T-Squared: Natalie Martinez is now our social media editor

We have the honor of announcing that Natalie Martinez, our star audience producer, is being promoted to social media editor on The Texas Tribune’s audience team.

In the time we’ve worked together, we’ve been impressed with Natalie’s ability to share stories on numerous platforms and reflect readers’ needs in her work. This is a natural next step to give her more influence and stature to make our work and its distribution better.

Natalie has been shaping our strategy for Instagram while maneuvering from platform to platform without missing a beat. She has gained the trust of everyone she works with through her conscientious perspective on framing and information needs. She’s often one step ahead of what needs to happen and is proactive about offering her valued opinion on how to best approach distribution.

She’s got big ideas and the skills to match, which is why she’s being invited to join the ranks of editors at the Tribune. Natalie, who came to us from a role in misinformation research, also brings valuable expertise from outside the world of journalism, which is important because we need interdisciplinary approaches to expand our reach and better serve the information needs of Texans.

Natalie will continue with many of the production aspects of her current role but will now play a greater role in editing social copy and participating in editors’ meetings. She’ll support the fellows in their understanding of social distribution and engagement, which will have a ripple effect in other newsrooms that they go to. She will support John Hernandez in day-to-day social planning and coordination, and influence our decision-making around distribution. We’re also hiring another audience producer, and we hope Natalie’s promotion inspires that hire to dream big.

Natalie started her new role last week. Please extend congratulations to her and ask her about her ambitions for Instagram: You’ll see what we mean.

The full program is now LIVE for the 2022 The Texas Tribune Festival, happening Sept. 22-24 in Austin. Explore the schedule of 100+ mind-expanding conversations coming to TribFest, including the inside track on the 2022 elections and the 2023 legislative session, the state of public and higher ed at this stage in the pandemic, why Texas suburbs are booming, why broadband access matters, the legacy of slavery, what really happened in Uvalde and so much more. See the program.