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Dan Wakeford

Brand Builder | Editor-in-chief | Editorial Director | Producer | Chief Content Officer | ➤ Build Brands & Tell Stories to Create Breakthrough Moments that Grow Audience & Revenue

Dan Wakeford is an experienced media professional who was recently appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of Us Weekly in March 2024.12 He is a globally recognized and award-winning editor with over 20 years of experience in the media industry.1

Prior to joining Us Weekly, Wakeford held several prominent positions in the media world:

  1. Editor-in-Chief of PEOPLE magazine and Editorial Director of Entertainment Weekly from 2019 to 2022.34
  2. Editor-in-Chief of The Messenger, a publication that opened in May 2023 and closed in January 2024.34
  3. Editor-in-Chief of In Touch Weekly and Life & Style Weekly.13

Wakeford is known for his expertise in brand building, content strategy, and storytelling. At PEOPLE, he led a team of 200 and modernized the brand by extending it into TV, podcasts, and digital platforms.4 He grew the brand's digital footprint to 76 million unique visitors and the total brand footprint to 96 million consumers a month.4

Born on March 3, 1975, in England, Wakeford moved to the United States in 2002.3 He graduated from Leicester University in 1996 with a B.A. in American Studies.34 In his personal life, Wakeford married actor Lucas Baker in May 2018.3

As the new Editor-in-Chief of Us Weekly, Wakeford aims to deliver engaging content, exclusive interviews, and captivating features while expanding the magazine's digital presence.12

Highlights

Jul 30 · linkedin

Fun job with me and the team at Us Weekly! https://lnkd.in/eVY_UXua

Feb 1 · linkedin

I am still processing the devastating news about The end of The Messenger but right now my focus is on my colleagues. I worked with the best journalists in the business. The editorial team built a brand from scratch in a short amount of time and achieved our goal of creating a neutral news brand that fit perfectly into a middle lane, appealing to insiders and outsiders. The team are some of the top journalists in the business and created best in class breakthrough work and accurate, neutral writing, reporting and editing. They delivered beyond expectations in just seven months - with traffic results to prove it. Comscore had us at 11,302,000 US uniques, and 89 million total page views reaching 4.1% of US total internet in December. And this month we were set to smash way beyond this, our momentum and growth was unprecedented. As Semafor recently said “The Messenger has lived up to some of its initial promises. It’s broken some interesting stories about New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the 2024 presidential campaign, and is quickly gaining a large online audience.” Adding, “That’s no easy feat in an environment where social media traffic has collapsed and AI content has made search traffic harder to come by.” And so much more, we led the way with our coverage of Trump’s legal issues, breaking international and military scoops week after week. And so many entertainment exclusives. The biggest celebrity story of last year, Taylor and Travis dating, was broken by our team. I’ve been bowled over by our access to some of the biggest names in America despite being a new brand. We started off with Donald Trump and Joe Manchin, on day one and have since interviewed Robert DeNiro, George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Cindy Crawford, and so many more. If anyone is looking for any journalists, editors and storytellers please reach out to me as there are so many I would like to recommend. Being out of work is dreadful but it’s even worse in the toughest moment media has ever gone through so let me know if you know of any leads for these truly remarkable folks.

Related Questions

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Dan Wakeford
Dan Wakeford, photo 1
Dan Wakeford, photo 2
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Location

New York City Metropolitan Area