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We’re excited to share a portion of our latest edition of The Asterisk, our monthly members-only newsletter, with all 19th readers. Each month, The Asterisk features a 19th team member who gives our members an exclusive look inside the newsroom.

In September, I was happy to connect our member community with Andrea Atehortua, The 19th’s product operations manager. Atehortua talked to me about a recent project she’s worked on, what she’s wanting to hear from our readers and much more. 

Sereena Henderson: You work with the product team to create ways our audience can experience and support The 19th’s journalism, like through our website, newsletters, podcast and other products. You’ve been here for over a year now, and you have made such an impact! I am always so impressed with your team’s work. What would you say is your team’s “underlying magic?” 

Andrea Atehortua: I really want to give credit to everyone on the product and technology team here. They are all open to experimenting and trying new things to find what works. In the past year we’ve made changes to everything from our website to how we communicate with each other. It’s been wonderful to see how engaged everyone is. It’s quite rare to have a team where everyone is game to make changes. I’ve been in tech for a decade and this is the kindest, friendliest team I have yet to work on. 

As the product operations manager, a big part of your role is to develop, improve and communicate shared processes for collaboration across the organization. What’s been your approach to seeing this through?

It’s always important when I’m building out a new process or way of doing things to make sure that the people involved are brought along every step of the way. If I’m updating the way we scope a project then I’m making sure that we get feedback early and often on changes we’ve made — this ensures that things don’t just work for me, but work for everyone impacted.

And please tell us: What’s a collaboration you’ve led or worked on recently that you’re excited for our audience to engage with?

I’m excited for our readers to see the new reporter bios that recently went live! Our hope with this change is that our readers get to know our reporters, editors and team better so that they can understand why we all care so much about this work. And, as a bonus, you can learn some new stuff about our staff you may not have known otherwise, like who is really into sports, what music people are into and how they like to spend their time. 

I feel like the majority of your work is driven and informed by our audience’s needs and feedback. Since you’ve been at The 19th, what’s something you’ve learned about our 19th community that has really stuck with you? 

The best, and probably most hopeful, lesson is that once people get to know us and our work they’re excited to support us. It’s very encouraging to see that our mission resonates with others and that they’re willing to come back again and again to support it. 

Speaking of our valued audience, I’d like to use this final question in our Q&A as an opportunity to invite them to share their thoughts with us. Andrea, as you continue to explore new ways for our members to stay connected with our journalism, what information could they share with you today to help you do this important work? 

I hope that our readers continue to tell us what they think about us and our work. Our teams really do value that feedback and take it to heart. We incorporate it into everything we do from changes to the website to figuring out who to partner with to spread the word about our journalism. 

If you have recommendations on how we can improve our website, what platforms you would like to see us on, or who we should partner with, we would love to hear it! I would especially like to hear what you think about the new bios. Please email us at [email protected] to let us know what you think.

Is there anything I didn’t ask that you would like to speak about?

No, but I just wanted to say thank you to our members for doing this work with us. It really helps knowing we have your support.