Steve Sebelius was born and raised in Huntington Beach, Calif. He graduated from Biola University in 1989, and went to work for his hometown newspaper, the weekly Huntington Beach Independent.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired by the Pomona Progress Bulletin to cover the then-newly incorporated city of Diamond Bar, as well as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the nation's largest local government. It was at the Progress-Bulletin that he also began covering politics, a lifetime avocation. (The Progress-Bulletin later merged with its sister paper, the Ontario Daily Report to form the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Sebelius was named bureau chief of the Pomona bureau following that merger.)
In 1990, he was hired by the Sacramento Union, then the oldest continually published daily newspaper west of the Mississippi River. He covered education, and later City Hall and state and federal courts. It was at the Union that he wrote a series of investigative stories on Bill Honig, then the state's superintendent of public instruction, which led to Honig's indictment and removal from office. (The Union ceased publishing in 1994.)
In 1993, he was hired by the Las Vegas Sun to cover police, and later City Hall, where he wrote in-depth reports about a police bond issue and city redevelopment efforts. He left Las Vegas in 1997 to work for the Gannet Co.-owned San Bernardino Sun, but returned to Las Vegas in 1998 as a writer for the alternative weekly newspaper CityLife.
In late 1999, he was hired by the Review-Journal to be that newspaper's political columnist, and also to write a twice-daily e-mail newsletter called the EARLY LINE. In that job, he wrote more than 800 columns and covered three elections and the contentious 2003 session of the Nevada state Legislature.
In 2005, after Review-Journal parent Stephens Media LLC purchased CityLife, Sebelius was named editor. He writes the award-winning weekly column "Coffee & Outrage," and a daily blog, "Various Things & Stuff." Under his tenure, CityLife has twice been recognized for general excellence and once for community service by the Nevada Press Association, and in 2008, the newspaper was accepted for membership in the prestigious Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
Sebelius was the host of the television show Political Insiders, from 2006 to 2007, on KTNV Channel 13, Las Vegas's ABC affiliate. He has appeared as a regular guest on VegasPBS's Nevada Week in Review since 1995, and also appears frequently on Nevada Public Radio's State of Nevada interview program.
Steve Sebelius on KCRW
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