A New Editor on Express

Express does not beat around the bush when it delivers news and in that spirit we'll cut to the chase: Melissa Hoppert is our choice to become the next editor of Express as the legendary LaForge era comes to a close.

As we all know, Express plays an essential role in keeping our newsroom competitive in this always-on era, whether the story of the moment is breaking during New York, London or Seoul hours. Express always keeps the reader front and center in its thinking and it's a desk that has long made writing crisply and clearly and concisely a thing.

Melissa, currently a deputy on the Live team, is a breaking news impresario who has been at her keyboard during some of the biggest stories of recent years. She's a stylish writer who celebrates a good turn of phrase. And she's both a skilled mentor of young talent and a champion of our most seasoned journalists. For these reasons and more, she'll be a strong successor to Patrick LaForge.

"Not only is Melissa an excellent journalist, but she's an empathetic manager who cares deeply about her colleagues," said Julie Bloom, the editor of Live. "Even in the midst of the craziest breaking news situations, she always remains calm and upbeat and makes sure her teammates feel supported and set up to do their best work."

Melissa has deep experience at The Times. She worked for a decade on Sports, spearheading coverage of three Super Bowls as the N.F.L. and colleges editor. She has partnered with desks across the newsroom on coverage of wars, elections, Olympic competitions, court verdicts, award ceremonies and on and on. One of our in-house horseracing experts, she used her experience as a reporter and producer on a yearlong investigation of horse deaths that resulted in a Times documentary featured on FX and Hulu.

"Melissa has always stood apart by combining journalism chops with is-she-for-real ebullience," said Jason Stallman, who worked with her on Sports and later guided her through her foray into moviemaking. "Much like the football program at her alma mater (Something something Buckeyes, I think?), she's been a force on both sides of the ball - as a reporter breaking her fair share of stories, and as an editor earning raves from reporters. Moving fast and getting it right is her default mode."

When she's not at the horse track, Melissa is at her cubicle thinking deeply about how our newsroom works. She's helped come up with the idea of a team of specialists in live coverage to relieve the pressure on news desks. She's developed editing and reporting workshops for our staff and she's reinforced digital best practices during visits to Washington, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Melissa is a Cleveland native who graduated from, yes, The Ohio State University. Before joining The Times in 2006, she reported and edited at The Steamboat Pilot & Today in Colorado, The Colorado Springs Gazette and The Baltimore Sun.

Patrick called her an outstanding successor as the head of Express. "I've known her since her early days on the copy desks, when I was blogging Metro news and she was running The Rail horse-racing blog," he said, describing Melissa as someone who "lives and breathes breaking news and cares deeply about what the readers want."

In her pitch for the Express job, Melissa wrote: "Patrick LaForge leaves big shoes to fill: He created a desk from scratch and managed to infuse it into the newsroom culture. It would be an honor to both inherit his vision and invigorate it."

Let the Hoppert era begin right after Labor Day, once she finishes up a stint editing our Olympics coverage from London.

- Joe, Marc and Carolyn

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.