Jere Hester returned to the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in early 2022 after a three-year-plus stint as the founding editor-in-chief of THE CITY, an award-winning, nationally recognized nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
He previously served as news director and director of the reporting and writing program at the J-School, where he established the award-winning NYCity News Service in 2007.
Before joining the J-School during its debut semester, Hester was city editor of the New York Daily News, where he started as a reporter. He also was a longtime pop culture columnist for NBC Local Integrated Media. The lifelong Brooklyn resident began his career in local journalism, rising from intern to editor of Downtown Express.
His work has appeared over the years in outlets that include New York magazine, CNN, HuffPost, and The New York Times. Hester is the author of “Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped Us Come Together as a Family.”