Time magazine editor Nancy Gibbs and managing editor Edward Felsenthal announced a slew of hires and promotions in a memo to staff Thursday (full memo below):
Bryan Walsh is now the magazine’s foreign editor. Previously, he was Tokyo Bureau Chief and Hong Kong correspondent.
Nikhil Kumar is now South Asia bureau chief for Time magazine. Previously, she was a senior editor there.
Aryn Baker is now Africa bureau chief for the magazine. Previously, she was Middle East bureau chief.
Eliana Dockterman is now a writer at Time magazine. Previously, she was a reporter there.
Sam Frizell is now a writer at Time magazine. Previously, he was a reporter there.
Noah Rayman has also been promoted to writer at Time magazine. He was a breaking news reporter there.
Alexandra Sifferlin is now a writer for Time magazine. Previously, she was a reporter there.
Conal Urquhart is now a senior editor at Time magazine. Previously, she was deputy foreign editor for The Independent.
Claire Howorth is now books editor at Time magazine. Previously, she had been arts editor at The Daily Beast.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is now a senior editor in Time’s Washington bureau. Previously, he was news editor for the Washington Examiner.
TO: TIME Edit Staff
FROM: Nancy Gibbs and Edward Felsenthal
TIME’s expansion continues, of our audience, our content and our staff. September, a month of intense international news, saw a record 50 million uniques on Time.com. The global power and reach of our brand—with more than 30% of our online readers living outside the U.S. and targeted print editions targeted in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa—was on full display, from Aryn Baker’s extraordinary Ebola coverage from Liberia to Hong Kong, where protesters held up our Asia edition covers and even printed and posted the homepage of Time.com.
Today, we are pleased to announce three new hires and seven promotions that reflect the continued growth of our International, politics and books coverage as well as our global breaking news operation.
Bryan Walsh is promoted to Foreign Editor, responsible for TIME’s coverage of world events in our U.S edition. Working with Europe Editor Matt McAllester and Asia Editor Zoher Abdoolcarim, Bryan brings formidable experience to helping explain the world to our readers. A former Tokyo Bureau Chief and Hong Kong correspondent, Bryan is also one of TIME’s most prolific writers on science, energy and the environment, including recent cover stories on the threat posed by invasive species, a World without Bees, and the new science of fat (“Eat Butter.”) Over the years his reporting has taken him to every corner of the world, to Belize to report on vanishing coral reefs, Greenland on the melting tundra, Madagascar on endangered species, plus Cameroon, Ecuador, Bali, Abu Dhabi and Sakhalin Island. A Princeton grad, Bryan was awarded a Knight Public Health Journalism Fellowship. Bryan, Matt and Zoher will all be reporting to Michael Duffy.
Nikhil Kumar is promoted to South Asia Bureau chief, based in New Delhi. Since joining TIME in January, Nikhil has served as a senior editor in New York, running the World spread and editing magazine and online stories. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of Indian politics and history, and foreign affairs more broadly—from the inner workings of the British parliamentary system, to South American economics, to, yes, cricket. He was previously the New York correspondent for The Independent, where his coverage included Wall Street and the Sandy Hook shootings. Before that, he worked as a report and editor at the newspaper’s London HQ. Nikhil studied philosophy and law in London.
Aryn Baker leaves her post as Middle East Bureau Chief based in Beirut to become Africa Bureau Chief based in Cape Town. Aryn has hit the ground running with her remarkable coverage of the Ebola crisis in Liberia, writing a cover story within the first month her new assignment and providing TIME.com readers with powerful accounts of Liberians engaged with the fight against the outbreak. Aryn’s courage in reporting under very difficult circumstances in Liberia has come as no surprise given her long experience covering turmoil the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Previously Aryn was an associate editor based in Hong Kong – and a pastry chef in Paris.
We are also delighted to promote four members of our global breaking news team, reflecting the quality and depth of reporting of their work in print and online over the past year.
Eliana Dockterman is promoted to Writer. Eliana’s coverage has ranged from coverage of sexual assault on campus, including a powerful video on the subject, to entertainment and sports. A prolific reporter, she graduated from Yale and first joined TIME as an intern in the summer of 2012.
Sam Frizell is also promoted to Writer. Joining TIME in January from the trade publication American Metal Market, he has become a key driver of our business coverage, delivering features on topics from the remaking of the American mall to cybersecurity. Sam is a graduate of Bowdoin.
Noah Rayman, the very first member of our breaking news team, is promoted to Writer as well. A Harvard graduate, he joined TIME in the summer of 2013 and has become an essential contributor to our World coverage online and in print.
Alexandra Sifferlin is promoted to Writer. Focusing on health, she has provided significant coverage on the spread of Ebola including a series of scoops from Emory Hospital, the first to treat the disease in the U.S. during the current outbreak. A graduate of Northwestern, she joined TIME as an intern in January 2012.
Meanwhile we are excited to announce these new members of our editorial team:
Conal Urquhart joins TIME as Senior Editor based in London, adding a vital new hub to our New York and Hong Kong-based breaking news operations and helping Matt McAllester coordinate coverage of the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Russia. Conal comes to us from The Independent, where he was deputy foreign editor. Previously, Conal was a reporter for the Scotsman, foreign editor of Scotland on Sunday and a freelance Middle East correspondent for the Guardian, the Economist and other outlets. He has also worked for the United Nations in Jerusalem and Gaza. He starts Monday.
Claire Howorth joins us as Books Editor of TIME. She will also work with Ryan Sager and Joyce Tang on our fast-growing Ideas vertical. A veteran of The Daily Beast, The Daily and Vanity Fair, Claire has distinguished herself with a fine eye and ear for what people are (or should be) reading and what they’ll want to talk about next. Already she has demonstrated the power of smart books coverage to enliven coverage across digital and print. She has recruited authors for Time Ideas, secured attention-grabbing excerpts (including Leon Panetta’s memoir), and expanded our books coverage in culture. A graduate of the University of Colorado, Claire hails originally from Oxford, Mississippi.
Ryan Teague Beckwith joins TIME as a senior editor in the Washington bureau. Reporting to Michael Scherer, Ryan will oversee day-to-day politics coverage on Time.com. He most recently worked as news editor for the Washington Examiner. Previously, he managed Washington coverage for Digital First Media’s Project Thunderdome, worked as an editor at CQ Roll Call and led online political coverage for the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer. An adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University’s graduate journalism program, he has also taught at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University. He is a 2002 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Please join us in congratulating Bryan, Nikhil, Aryn, Eliana, Sam, Alexandra and Noah, and welcoming Conal, Claire and Ryan.
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