NY Times adds a half dozen to ‘The Daily,’ audio team

The New York Times has begun 2023 by announcing six new audio hires, including four to its acclaimed show, “The Daily.” The announcement came from The New York Times’ director of audio Paula Szuchman.

Lexie Diao joins the team as a senior editor of “The Daily.” She comes to The Times from The Washington Post. She was one of the founding producers of “Post Reports,” where she coordinated foreign coverage for the audio team. Before The Post, Lexie was an editor and producer at National Public Radio. She got her start in broadcasting at 17 as a deejay for her community radio station, WVFS.

Mary Wilson joins as a producer on “The Daily.”

She comes to The Times from Slate Magazine, where she launched “What Next with Mary Harris,” and produced “The Gist with Mike Pesca,” as well as bonus episodes of “Slow Burn: The Clinton Impeachment.”

She is a proud alumna of WFUV in the Bronx, the first newsroom to let her loose her on the city with a story assignment.

Alex Stern joins as a producer on “The Daily.”

Alex comes from CNN Audio, where she produced the first season of Tug of War, a podcast that took listeners to the front lines of power struggles around the world, from the doorstep of an alleged Russian assassin to the streets of Kabul hours after it fell to the Taliban.

She began her audio career at NPR member station WHYY.  At WHYY, Alex also produced daily live news show Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane and health and science podcast The Pulse, which airs on stations across the country. She has freelanced for Radiotopia’s Love + Radio.

Alex has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Shannon Lin joins as a producer on “The Daily.” She comes to us from the Los Angeles Times where she helped to launch the flagship news podcast, “The Time: Essential news from the LA Times.”

She previously worked at KQED in San Francisco as a breaking news reporter and producer. Before that, she interned at WNYC and NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Ian Stewart joins the team as a producer for a new show on our audio app. He spent nearly nine years working at NPR, most recently as a producer and editor on “Weekend Edition” and “Up First.”

Ian also directed live broadcasts, reported for the network, field-produced election and hurricane coverage, and was NPR’s coordinating producer in Kyiv during the full-scale Russian invasion. An Iowa native, he has a degree in architectural studies from Middlebury College. His name, a little confusingly, is pronounced “yahn.”

Lynn Levy joins as a supervising editor on the shows team. She comes to The New York Times from Gimlet Media, where she worked as an editor. She developed and edited a range of podcasts spanning many genres, including the music history show “Mogul,” the investigative series “Conviction” and a weekly podcast in collaboration with New York Magazine’s The Cut. She was a founding editor of “Resistance,” a New York Times pick for Best Podcasts of 2021. Lynn began her audio career at Radiolab, where she worked for five years, reporting an array of science stories and producing an interactive audio tour that premiered at South by Southwest.