HuffPost Expands Its Reporting, Video And Audio Teams With Latest Round Of New Hires

HuffPost today announced a series of new hires, adding members to the reporting, video and audio teams across three time zones. These new hires will help HuffPost to achieve its 2018 goals of growing reach, loyalty and engagement with existing and new audiences alike.

Lena Jackson will join the video team in NYC as a field producer on June 4. She’s currently a producer at Fusion and Univision in Miami, where she creates short documentaries and animated videos focusing on environmental and social justice, immigration, health and cyber security. Her previous work has appeared on PBS Newshour, NPR and OZY, and she has earned grants to support her work from the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Institute for Justice and Journalism and the Princess Grace Foundation. She speaks Spanish, loves Indian food and is a proud Washington, DC native.

 Liza Hearon joins as an assignment editor in the London office after having served as the Deputy Editor of Mashable UK and as a homepage editor for the Wall Street Journal. Originally from Florida, Liza has also lived in Japan, Russia and Australia. She loves spicy food and karaoke. She will report to Alana Horowitz Satlin, who is back in NYC and running the breaking news team with Paige Lavender. She’ll start May 10.

Casey Bond is joining HuffPost as a Life reporter specializing in personal finance, home and living. Casey has written about money for nearly a decade, most recently leading the editorial team behind Student Loan Hero’s personal finance blog. Her work can be found at Forbes, Business Insider, US News & World Report, Yahoo Finance, The Street, MSN, CBS and more. She will work from the LA office and starts April 30.

 Audio producer Kenya Downs is a multimedia journalist who joins most recently from both Public Radio International and The Root where she covered immigration, social & racial justice and the Caribbean for online and radio. She’s also worked as a TV producer at places like Al Jazeera, CBS News and, most recently, PBS NewsHour where she was the creator of the Race Matters vertical, producing video and text features exploring race. You may have seen some of her work analyzing being a black man in Milwaukee and a tribute to her former-colleague Gwen Ifill. Kenya is both a Howard and American University grad and is based in Northeast DC. Fun fact: She’s also a professional samba dancer and a Caribbean carnival enthusiast. She starts April 30th and will be based in our Washington, DC office.

And in staff news:  Lauren Weber, founding editor of The Morning Email, has built our morning news audience to nearly 1 million subscribers and cultivated a dedicated fanbase online and via Alexa. After 4 years, she’s moving into a full time role as an enterprise reporter. Lauren will be covering pandemics, infectious disease and emerging public health threats on the Health Enterprise team. Paul Vale, former front page editor, will return  on a freelance basis to run the newsletter.