one who had the tagline “Senior writer Sandra Shea makes sense of the big issues facing the city - and its taxpayers!”) Before becoming senior writer, Shea worked as features editor and assistant managing editor. Like Burgos before her, she was part of the DN team that wrote the 2001 editorials about Fairmount Park that was a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist in editorial writing.

Recently, Shea has been covering the impending doom (or whatever) brought by the introduction of slot machines to Philadelphia. According to a memo from the DN, Shea also has a master’s in literature and fiction from Bennington College in Vermont. We should all be looking forward to the great new Daily News editorials on Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, Pride & Prejudice and Giovanni’s Room.

Full memo from DN editor Michael Days after the jump.

Photo by Albert Yee

From: Days, Michael

Sent: Tue 7/11/2006 2:07 PM
To: Daily News

Folks,

I’m quite pleased to announce that Sandy Shea is the new editor of the editorial page.

I believe she is the perfect person to take the reins.

For starters, her connections to many Philly communities are well-documented.

She also will bring to the role an unbridled passion for connecting and empowering readers, for helping them understand the issues that link and impact all of us in the city and in the region where we live, work and play. She already has demonstrated on a number of occasions her ability to do so. Just last month, through her columns on the subject, she was able to attract some 600 readers to a citywide public forum on casino design.

As we move forward, Sandy and I agree, we must be even more aggressive in how we engage readers, both in person and online, especially given the growing amount of opinion fueled by the internet.

Sandy has been very much an integral part of the Daily News family since joining the staff as Features Editor in 1990. During her tenure as the head of features she launched a section geared to teens, created a 60-member student council and built a citywide network of participating schools.

As an assistant managing editor she managed features and arts coverage, enterprise reporting and special projects with distinction. She had been a member of the editorial board for more than six years before being named a senior writer last November. In 2002, she and former staffer Carol Towarnicky wrote a series of editorials that detailed both the problems and a prescription for fixing the myriad issues facing Fairmount Park. The series was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing.

Sandy studied at the University of Connecticut, and has a master’s degree in literature and fiction from Bennington College in Vermont.

We’re very lucky to have her on staff and perfectly suited for the role. Please congratulate her when you get a chance.

Mike