Coda Story Names Simon Allison Editor-In-Chief

The co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of The Continent will lead Coda’s journalism as the organisation expands its early-warning reporting and develops new ways to reach audiences.

NEW YORK — 09.21.2026

Coda Story today announced that journalist and editor Simon Allison will become its new Editor-in-Chief. 

Allison, the South African co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning pan-African newspaper The Continent, has worked with Coda since February 2026, initially as Guest Editor. He has played a central role in launching and editing The Atlas, the new international newspaper created by Coda Story and The Continent.

As Editor-in-Chief, Allison will lead all of Coda’s journalism and editorial products, including The Atlas, Coda’s monitoring and early-warning work, digital publishing, and experiments in new forms of journalism and distribution.

The leadership transition comes as Coda sharpens its model as a journalism studio focused on detecting and investigating long-range shifts in power. Rather than organising its journalism around the daily news cycle, Coda’s reporters and researchers monitor sustained currents across countries and over time, looking for emerging patterns before they become conventional news stories. Those insights can then move through different forms — investigations, partnerships with other newsrooms, audio and visual storytelling, experimental and experiential journalism.

“We are in the middle of an information revolution, and journalists are on the frontline,” said Allison. “Doing great journalism is no longer enough. To meet this challenge, we have to totally rethink how we source, publish and distribute that journalism. Coda is uniquely positioned to lead that work at a global scale.”

“I’ve admired Simon’s work for years,” said Coda’s founding editor Natalia Antelava. “He has a rare ability to see the invisible threads connecting stories across borders and time, the imagination to rethink how journalism works, and a talent for turning ambitious ideas into exceptional journalism. I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have leading Coda’s journalism into its next decade,” 

Antelava, who co-founded Coda in 2016 and has led its journalism ever since, will now take on the role of Publisher and CEO. She will focus on Coda’s institutional strategy, sustainability, major partnerships and the development of ZEG Network, which extends Coda’s journalism into live, cross-disciplinary spaces designed to turn reporting into shared understanding, relationships and collaboration.

ABOUT CODA STORY

Coda Story is an award-winning nonprofit journalism studio that investigates the forces reshaping power and public life. Through deep reporting, sustained monitoring and pattern-recognition journalism, Coda connects developments across borders and over time, revealing systems and shifts that are often obscured by the daily news cycle. Coda’s early-warning journalism moves across multiple formats, including investigations, audio and visual storytelling, experimental journalism, partnerships and The Atlas, its flagship publication. Its work also extends into live and experiential formats through the ZEG Network.

Media contact:
Nadia Beard, Managing Editor
[email protected]