Romenesko Misc.
Andrei Scheinkman leaves his Interactive News Developer position at the Times to become Editor of Interactive News for AOL Huffington Post Media Group. “He and his group will be an especially important part of our 2012 election coverage as we look to make sense of the data that will impact how voters will perceive issues and candidates,” says Arianna Huffington. She also announces the hiring of Jason Fields, former Head of User Experience & Design, Multiplatform Experiences at BBC. He becomes HuffPo’s Head of User Experience & Product.
Press release
AOL Huffington Post Media Group Names Jason Fields Head of User Experience & Product and Andrei Scheinkman Head of Interactive News Team
Fields to Oversee Product, Design and Functionality; Scheinkman Leaves New York Times to Build Data-Driven News Applications Group
New York, NY – June 6, 2011 – The AOL Huffington Post Media Group, a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, announces today that Jason Fields, former Head of User Experience & Design, Multiplatform Experiences at BBC, has been named Head of User Experience & Product; and Andrei Scheinkman, Interactive News Developer at The New York Times, is joining as Editor of Interactive News. Fields oversees product, design and user experience across AOL Huffington Post Media Group’s diverse destination sites. Scheinkman, a leader in the emerging field of interactive news, is creating and will be overseeing a team of programmers, journalists and designers collaborating to create innovative data-driven web applications to help readers make sense of the data behind the news. Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of AOL Huffington Post Media Group, and Paul Berry, Chief Technology Officer of AOL Huffington Post Media Group, made the announcement.
“I’m delighted to welcome Jason Fields and Andrei Scheinkman to our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “Jason has a proven track record of building sites that are intuitive, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. He shares our obsession with constantly improving the user experience, whether it’s ongoing iterations to refine products or bold executions that challenge conventional design and functionality – and he’ll be doing this across every platform.”
Continued Huffington: “Andrei is one of the best interactive news creators in the industry and will build a team of the highest-caliber talent in the field. It will be exciting to watch Andrei and his team maximize the myriad ways that the web can be used to animate stories overlooked in all the information that we’re swimming in. He and his group will be an especially important part of our 2012 election coverage as we look to make sense of the data that will impact how voters will perceive issues and candidates.”
Said Paul Berry: “We’re continuing to build a premier editorial, engineering and product group and are laser focused on building a great 21st century media company by continuing to forge a new way of integrating the work of journalists, designers and developers. Our size and continued growth gives noted talent like Jason and Andrei an incredible platform on which to build, and we welcome their unique voices.”
At the BBC in London, Fields oversaw a multidisciplinary team focused on creating seamless interactive experiences across web, mobile and ITV products. While at the company, he contributed to the development of the BBC GEL (Global Experience Language), a design platform to improve interaction across sites. Prior to the BBC, Fields held senior roles in the mobile design sector and the startup sector at Bill Gross Idealab! He was previously a UX consultant to many agencies developing complex user experiences.
Said Fields: “The AOL Huffington Post Media Group offers a wide range of great content and compelling social engagement — a powerful platform that’s ready to be optimized, both in terms of function and design. I look forward to helping increase the impact of the network’s suite of destination sites by enhancing how users engage with its stories and information.”
At The New York Times, Scheinkman led development of cutting-edge projects, including an interactive election results package and a data-driven guide to the 2010 elections. Collaborating with journalists, designers and developers across the newsroom, he created interactive databases on subjects as diverse as immigration statistics, school test scores, Guantanamo detainees, electoral forecasts and political advertisements. He received a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism and multiple Publisher’s Awards for his work.
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