Steve Smith and Ann Givens join WNYC

Read more in this January 11 note to staff from WNYC Deputy Editor Stephanie Clary

Hi, all:

I’m thrilled to announce that two more talented editors will be joining our newsroom: Steve Smith and Ann Givens will be starting new roles at WNYC in the coming weeks. Each will lead a desk and be charged with developing essential multi-platform journalism. 

Steve Smith will be joining us as the Culture & Arts Editor. Steve is coming to WNYC from NPR, where he was a senior editor on the Arts, Culture and Books desk. Steve spent 13 years as a music editor at Time Out New York, and for more than half that time doubled as a classical music critic for The New York Times. He joined the Boston Globe as an assistant arts editor, covering museums and galleries in addition to music, then came home to New York City to establish National Sawdust Log, a digital arts publication embedded within the Williamsburg concert venue and arts incubator National Sawdust. Steve is also a freelance contributor for The New Yorker. Steve’s first day is January 24. 

Ann Givens will be joining us as the Public Safety Editor. Ann has two decades of experience covering public safety in New York for print, digital and broadcast news outlets. She comes to WNYC from The Trace, a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to covering guns and gun violence in America. There, she investigated topics including loopholes in domestic violence protective orders and gaps in the nation’s gun background check system. She also writes a monthly profile series called Ricochet about people whose lives have been touched by guns. Prior to that, she was an investigative producer at NBC New York, where she won two New York Emmys for stories on government corruption and housing discrimination. She was the point person for the NBC-WNYC collaboration during her time there, so she has worked with some of you in the past. She also spent more than a decade at Newsday, where she covered the civil and criminal courts in Nassau County.

We are excited to start the new year off strong with Steve, Ann and other recently announced new hires Herb Pinder, Tiffany Hanssen and Consider This host Janae Pierre joining our team. Please join me in welcoming our new colleagues to WNYC!