From 2000 to 2004, Chan wrote for The Washington Post, where he covered municipal politics, poverty and social services, and education.[4]
Chan moved to The New York Times in 2004.[5] In January 2010, Chan joined The Times's Washington bureau as a correspondent covering economic policy.[6] In February 2011, Chan was named a deputy editor of the Times Op-Ed page and Sunday Review section.[7] From 2015 to 2018, Chan was an International News Editor at The New York Times.[8][9]
In August 2018, the Los Angeles Times named Chan a deputy managing editor to "supervise a team of journalists responsible for initiating coverage and developing content for its digital, video and print platforms."[10]
In April 2020, Chan was promoted to an editorial page editor, in charge of overseeing the editorial and op-ed pages.[11] He was the lead author of a 2020 editorial examining the Los Angeles Times' fraught history with communities of color and journalists of color and apologizing for the newspaper's history of racism.[12][13] After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Chan faced criticism for publishing a full page of letters devoted to Californians who had voted for Trump.[14]