May 4, 2022

Newsroom Audio’s Expanding Leadership Team

As the Audio team expands its reach and ambitions, Ben Calhoun will be joining as executive producer of “The Daily,” partnering with Lisa Chow to set the long-term editorial priorities and standards of the show, and founding “Daily” editor Lisa Tobin turns her attention to building out the larger world of newsroom audio. Read more in this note from Paula Szuchman.

Every year, “The Daily’s” team of producers and editors reach new heights of journalistic ambition and accomplishment, cementing the show’s role as the country’s most urgent and creative news podcast. This past year, “The Daily” has taken listeners to the front lines of the war in Ukraine and the fall of Afghanistan, inside contentious school board meetings and in hours-long Covid-19 testing lines. Listeners have noticed, tuning in in record numbers.

And now, I’m thrilled to announce another major step forward that will help take “The Daily” to even greater heights and offer even more support to our wildly talented team. Ben Calhoun, an editor at “This American Life,” will be joining The Times as executive producer of “The Daily.” Ben will be the senior manager of “The Daily’s” team of 50, running editorial operations, building ties with the core newsroom, helping to set long-term priorities and developing systems and structures to support the most ambitious work within a culture of collaboration, equity and transparency.

Ben’s career has prepared him astoundingly well for this role. Since joining “This American Life” in 2010, he’s reported, produced and edited some of the program’s most memorable and decorated shows and stories. He led the reporting team behind the acclaimed “Harper High” episodes, which took a deep look at gun violence in Chicago, and went on to sweep the audio industry’s major awards. He’s told remarkable stories about a wide range of subjects: from school board fights, to “artificial calamari,” to national politics, to, earlier this year, a double episode on race and policing. In 2019, Ben served as an editor on an hour of “This American Life” dedicated to U.S. immigration policy, which won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for audio journalism.

Between 2014 and 2017, Ben left “This American Life” to serve as vice president of content and programming at WBEZ, Chicago’s public radio station. There, he oversaw all facets of the station’s editorial operations. He led a restructuring and dramatic expansion of the newsroom, a reimagining of the station’s talk shows and a revamped and expanded podcast operation.

“I’m so incredibly excited to join ‘The Daily.’ I come to the show as a listener, and I have such an enormous appreciation for what the founders and staff of the show have built,” Ben said. “‘The Daily’ is such a forceful expression of the journalistic values and spirit of creativity that made me want to be a journalist to begin with. I’m looking forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with everyone at the show, and stepping into this role, to serve those same principles. I’m eager to empower the staff, and the members of the newsroom who contribute to the show, in every way I can.”

“What’s unusual about Ben is that in addition to his first-rate radio editing chops, he’s a great manager. Way better than most,” says Ira Glass. “In our show and in his years running WBEZ, the people under him felt supported and heard, and they grew under his empathetic and thoughtful approach. Great editors are rare, but great editor/managers even rarer. I bite my lip at his departure but, of course, wish Ben the best in his new job.”

Ben will report to me and begin his new role on May 31.

His key partner will, of course, be Lisa Chow, who has deftly steered “The Daily” for the past year. Ben’s arrival will open up space for Lisa to focus on leading the editorial work of “The Daily,” where we all know she is enormously gifted. As the senior-most editor of “The Daily,” she’ll continue to help set editorial standards, run coverage and reporting, edit both enterprise and quick-turn stories and work with producers and editors to continually sharpen the work.

Lisa has built a formidable leadership team around her, including Alex Young, Paige Cowett and Mike Benoist, adding invaluable support and firepower to our editorial ambitions. She brought on a second host in Sabrina Tavernise who has hit the ground running — sprinting, really — and has already dramatically increased our capacity. Lisa oversaw coverage of the end of one war and the beginning of another, created a culture of accountability, equity and work-life balance, and still managed to be the editor everyone wants a chance to work with.

Lisa has a long history in audio journalism, as a reporter, a host and editor. She’s skeptical, rigorous and dedicated to pushing stories to be the best versions of themselves. She came to The Times in 2019 after working for nearly two decades as a reporter, starting at small newspapers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and then moving into audio as an economics reporter at WNYC and “Planet Money.” Lisa won a Gerald Loeb Award for a seven-part investigation on “Start Up” about the controversial founder of American Apparel Dov Charney.

“Editing ‘The Daily’ is one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had because it allows me to do so many things,” said Lisa. “Working with an unbelievable team of producers, hosts and reporters, puzzling through how to tell a story with nuance and empathy, and doing that every day, on the biggest stories of the day.”

“Lisa has vastly improved every episode of the show that she’s touched, in ways big and small, but that doesn’t begin to capture what makes her so special,” said “The Daily” co-host Michael Barbaro. “Her secret sauce is an infinite curiosity, a profound commitment to fairness and a love of nuance. It’s made her a powerhouse editor of ‘The Daily.’”

With Ben and Lisa Chow in place to take “The Daily” forward, Lisa Tobin will turn her attention to building out the larger world of newsroom Audio. She’ll continue to tackle the biggest storylines of the day, while helping to stand up new series, shows and programming and working more closely with journalists across the newsroom and around the globe. We’ve already announced two new shows she’ll be overseeing, with reporters Astead Herndon and Kevin Roose.

Lisa was brought in to build The Times audio team, and was the chief architect of “The Daily.” She oversaw every episode of the show through the news-heavy Trump era and developed a narrative approach to the news that has captivated millions of people and spawned dozens of imitators. At the same time, she helped build an exceptional audio team, generated ambitious reporting projects like “The Battle for Europe,” “The Field,” and “Odessa,” and launched series like “1619,” “Jungle Prince,” “Still Processing” and “The Latest.”

“This team began with the question of ‘What should The New York Times sound like?’ The Daily was a big and powerful first answer to that. But we have long understood just how much opportunity exists inside this extraordinary newsroom,” said Lisa. “Five years in, I’m incredibly excited to be able to answer that question in all kinds of new ways — and to provide new paths for reporters and producers in this newsroom to tell the most important stories of our time in audio.”

As she looks toward new collaborations beyond  “The Daily,” Lisa will be a key contact between the audio team and the rest of the newsroom — reporters, desks, as well as enterprise and masthead editors.

“Lisa is one of the most creative editors to walk into our newsroom. She created something lasting, something that has come to define the modern New York Times,” said executive editor Dean Baquet.

Journalists across the newsroom have benefitted from working with Lisa. “Lisa’s instincts are incomparable, which makes her an extraordinary sounding board for stories and coverage. I walk away from every conversation clearer on what makes a story actually tick,” said National editor Jia Lynn Yang.

Lisa will also help Sam Dolnick and Julie Snyder build a bridge to Serial Productions as Julie’s team ramps up production and collaborations with Times reporters.

Please join me in congratulating Ben, Lisa and Lisa.

–Paula

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