Memo: Irene Thomaidis joins CBC News as Senior Producer of Social Media and Trends
Thomaidis makes move from the Toronto Sun where she was Senior Online editor, according to memo.
I am pleased to announce that Irene Thomaidis will join CBC News as Senior Producer of Social Media and Trends. Her first day is January 4.
Irene takes over the role at a time when social has become central to everything we do at CBCNews.ca. Irene will oversee the staff and strategy for the main @CBCNews social accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, our YouTube channel, Trending stories and our small-but-mighty video and photo teams. She will also be a key contact for the regional social media presenters.
Irene comes to us from The Toronto Sun where she was Senior Online Editor. She was an integral part of the city desk working hand-in-hand with the City Editor, mining social media for trending content. She helped guide the Sun newsroom through several website redesigns, trained staff on new content management systems with a focus on best SEO and social media practices. Irene was an early advocate of live coverage of breaking stories and using social to build relationships with readers.
Irene is a veteran of the online news industry in Canada, having worked at AOL Canada as a news editor nearly 15 years ago, then moving to CanWest (now Postmedia) where she led the web team that launched Dose.ca. She moved within CanWest to canada.com where she hit the ground running as homepage editor in the middle of a network-wide relaunch, developing workflow for the newly created role and chairing daily editorial meetings.
She began her career as a part-time news reporter at the Toronto Sun. She has also taught reporting part-time at Centennial College this past semester.
Irene is an advocate of early literacy, sits on the Pickering Library Board, and is a member of Centennial College’s Journalism Program Advisory Committee.
Follow @irenethomaidis on Twitter and be sure to say hello when she arrives on the Daily Desk the first week of January.
Brodie Fenlon
H.G. Watson was J-Source's managing editor from 2015 to 2018. She is a journalist based in Toronto. You can learn more about her at hgwatson.com.