Cadie Thompson, deputy news chief and executive editor at Business Insider, spoke with Meredith Klein of “Meredith and the Media” about her job.
Here is an excerpt:
You’ve covered tech, transportation, and business at Business Insider and risen to Executive Editor. Can you share more about your role and responsibilities as Executive Editor?
- As the deputy news chief and one of the executive editors, a big part of my day is spent working with editors and reporters to sharpen stories and elevate our overall coverage. In blunt terms, I work to make things happen and ensure people feel supported.
- I’m usually in an hour or more before our 9:30 a.m. editorial meeting to finish reading the news and line up assignments for each team. By the time we meet, I’ve worked with editors to map out my team’s general plan: what’s breaking, what’s moving, and how we’ll advance it. I spend that early time ideating, spotting the themes in the day’s news, and figuring out how we can push them forward. I’m also constantly thinking about formats and how we present stories so they land with readers.
- In our morning meeting, our data team quickly catches us up on the stories we see resonating with our readers, and then we move into the news and pitches to decide our focus and brainstorm angles. Sometimes it’s a timely moment (“Elon did this”), or ideating around follow-up stories to a scoop we had, like our recent AT&T memo story; then we talk about how we keep owning that storyline. A big part of my role is driving that coverage: choosing the framing, assigning the right writers, pulling in the right teams, and getting it done that day. I also give top edits to make sure the tone is right and the Business Insider voice is there.
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