NY Times expanding tech team, seeks seven new editorial staffers

The New York Times business editor Dean Murphy and technology editor Pui Wing Tam sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

All —

We have great news to share about tech.

We are expanding coverage in both the United States and Asia as we further position The Times as an indispensable, engaging and creative global destination for all things tech.

This means more reporters, another columnist and an editor — all aimed at strengthening and broadening the technology footprint across our digital report.

These positions are open to internal and external applicants.

Please spread the word widely by sharing this link: New York Times Expands Tech Team

— Dean and Pui-Wing

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New York Times Expands Tech Team

As technology has grown more pervasive in the world — driving business, the economy, the way we live and work, and infusing popular culture — the reporting, writing and storytelling about the subject in many publications has become commodified, incremental and insidery.

The Times is committed to global tech coverage that is distinctive, agenda-setting, personable and connected to people’s lives. As part of that commitment, we are expanding our tech team in the United States and in Asia.

We are looking for hard-charging and creative journalists who share our mission and are driven to pursue journalism that makes a difference.

title: Deputy tech editor (based in New York)
description: This editor will oversee reporters and drive coverage of tech policy, the East Coast tech scene, education technology and online advertising. The responsibilities include infusing tech into the entire report by collaborating with other parts of the newsroom, pairing tech reporters with non-tech reporters, channeling stories by tech reporters to the appropriate desks, and suggesting content across platforms. Candidates should have several years of experience editing news and feature stories, and be a strong conceptualizer of stories in many formats.

title: Digital and tech culture reporter (based in San Francisco)
description: We’ll look to this reporter to explain and illustrate one of the most colorful and fastest-evolving areas of the internet: digital culture. This includes social media celebrities, emojis and other forms of web language, fake news and whatever is coming next. We want you to illuminate the real-life culture of Silicon Valley, including the start-up lifestyle as well as the entrepreneurial masters of the universe, how they live, how they spend their money and what motivates them. Experience reporting on internet trends and Silicon Valley life could be helpful but is not a requirement; either way, this person needs to have the ability to step out of the world of tech and see it as the fascinating cultural phenomenon that it is.

title: Cybersecurity reporter (based in New York or San Francisco)
description: Targets for this reporter include digging deep into the post-Snowden era of hacks, surveillance, bug bounties and technology back doors, and explaining their broad implications for national security, global diplomacy and the lives of ordinary people. You must be able to distinguish between fact and fiction in this shadowy world and translate for readers the technology used in hacking episodes.

title: Emerging technologies reporter (based in San Francisco)
description: This hard-driving, creative and outside-the-box-thinking reporter will have the ability to peer around the corner at the underlying technology trends that dominate the cutting-edge innovations of today and tomorrow. From mobile to virtual reality to artificial intelligence, there are always new technologies being developed at universities, incubated at start-ups and studied in research labs that may cause a start-up boom or sweep through the product lines of the largest tech companies — and ultimately transform our lives. It will also be important for this reporter to determine how real or illusory the developments are, separating hype and spin from fact. Experience reporting on topics like robotics, artificial intelligence and science is ideal.

title: Asia tech columnist (based in Hong Kong, Beijing or elsewhere in the region)
description: Even as Silicon Valley is held up as the world’s technology leader, Asia’s fast-growing tech industry has created its own cutting-edge innovations that are now being copied in the West. Readers will turn to this columnist to explain and analyze what is happening in tech in Asia, and to connect it with the rest of the world. These will be columns with a reported point of view that tap into the columnist’s deep expertise and appreciation for technology trends in the region.

title: China tech reporter (based in Hong Kong or Beijing)
description: China is racing ahead in mobile, messaging and drones, leading American tech companies to imitate it. The Chinese are also balkanizing internet governance and using cybersecurity as a weapon to subdue and submit. This reporter will help drive coverage around these trends, working collaboratively with our current tech reporter in China.

title: India tech reporter (based in Bangalore or elsewhere in India)
description: As India’s economy develops, its vast population is embracing technology through mobile phones, and American and Chinese tech companies are rushing to target the market as their next big opportunity. India is in many ways the reverse of China when it comes to tech — open and a greenfield right now — making it a case study of tech globalization. We’re looking for a reporter to cover the fast-growing tech industry in India and other developing economies in Asia.

Apply

Applicants should be interested and curious about technology and its many tentacles, be enthusiastic and creative about visual and digital storytelling, and have several years of experience reporting and/or editing on technology. Candidates should be highly motivated, collegial and a self-starter.

Applicants should submit a résumé, examples of previous work, and a memo outlining their vision for the job to nytrecruit@nytimes.com. The memo is the most important part of the application. Some questions to wrestle with:

What audiences should we be focusing on?
How will our coverage fit into their lives, and how will they experience it?
How will we distinguish our coverage from other journalism in this space?
What will be the main vehicles for the coverage? Features? News? Videos?
What stories are we willing not to do?

The correspondent jobs are Guild positions that are open to internal and external candidates. The editor’s job is exempt and is also open to internal and external candidates.