NY Times appoints Schmidt social visuals editor

The following excerpt was sent out from The New York Times’ deputy managing editor Steve Duenes and newsroom audience director Anna Dubenko:

After a terrific run as director of features and design in Video, we’re delighted to announce that Mike Schmidt will take on a new role as social visuals editor. Mike will lead a team of talented journalists focused on enhancing and expanding our social offerings by gathering, creating and editing visuals as part of the stories we produce off-platform.

Mike has built a 20+ year career in journalism, leading digital teams in video, design and visual storytelling, including at National Geographic, CNN and Mashable. He joined The Times in 2017 to launch and lead our Snapchat Discover editorial and production team, overseeing writers, editors, designers, photo and video.

In late 2018 Mike moved to the newsroom to lead the video team’s work with features desks. Mike worked with Culture on Diary of a Song, he collaborated with Sports and Graphics for multiple Olympics projects, and developed innovative multimedia projects with Styles.

Mike’s unit will live among our visual desks and will embed with the Audience team.

— Steve and Anna