The New York Times: Yonette Joseph moves to Mexico City, expanding editing coverage

Yonette Joseph

After two very eventful years in Asia, during which she deftly assigned stories from Hong Kong and later decamped to South Korea as one of the Seoul newsroom’s inaugural editors, Yonette Joseph will change longitude and latitude to take on another pivotal role on the International desk: Senior International News Editor, based in Mexico City.

Placing a news editor in the region will allow the International desk to be more nimble in its coverage and add editing power to a dynamic backfield publishing Live briefings, blogs, enterprise, breaking news, interactives and other new story forms.

Yonette is well suited to the role.

After a decade working on various desks in Manhattan (Metro, the News Desk and Express), she became the first weekend editor in the London newsroom in 2017. In 2020, she took on the role of International news editor in Asia. There, she served as assignment editor, manager, mentor and collaborator across time zones, among other things.

Now, Yonette will take her formidable backfielding and writing skills to Mexico, while working with editors across the desk and collaborating with regional editors for Latin America. She will report to Greg Winter.

Yonette grew up in Guyana, a former British colony in South America — where she lived and breathed cricket — and in New York. She landed at The New York Times in 2007, after stints at The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and what is now The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y. Her interest in international news was ignited during a Knight-Wallace fellowship, which took the fellows to far-flung newsrooms like Milliyet, CNN Turk and Agos in Turkey, and Clarin and The Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina.

She said: “I’m happy to begin this new assignment but will miss the close-knit, insanely talented and courageous crew in Seoul, the comfy office slippers, the city’s scrumptious coffee culture, yummy cuisine and fiercely devoted K-pop fans.”

Please join us in congratulating Yonette. We are delighted she is pioneering this new role.