New team brings together newsroom Video and Shows operations at The New York Times

Andrew Wilcox

We have ambitious plans to expand our work across Shows and Video, all with the goal of making The Times a destination for watching and listening as much as for reading. In the next year alone, we’ll launch new shows and set up new video teams across the newsroom to bring more of our reporting to audiences in video form. To make all of this happen, we’re bringing current newsroom Video and Shows operations into one team to support all newsroom multimedia output, across both video and audio. This Newsroom Media Operations team builds on the already deep collaboration between Video and Shows and will set us up to work seamlessly across studio, field and post-production needs.

Andrew Wilcox will lead the group as head of media operations. Since he started with us in 2024 as director of video operations, Andrew has transformed that unit to meet skyrocketing needs as we doubled short-form video production and launched video shows. He’s carefully built up a global team, from a new cinematography unit to expanded technical support, studio and video equipment management, as well as freelance operations. 

Previously, Andrew served as senior adviser at New York City Transit, and before that, as vice president of operations for Vice News, where he set up and oversaw operations for their global newsroom. Andrew is an exceptional colleague who has demonstrated an ability to see around corners and a dedication to meeting the needs of the full newsroom. As we continue to grow, Andrew’s leadership will help us all do our best work.

Austin Thompson

Austin Thompson will become director of studios and report to Andrew. Austin will continue to lead the engineering department, studio construction and operations, and the technical workflows that connect studios to audio and video production and publishing. Before joining The Times, Austin served as the global head of studio technology for Spotify and Gimlet, and he has already brought his wealth of experience to bear improving our engineering management and studio design and operations. 

Austin has been a steady hand through a time of transformation with deep technical expertise, a clear and collaborative leadership style, and a user-centric approach to systems and spaces. He’s the ideal studios leader as we scale our multimedia ambitions. 

We can’t think of two better colleagues to take on this work, and are grateful for all they do to make our audio and video journalism possible.