Short was appointed to serve as one of several Vice Presidents of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in October 2018. He has written chess columns and book reviews for the British newspapers "The Sunday Times", "The Daily Telegraph", the "Daily Mail" and "The Spectator". He wrote for "The Sunday Telegraph" for a decade and for "The Guardian" between 2005 and 19 October 2006. He reported on the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina, for the ChessBase website. He wrote a column, "Short Stories", for "New in Chess" magazine from January 2011 until December 2018. During the World Chess Championship 2013 he wrote a series of articles for "The Indian Express". In 2014 he began writing a column for the "Financial Times", interviewing Sol Campbell in the first article.