Social Media Meets News.
When Kate joined HuffPost in 2012, she left a traditional broadcast network at the start of its digital revolution and dove into the one leading the charge with the rise of Twitter and Facebook, dominating the news industry. Kate was an inaugural producer of the company’s first online network, HuffPost Live. Her daily 30-minute segments pushed the boundaries of traditional news coverage by delving deeper into issues with a panel of experts and individuals with personal experiences validating their perspective. HuffPost Live won several Webby Awards and Kate’s segment, “Remixing the Trans and Hip-Hop Conversation” was nominated for a GLAAD Award. The interview Kate produced in 2014 with R. Kelly is now part of the docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”
Thrive
When Arianna Huffington started Thrive, it was originally called “Third Metric” and Kate began that journey while at HuffPost. In its infant stages, Kate produced daily segments on HuffPost Live with host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani to discuss the pillars of Thrive, focusing on wellness and mindfulness. Her segments featured celebrity guests, including Melinda Gates, Jennifer Lopez, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. Kate attended the 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and produced 70 high-profile interviews in 4 days.
Campaign Trail 2016
After HuffPost Live ended its run in January 2016, Kate led teams on the presidential campaign trail and covered state primaries, the conventions and Election Day using Facebook Live. From Vermont to Wisconsin to South Carolina and all the land surrounding, Kate brought coverage to millions of viewers interested in learning what was happening on the ground and behind the scenes.
Cracking The Algorithm
In 2017, Kate led a team to create daily social video content that crushed the Facebook algorithm and increased overall viewership on HuffPost’s video platforms. Here are her stats from that year:
250% growth on Facebook in 6 months
70 million new video views on platform added per month
Doubled YouTube subscribers
40x growth of time spent on YouTube
40% watch time increase on Apple Watch
In one day, on Friday, October 27, 2017, Kate wrote, produced and supervised six different videos: Rosie O’Donnell Speaks Out (552K views); White House Says Women Lied (1M views); Rose McGowan Speaks: (522K views); JFK Papers (414K views); Stranger Things Recap (291K views); James Toback (522K views). The six videos generated over 3 million views in one day.
Kate also produced critical coverage during the #MeToo movement, including the first social video that detailed the victims and scope of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse. She was passionate about the coverage and kept following editorial angles and the legal/editorial standards for each new story. From Weinstein to Spacey to Franken and the exclusive scoop on Danny Masterson, Kate developed a close relationship with the copy desk, standards and legal teams. Her videos included: Timeline of Harvey Weinstein’s Sexual Assault Claims (3.1M views), J-Law’s Awkward Speech With Weinstein (3.2M views), The Weinstein Effect (1M views), Trump’s Timeline of Alleged Assault (3.8M views) and 2017’s Sexual Harassment (1.7M views).