Claudine Ebeid Joins The Atlantic as Executive Producer of Audio, Andrea Valdez Named a Managing Editor

Claudine Ebeid, who has spent her career shaping some of the most influential audio journalism and narrative podcasts, is coming to The Atlantic to lead audio as executive producer. The Atlantic is also announcing that Andrea Valdez is taking on a new role as a managing editor in the newsroom, having first joined the company earlier this year as senior vice president of audience strategy.

Ebeid comes to The Atlantic from The New York Times, where she most recently worked as a senior editor of news projects. She spent eight years at NPR, where she was a supervising producer and editor at Morning Edition, and a producer for All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. She is also the creator and host of the podcast Broken Ground, from the Southern Environmental Law Center, which was nominated for a 2021 iHeart Radio Award. She got her start at WBUR in Boston.

Valdez was the founding editor in chief of the nonprofit, independent news organization The 19th, and has been an editor at The Texas Observer, Wired, and Texas Monthly. Since joining The Atlantic in May, she has collaborated closely with newsroom leadership and product, engineering, and growth on audience growth across platforms.

In her role as a managing editor, Valdez will focus on new and expanding areas of coverage in the newsroom, and in developing and driving forward some of The Atlantic’s most ambitious journalistic ideas. She will work closely with Ebeid on shaping a multiyear audio strategy that builds upon The Atlantic’s podcast portfolio and creates opportunities for ever more audio ambition. Both Valdez and Ebeid will report to executive editor Adrienne LaFrance.

The Atlantic launched three new podcasts in 2021: The Experiment, a collaboration with WNYC Studios, hosted by Julia Longoria, that each week features stories from our unfinished country; How to Build a Happy Life, hosted by Atlantic contributing writer and Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks; and The Review, a weekly pop-culture show featuring a rotating group of The Atlantic’s film, TV, music, and book critics. The Experiment was just named one of the Best Shows of 2021 by Apple Podcasts. Floodlines, the limited series reported by Vann R. Newkirk II that examined what went wrong after the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina, won a Peabody Award earlier this year.