Thomas Johnson

About Thomas Johnson

I am the Head of Audience Development for the Guardian US. As a senior editor, I oversee the audience, newsletter and social storytelling teams. I have spent the last decade working in a variety of audience strategy roles with an emphasis on data-driven experimentation, subscriber growth and creative visual storytelling. Before joining the Guardian, I worked on the Washington Post’s Audience team as the assignment editor for social media. I led a four-person team and shaped The Post’s strategy on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.In 2020, I was a lead editor on The Post’s coronavirus reopening tracker, and worked on several audience-driven projects, including our new Asked and Answered series on the coronavirus pandemic and 2020 election.I joined The Post\'s Audience Department in 2018, first as an embedded editor in the Sports Department. I specialized in digital and social media strategy, special projects and new initiatives. I conducted audience experiments across the newsroom to test new distribution platforms, such as pop-up newsletters, and approaches to new coverage areas like YouTube.I started at The Post in 2014 and worked in Video for three years, first as a member of the social aggregation team and then as a video editor focused on breaking news, entertainment, sports and politics, including our 2016 presidential election coverage. I worked closely with sports editors and reporters to create original videos to pair with digital projects and was a 2017 finalist in the Associated Press Sports Editors contest for my video describing the increase in stadium violence in the NFL. I also co-wrote the weekly NBA newsletter, Post Up, for three years.I moved to D.C. in 2014 after completing Stanford’s Graduate Journalism Program and interning for Re/Code. Before that, I lived in Miami, where I worked for the Miami Herald and freelanced for various publications.Contact me at: bytomjohnson(at)gmail.com

Experience

1. Vice President, Us Audience and Strategy

   The Guardian

   Jun 2024 — Present

   Senior editor working across audience, product and editorial growth initiatives. I lead the US audience, newsletter and social storytelling teams.

Education

• Stanford University

  Master of Arts (M.A.), Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs

  2013 — 2014

• Florida International University

  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.),, Journalism

  2006 — 2010

Skills

• Sports Writer
• Sports
• Blogging
• Google Analytics
• Editorial
• Ap Style
• Online Journalism
• Newspaper
• Advertising
• Breaking News
• Basketball Analyst
• Newspapers
• Omniture
• Journalism
• Multimedia
• Social Media Marketing
• Sports Writing
• Digital Journalism
• Editing
• Web Analytics
• Social Media
• Storytelling