New Editor on News Desk

The News Desk is often at the center of the report. It helps drive news coverage, provides guidance on fast-moving stories, partners with the Home team to decide play and collaborates with desks across the room. That's a lot for a small group, which makes us especially delighted to announce that Traci Carl will be joining the News Desk next month as a senior news editor.

As an editor on the Live team, Traci has worked with nearly every corner of The Times on some of our biggest stories, including the Covid pandemic, the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and now Iran and the second Trump administration. She traveled to Beijing in 2022 to help cover the Winter Olympics, and she has worked with our teams in the London and Seoul newsrooms.

Traci launched our live coverage when President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in Syria, ending decades of dictatorship and civil war. And when the Winter Olympics opened in Italy in February, she directed the live blog on the ceremonies.

"Traci is not just an excellent, dedicated editor, but she is also a caring and thoughtful colleague and manager,'' said Julie Bloom, who heads the Live Desk. "She looks out for those around her and truly understands what it means to be part of a team."

Before joining The Times, Traci worked at The Associated Press, managing more than 100 reporters and editors in the western United States. She was also the A.P. bureau chief in Mexico, where she covered the Institutional Revolutionary Party's fall from power in 2000 and the rise of cartel violence across the country. After Sept. 11, she flew to New York to help direct coverage of the international response to the attacks and then worked in Baghdad in 2005 as an interim bureau chief during the war.

In her new role, Traci will work closely with Steve, Randy, Jorge, Amber, Johnna and, of course, with Mark Getzfred retiring, the next news director.

Traci lives with her husband in Maplewood, N.J., and has two daughters. In 2022, her family fostered and then adopted one (just one) of the 4,000 beagles rescued from a Virginia breeding facility. She discovered the puppy's history after reading this Times story .

Please join me in congratulating her.

- Michael