The New York Times announced two new co-hosts for its popular “The Daily” podcast news show: former Variety staffer Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff, the paper’s Mexico City bureau chief.
The duo will split hosting duties for “The Daily” with Michael Barbaro, the political journalist who has been with the show since it launched in January 2017. Sabrina Tavernise, who was a foreign correspondent for the Times before joining as co-host of the podcast in 2022, is returning to a reporting role at the newspaper.
The Times, in announcing the new appointments, said that over the last year they found that having multiple hosts “allowed the team to experiment and innovate in ways that will make the show even stronger.”
“‘The Daily’ deepens people’s understanding of the most important stories we cover and produces original journalism that is best in class in the audio world,” Times executive editor Joe Kahn said in a statement. “Having Natalie and Rachel join Michael as hosts will strengthen the team that makes the show so compelling to listeners.”
Barbaro commented, “Each stage in the ‘Daily’s’ history has been a lesson in how much better and more creative the show can be when we expand our roster of hosts. Natalie and Rachel are the perfect journalists to take us into this new chapter. Both are fearless reporters and passionate believers in the power of audio storytelling. I can’t wait to see what the three of us can do together.”
Kitroeff has spent the past five years as an international correspondent and Mexico City bureau chief, where she led reporting on the cartels’ drug trade and corruption “at the highest levels of power.” She previously was a reporter covering the U.S. economy.
Abrams most recently has served as senior producer and reporter for “The New York Times Presents,” the documentary series for Hulu and FX. Before joining the Times in 2013, Abrams was a reporter at Variety covering the film and media business. Abrams was part of the 2018 reporting team at the Times that won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing sexual harassment and misconduct.
Abrams has already hosted several episodes of “The Daily,” including segments with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg during Signalgate and shows on Elon Musk and cosmetic surgery.
Abrams starts as an official co-host of “The Daily” immediately, and Kitroeff will join the team in June after transitioning out of her role as bureau chief.
Pictured above (l. to r.): Rachel Abrams, Natalie Kitroeff, Michael Barbaro
