Not Mincing Words

By Ben Baker-Katz ’23

Follow Houston news on X, Instagram or TikTok and you’ll eventually see Evan Mintz ’08, expounding on everything from immigration to the Astros. Since his Rice days courting controversy on the Backpage of the Thresher, Mintz has become omnipresent in Houston-centric political conversations, with a wonkish knack for policy details, a lawyer’s flair for dramatic framing and a sharp wit he’s unafraid to aim at those in power. Being chronically online is part of his job as the Houston Chronicle’s editor for opinion and community engagement, but he sees his role as much more than hot takes. 

“Newspapers are critically important for a functioning democracy,” he says. “Research shows that in communities without newspapers, cities will spend money less rigorously and they will be less circumspect about what they do. … You need that outside check on what’s going on in government, and newspapers provide that.” 

Whether he’s penning op-eds, interviewing political candidates or filming videos for social media in the Chronicle’s parking lot, Mintz says the challenge is to keep the conversation focused on the issues instead of getting swept up in political polarization.

“If you try to shove everything into a red versus blue binary, it’s not going to fit with the city,” Mintz says. “You’re also going to betray a lot of what has made Houston successful, and you’re not going to really understand what’s going on.”

Mintz wants the Chronicle’s opinion columnists to embrace their ability to shape the debate as it unfolds, a skill he learned as the director of communications at Arnold Ventures,  a Houston-based, policy-focused nonprofit. 

“My time at Arnold Ventures gave me a sense for how policy change happens. I got a real sense for how to identify the people with their hands on the levers of power and how to be successful in moving the policy needle,” he says. “One of the goals of an opinion section is to change things, so we need to weigh in and shape the debate while it’s actually moving forward.”

For Mintz, that means being an advocate for one of the things that has set Houston apart — embracing growth. “Houston has been successful because we have embraced growth, and we have embraced diversity. I want to use the opinion section to remind people [of that],” he says.

When he’s not working, Mintz enjoys spending time with his wife, Melissa, a psychologist; their two children; and his garden.

“I love to garden because it gets me off the internet,” he says. “It feels natural to foster stuff and watch it grow and thrive and flourish.”

To Mintz, part of the fun of gardening is finding things that grow well here, from traditional Indian vegetables to Caribbean snake beans, as well as figuring out how to adjust growing seasons to account for Houston’s subtropical climate. Most gardening guides would have you believe that late summer is the ideal time to harvest tomatoes, for example, but those guides aren’t written for a climate as hot and humid as Houston. (Mintz would want you to know that the ideal time for tomatoes here is May, and maybe again in September or October.) 

According to Mintz, gardening in Houston is the perfect metaphor for the city itself.

“Houston doesn’t fit with a lot of the expectations in other parts of the country about how a city is supposed to work and function, but we’re a good place for a whole lot of people from around the world,” he says. “If you can endure the summers, you’re part of us. You belong here.”

From the Winter 2026 issue of Rice Magazine