In part of an ongoing push to remake The New York Times for a constantly changing media landscape, the newspaper on Friday announced several personnel moves among the leaders of its digital efforts.
The big changes: graphics, digital news design and interactive news are now one team overseen by Assistant Editor Steve Duenes, audience development is being integrated into the main newsroom under Assistant Editor Cliff Levy and Matt Ericson, an Associate Editor at the paper, will be given an expanded portfolio of responsibilities, according to a memo from New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Kinsey Wilson.
Today, we’re announcing a number of organizational changes intended to build on those successes. They fall in three areas: visual and interactive journalism; audience development; and the tools and products we build to support our journalism.
Visual journalism is quickly assuming a bigger role in our daily report, and with time we expect to have a far greater number of reporting and storytelling forms at our disposal.
Also on Friday, The New York Times announced the promotion of Nancy Gauss to the position of executive director of video. She leads a team that was once directed by former Times media editor Bruce Headlam, who left that job last year as it was being consolidated under Duenes. The video unit has since undergone a round of buyouts as part of a reorganization.
The integration of audience development into the broader Times’ newsroom is part of an industry-wide shift toward an increased emphasis on metrics and the creation of interdisciplinary teams. Vox Media, which operates websites geared toward current events, fashion, real estate and sports, has a dedicated audience development manager for each of its properties that work in concert with other editorial staffers to maximize reach.
Here’s the memo:
To the Staff:
Since the publication of the Innovation Report two years ago, The Times newsroom has made countless changes to deepen the quality, speed and reach of its digital report.
The results have been dramatic. Our total audience has increased by more than a third and the number of engaged, regular readers is up 56 percent. The number of digital subscribers has surpassed a million and continues to climb. Our visual and interactive journalism is widely recognized as the best in the industry. And our mobile readers, now nearly two-thirds of our audience, enjoy a report as rich and engaging as anything we’ve ever produced.
Today, we’re announcing a number of organizational changes intended to build on those successes. They fall in three areas: visual and interactive journalism; audience development; and the tools and products we build to support our journalism.
Visual journalism is quickly assuming a bigger role in our daily report, and with time we expect to have a far greater number of reporting and storytelling forms at our disposal.
As a first step in expanding visual journalism across the newsroom, we’re uniting the graphics, digital news design and interactive news teams under Steve Duenes, who will take on the oversight of those teams and help drive storytelling innovation across the newsroom.
These teams each have distinct roles in bringing our visual journalism to life. And for some time, they have worked together to set the standard for the industry. But as we move to increase the number and types of visual stories we publish, it makes sense to bring these groups under common leadership. As they experiment with new forms, they will work with our Product teams to ensure that they become an integral part of our digital experience. Archie Tse in graphics will continue to report to Steve. Andrew Kueneman in digital news design and Marc Lavallee in interactive news technology will also report to Steve (with Andrew and Marc continuing their dual reports to design and technology and working closely with the product team).
The Audience Development team that was formed under Alex MacCallum two years ago has made remarkable strides in helping us expand our audience and in deepening the newsroom’s understanding of how to get readers to discover and engage with our work. Our 11 million Facebook fans and 28 million Twitter followers, along with countless more on desk and reporter accounts, give us a reach and influence few can rival. That work is becoming even more important as these services become a platform for our journalism.
In view of that, we’re now integrating the work of the audience team directly into the core of the newsroom, under the leadership of Cliff Levy and the news desk, which will now include the social media, search and community teams that were previously part of audience development. Justin Bank will also take on a critical new role on the news desk to help lead new editorial experiments and initiatives. Justin and Cynthia Collins, who heads our social team, will continue to play important roles in championing audience development in the newsroom. And the parts of audience development dedicated to building new tools like Stela are joining the newsroom platforms team.
Finally, we are expanding Matt Ericson’s responsibilities to be the newsroom’s primary point person with the design, product, data and tech group that is responsible for everything from our publishing tools to the appearance and functionality of our sites and apps.
As we increase the number of people in the newsroom who work with our product teams (including Cliff and Steve), it’s important that we have strategic oversight of that relationship, so that we’re not sending them mixed signals about our priorities.
For the past year, Matt and his platforms team helped set newsroom priorities and worked hand in hand with technology to modernize our digital and print publishing tools. He will now play a similar role in setting newsroom priorities around the continued development of websites and apps, and bringing newsroom and product functions closer together.
Matt will continue to report to Kinsey. Steve and Cliff will work with Dean and other masthead editors on day-to-day journalism, while working closely with Kinsey and Tom Bodkin on the development of new visual storytelling capabilities and Kinsey and others on the evolution of our digital journalism.
Additional details on the organization of these teams can be seen here.
As we’ve noted, the newsroom will likely be in a continuing state of evolution and change for the foreseeable future. These changes are a reflection of that reality and a recognition of the remarkable progress we’ve made in the last two years.”
