The grandchild of a former St. Paul mayor has been tapped to serve as the next editor and senior vice president of the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Kathleen Hennessey was named Editor and Senior Vice President for the Minnesota Star Tribune on April 22, 2025. Her first day with the Star Tribune will be May 12, 2025. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Star Tribune)

Kathleen Hennessey, whose résumé includes covering politics in Washington, D.C., and brothels in Las Vegas, will begin her new role with the Star Tribune on May 12, the newspaper announced Tuesday. She most recently served as the deputy politics editor for The New York Times.

“I’m honored to get the chance to lead such an extraordinary newsroom and to do it in a place I love,” said the Cretin-Derham Hall graduate in the release. “Minnesotans are sophisticated, voracious consumers of news. I’m excited to help find fresh ways to meet their high standards.”

Hennessey holds a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She covered Congress and the Obama White House for the Associated Press before she was appointed as the AP’s White House Editor in 2016, according to the release.

Hennessey’s grandfather, Thomas Byrne, was the capital city’s Democratic mayor from 1966 to 1970. Prior to running for office, he was a student at St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota before working as a teacher and administrator for St. Paul Public Schools.

His accomplishments over two terms as mayor included helping make St. Paul the first city with a human rights ordinance, getting a housing law passed and bringing the St. Patrick’s Day parade back to the city in 1966, the Pioneer Press reported.

Not far from where she grew up in Highland Park, Hennessey now lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Bill Carroll, and their three sons.

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