New York Times announces Newsroom Product Desk team

The New York Times announced the creation of Newsroom Product Desk last year, which is an ongoing Times effort to expand the newsroom’s partnership with colleagues on the product, design and technology teams.

The company has been hard at work building the desk and now the team is ready. They are:

Derrick Ho joins the Times from Gannett where he was serving as senior product manager focused on their network of newsletters. He has previous product experience at McClatchy and also has extensive experience as a newsroom editor and reporter at The Straits Times in Singapore and various outlets in the U.S. As senior editor with the Workflow and Design Systems teams, Ho will focus on testing efforts.

Gordon Hurd joined the Times in 2018 and since then has played a key role in the newsroom’s S.E.O. team. Hurd will continue serving as a key member of the newsroom Audience team and will also be adding to his portfolio work the title of senior editor with the Core Product Data team.

Sasha Koren began her career with the Times in the late 1990s. She served as Opinion editor for the web in the late 2000s and later led the social and community teams. She then departed the company in 2014 and co-ran The Guardian’s Mobile Innovation Lab for three years before returning to the Times last year to work in R.&D. For now, Koren has joined Newsroom Product on a short-term basis.

Hilary Moss will be a senior editor on the team and will partner with Newsroom Development and Support in developing training for editors across the newsroom. Currently, Moss has served as a creative digital force at T magazine for over half a decade while closely working with digital news design on a variety of special packages.

Judy Tong joined the Times in 2000, and since then has held many roles on multiple desks, including now as planning and day editor on Metro. Previously, she spent three years at The Guardian’s West Coast bureau as deputy editor. Now, she will be serving as senior editor on the Newsroom Product Desk team focusing on planning tools to improve workflow.

Karen Barrow has been an editor at the company for nearly 12 years. Barrow will be an assistant editor on the team, focusing on the voice, creation and management of topical storylines and in developing and commissioning service-oriented programming.

Seth Carlson came to the Times in 2004 as a home page producer, and has worked as an editorial lead on the iOS news apps in their formative years. Carlson will be taking on the role of assistant editor focused on newsletters, push alerts and personalization efforts on the desk.

Alex McGuffie has been with the Times since 2014 and worked as a copy editor on Metro, Sports, National and International. Since, 2016 she has been on the news desk and has also played a vital role in the rollout of the new version of the page. As an assistant editor Newsroom Product Desk team, she will play a critical role in both designing and rolling out the workflow tools.

David Ok joined the Times in 2016 as an editor on the home page. Additionally, he has also worked as a supervisor on the team and helped to manage weekend news planning. As assistant editor, Ok will bring a critical eye to the development of the new home screen layouts and will play an important role in helping editors understand new tools and options.