The New York Times: New hire and promotions on Opinion Shows

Abdi Mehron (Photo credit: Alex Censullo)

I am excited to announce that Opinion Shows has hired a new team member and promoted two others.

Mehron “Mac” Abdi has joined Opinion Shows as a vertical video editor. 

Mac is a self-taught video editor. Six years ago, he was a project manager at Instagram when he and a friend started a passion project on YouTube creating videos about music and pop culture. Their channel gained enough traction that Mac began receiving inquiries from potential clients, and he eventually pivoted careers to pursue video editing professionally. 

Since then, Mac has worked with a variety of clients ranging from “The Mel Robbins Podcast” to the N.B.A. As a freelancer with Times Opinion, Mac edited vertical videos for “The Ezra Klein Show” and “Interesting Times,” as well as longer-form pieces, including Ross Douthat’s video marking America’s 250th anniversary and an episode of Mara Gay’s midterm voters project. 

Mac is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College in Southern California. Outside of work, he enjoys reading, playing chess, going to the movies and watching soccer, especially his favorite team, Arsenal.

James Robinson (Photo credit: Susie Post-Rust

We’re also excited to announce that James Robinson has been promoted to senior video journalist. James has distinguished himself as one of the most creative and thoughtful journalists in Opinion Video. He started as a vertical video producer, helping to launch Opinion’s then-nascent TikTok channel. Since then, he has moved into enterprise work, making films on subjects ranging from the Trump administration’s war on numbers and the war with Iran to dynamic pricing and Greenland.

In his new role, James will continue to use his distinctive visual storytelling to show how policy, politics and power shape people’s lives — and to deepen public understanding by bringing a wide range of experiences, expertise and perspectives into view.

Andrea Betanzos (Photo credit: Monica Patten)

Lastly, Andrea Betanzos has been promoted to associate video editor, a recognition of her hard work stepping into a new cross-show role on our team. Andrea has thrown herself into developing new processes, learning video editing technology, assisting in production across our video efforts (especially Op-Docs) and crossing every “t” and dotting every “i” in the 145-step publishing process that brings an episode from idea to completion. We’re lucky to have her. 

Please join me in welcoming Mac and in congratulating James and Andrea on their new roles.