Kate Aurthur
Kate Aurthur is editor-at-large at Variety, focused on television and streaming coverage that treats shows as both industry products and cultural events. Her work stands out for combining fan-oriented reporting with high-impact features and timely news on major series and talent. She moves between long-form magazine stories, online news and video, giving her coverage reach across the publication’s platforms. Her reporting zeroes in on the programs and performers that drive audience conversation, from prestige comedies and dramas to buzzy streaming projects.
Fan-oriented television and streaming coverage
Aurthur spearheads fan-oriented coverage of television content at Variety, concentrating on the shows that generate strong viewer attachment and social discussion. She treats series as living texts, covering how plots, characters and creative decisions resonate with audiences and shape the wider TV landscape.
Her news reporting includes announcements of new projects for familiar casts, such as the Netflix spy series that reunites Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour after “Stranger Things,” positioning such stories in the context of streaming strategy and fandom. She writes with an eye to how content circulates across platforms and how viewer reaction feeds back into industry decisions.
This focus makes her coverage distinct from more transactional beat reporting that limits itself to renewals and cancellations.
Cover stories and deep dives on series
Aurthur writes high-impact cover and feature stories about the television industry for Variety’s weekly magazine. These pieces include in-depth analyses of series such as “Schitt’s Creek” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” where she traces creative evolution, behind-the-scenes decision-making and the factors that turned them into long-running cultural touchstones.
Her features draw out the craft and strategy behind success, from showrunner choices and writers’ room dynamics to cast chemistry and character arcs.
She profiles key creative figures and performers around these series, using interviews and narrative structure to show how individual careers intersect with larger trends in television. The result is coverage that gives equal weight to storytelling, business and legacy, aimed at readers who want to understand why particular shows matter.
Industry news, talent deals and cross-platform work
Alongside her magazine features, Aurthur breaks news for Variety’s digital operation and contributes to video content, extending her reporting into faster-paced and more visual formats. Her news bylines track talent deals, new series orders and strategic moves by networks and streamers, linking individual announcements to broader shifts in the television business. She covers how creative partnerships, casting decisions and franchise extensions reflect the competition for audience attention in the streaming era. Aurthur’s background as a senior reporter and editor at major news organizations informs a style that is direct, sourced and oriented toward impact.
Across formats, she keeps the focus on television and streaming as a system of stories, people and business decisions, rather than treating any one element in isolation.
4 more entertainment journalists.
Ama Sechere
Ama Sechere is an entertainment publicist at Bell Media who maps Crave’s streaming slate across Crave, HBO, Starz, and related specialty channels. Her main work is the recurring Crave Streaming Overview series, published monthly from at least December 2021 through July 2026 and in weekly editions. These releases track feature films, returning series, premieres, finales, special events, and new acquisitions by date, format, and platform. She also handles campaign-style announcements for priority titles, including the short-form original comedy series MY DEAD MOM. Sechere focuses on streaming and television publicity, with more than a decade of experience in national and multi-platform campaigns. She reports through structured schedules, concise loglines, highlight notes, premiere details, and clear cross-brand labels. Her work supports media planning rather than criticism or review.
Amaris Encinas
Amaris Encinas tracks how viral culture, celebrity news and brand-driven moments move across platforms and into everyday life for USA TODAY’s national trending desk. She covers celebrities, athletes, entertainment headlines, consumer news, viral food culture, internet trends, nostalgia and technology. Her work includes stories on Simone Biles, Jimmy Kimmel, Dolly Parton, Sophie Cunningham, Taco Bell’s Pink Baja Blast, viral food hacks, Cartoon Network Flash games and Apple launches. She also reports on recalls, retail policy, public safety and representation, including a profile of Revista Étnica’s founder. Encinas writes quick-turn, news-driven pieces that explain why incidents, products and trends are capturing attention. She connects online activity to real-world effects and grounds stories in clear facts, timelines and stakes. Before USA TODAY, she covered breaking news, arts and life for regional outlets.
Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson covers the modern wrestling business through interview-led news and detailed event reports across major promotions. He writes for Fightful and POST Wrestling, focusing on clear, news-first stories built from wrestler quotations, promotional announcements and match results. Since 2017, his beat has spanned WWE, AEW, NJPW, MLW and other companies, documenting plans, deals and career moves through his own interviews and conversations. He files chronological recaps from major WWE cards and weekly shows, tracking match outcomes, title changes, segments and announced bouts with wrestling-specific detail. His cross-promotion coverage and appearances discussing events like AEW All In add context on how talent, stories and major cards move between companies. Beyond articles, he runs the “Andrew Thompson Interviews” video series and appears as a podcaster, keeping the emphasis on direct questions, sourced quotes and concrete developments.
Angelina Mazza
Angelina Mazza is a romance scholar and cultural critic who treats love stories, celebrity narratives, and pop entertainment as serious subjects, tracing how they shape contemporary culture. She writes for outlets including Vulture, Slate, Literary Hub, Salon, and other magazines and journals. At Vulture she covers romance fiction and celebrity stories, using list-driven guides and essays to analyze genre tropes, fandoms, and how romance moves from niche communities into mainstream culture. Her work extends to television, music, poetry, internet culture, and the history of music television, examining programming choices, character types, and images as texts that encode identity, desire, gender, and audience. She also writes about digital culture and campus television comedies, and works as a fact-checker, bringing precise detail and careful sourcing to her reported and critical pieces.