New Editor of the Flex Desk

A couple of years ago, a veteran reporter left a comment on a newsletter Jessica Schnall was editing: "You're making that paragraph sound more like me than I did," the reporter told her.

It's that skillful attention to preserving the writer's voice along with her exacting standards and her exhaustive knowledge of language that made Jessica one of the first editors we turned to when we were assembling the Flexible Editing desk in 2019. It's also a large part of why, less than a year later, as the desk was growing rapidly, she became Flex's first deputy editor. And it's a big reason we're promoting her again: this time to editor of the Flex desk.

In her seven years on Flex, Jessica has been a supportive and encouraging mentor to countless editors who've joined our team or spent time with us temporarily, several of whom have said they didn't feel as if they'd succeeded until they'd impressed her. Since the desk expanded to London last year, Jessica has been managing our editors there from New York. She also oversees Flex's editing of The Morning, The Times's flagship newsletter, and reviews the work of the senior news assistants who proofread our website as part of the Proofing Project.

Jessica's passion for language and her ability to clearly explain the finer nuances of grammar make her the perfect choice to lead Flex at a time when as many as a dozen guests cycle through the desk each year. Few other editors could talk about a subject like fused participles for a half hour and still hold your attention. (That's not a joke. She built a 30-minute presentation on the topic this year.)

With my role having recently expanded beyond Flex, Jessica will continue to report to me and will play a more prominent part in running the desk day to day, working with our deputy editor, Wendy Lu, to continue building a best-in-class editor training experience while making sure the team continues to meet the editing needs of the rest of the newsroom.

Jessica joined The Times in 2013 and before Flex spent time on the Metro copy desk, the Enterprise copy desk and the News Print Hub. Earlier in her career, she worked for The Athens News, in southeast Ohio, The Northern Virginia Daily and The Boston Herald.

Please join me in congratulating her.

- Pete