WSJ roles out style news team

Sarah Ball, editor of style news at The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following on Monday:

All:

After launching over the summer, Style News is now live with its full staff as of today, Monday, Sept. 12th—thanks to support and help from so many of you.

Please join me in welcoming and congratulating these excellent journalists!

—— In our new coverage unit tackling personalities, trends and issues in culture, style and zeitgeist: SARA ASHLEY O’BRIEN starts as a reporter today and comes from CNN Business, where she was a senior writer covering technology and culture. In 2019, Sara won a New York Press Club Award and received an Emmy nomination for helping report on claims of sexual harassment and assault by Uber and Lyft drivers.

——ASHLEY WONG also starts as a reporter today after a successful year as a reporting fellow for the New York Times Metro section, where she covered the great NYC cream-cheese shortage, freestyle-skier Eileen Gu and what retailers did with all those #Cuomosexual T-shirts.

——CHAVIE LIEBER, a former senior correspondent at The Business of Fashion, started with us in July and is already covering the foibles of the stylish through a pop-culture and tech lens, such as the social-media backlash to celebrity jet use. Chavie has reporting awards from the National Press Club, among others, and has also taught college journalism.

——Editing those folks is BONNIE WERTHEIM, who also joins us from the New York Times, where she was a senior staff editor of its Styles section. Bonnie is one of two Style News deputy editors and comes to shepherd our coverage with the wit and intelligence she brought to six years of Times Styles coverage. An excellent trendspotter, from Taylor Swift’s mathletes to summer’s most unexpected bestseller, Bonnie started in July.

——Visually, LILY KUPETS runs all things Style News photography and illustration after several roles at Condé Nast, including work for Vogue.com and Condé’s centralized digital speed team. She has an eye for lush, stylish and shareable imagery, from mommy-and-me noserings to Jeff Bezos’s jetskis.

——Our last new face is a familiar one: SARA BOSWORTH, who started with us in May. After running digital for Off Duty, Sara is now Style News Platform & Publishing Editor, steering our daily publishing and editorial planning operations. Before joining the Journal, Sara was the managing editor of the Brooklyn Eagle.

——Other familiar bylines and colleagues who’ve joined Style News and have powered us to many early wins: RORY SATRAN continues to build on the instant success of her Off Brand column, which focuses on style as it intersects with women, technology and the generational divide.  Beyond her column, Rory steps into a new role as the Fashion Director of the Wall Street Journal, delivering profiles of movers/shakers in the fashion industry to the WSJ & WSJ. Magazine, and acting as both an envoy to and sharp Journal eyes on the fashion industry at large.

——JACOB GALLAGHER first started On Trend five years ago, and his weekly men’s style column has since powered its author to status as an industry expert on menswear and retail trends (including so very many kinds of pants!). He joins Style News to focus full-time on his column, touching on men’s style as it meets the news and newsmakers.

——Our outstanding arts and entertainment coverage unit is led by YAEL KOHEN, also a Style News deputy editor, who joins Style News from Life & Work. Prior to joining the Journal, Yael was executive editor at the women’s lifestyle publication Refinery29, and previously worked at Marie Claire and New York. Her book on women in comedy, “We Killed,” is in development to become a docuseries.

——ELLEN GAMERMAN, our Deadline Award-winning feature writer for arts journalism, brings her stylish delivery and clever eye to coverage of film, books, cultural icons and television to Style News, with an emphasis on the whimsical and original. She wants you to drop and give her 20.

——JOHN JURGENSEN joins Style News continuing his excellent work on the topics of television, film and industry news. From the cinematic legacy of “Better Call Saul” to George R.R. Martin’s return to creative power, John’s Style News coverage focuses on the “record-scratch” moments of pop culture that he is so excellent at forecasting.

——KELLY CROW, another Deadline Award winner this year for her coverage of NFTs, continues her beat dominance on art, auctions and the art market, with reporting this year on everything from Warhol records to oligarch collections. In joining Style News, Kelly adds more takeout features to her regular mix of scoops, such as her widely shared piece this summer on Anna Weyant, a one-time Instagram artist now selling for 4,000% more.

——NEIL SHAH‘s coverage of the music industry—at a time when sales, industry news and full-scale touring are roaring back to life—is a welcome addition to Style News. Neil’s recent reporting on BTS’s hiatus resulted in a very memorable episode of “The Journal” podcast,  which charted the immense pressures facing K-pop acts.

——Outside of the arts team, LANE FLORSHEIM also joins Style News from her previous role as WSJ. Magazine staff writer. Lane will continue the wildly successful My Monday Morning column and her work on fashion features and style trend stories, reporting for Bonnie. She alone knows why you can never get a restaurant table.

——MYLES TANZER is a leader on our editing team, serving as a publishing editor alongside Sara Bosworth, and helping spearhead digital optimization and editorial planning around culture and entertainment. A former writer for BuzzFeed and The Fader, Myles also writes major music profiles for us, such as last year’s WSJ. Magazine cover story on Lil Nas X.

——SAIRA KHAN, senior platforms editor, leads all social-media and off-platform operations, optimizing our look, reach and tone both with Patrick Hedlund’s team on the main @WSJ channels and across the @WSJMag channels—which I will end, with Saira’s endorsement, by telling you to go follow for more Style News.

——This team has already hit the ground running to produce excellent, vibrant stories that I hope you’ve glimpsed on the site’s leaderboard!  We couldn’t be more excited to follow that summer momentum into what is already proving to be a jam-packed and newsy fall. Stay tuned and many thanks.

Yours,

Sarah, Kristina & Mike