Re-Imagining Journalism

Re-Imagining Journalism is a small, invitation-only summit of young journalists from a diverse cross-section of the industry. It will engage participants in exploring what is – or is not – working for them in the news that they consume, and the news that they produce. It will engage them in their aspirations for journalism and in re-imagining how the journalism of their futures may change.

It is our hope that this is the first of more conversations about how the craft of journalism may evolve in the future.

Featured Conversation:

Anil Dash
Co-founder and Partner, Activate

Described as a “blogging pioneer” by the New Yorker, Dash is the founding Director of Expert Labs, an independent non-profit which invents new web technologies to help policy makers in the White House and the Federal Government use social networks to tap into the expertise of the public. Dash is also a co-founder and partner in Activate, the new strategy consulting firm that advises companies at the intersection of media, entertainment and technology.  He is a recognized expert on web technology, web culture and the software industry.

Attendees:

Bill Allison
Editorial Director, Sunlight Foundation

A veteran investigative journalist and editor for nonprofit media, Bill Allison worked for the Center for Public Integrity for nine years, where he co-authored The Cheating of America with Charles Lewis, was senior editor of The Buying of the President 2000 and co-editor of the New York Times bestseller The Buying of the President 2004. Prior to joining the Center, Bill worked for eight years for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Marc Ambinder
White House Correspondent, National Journal

Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal. He previously served as the politics editor for The Atlantic, where he curated the influential Politics channel on TheAtlantic.com and contributed to the magazine. He was also a chief political consultant to CBS News. Earlier, at NJ’s Hotline, Ambinder was the founding editor of “Hotline On Call,” a pathbreaking political news blog. He also worked as a producer and reporter for the ABC News Political Unit and was one of the founders of ABC’s “The Note.”

Melissa Bailey
Managing Editor, New Haven Independent

Melissa Bailey is managing editor of the New Haven Independent, an online-only, hyperlocal news website that began publishing in September 2005. It has been recognized nationally as a leader in the first wave of professional, not-for-profit, online daily news sites that emerged in the wake of cutbacks at legacy newspapers. At The Independent, Bailey covers a City Hall, schools and politics beat; assigns and edits stories; and manages social networking interfaces. Before joining The Independent in 2006, Bailey was the lead reporter for the Middletown (CT) Press.

Christina Bellantoni
Associate Politics Editor, CQ Roll Call

Christina Bellantoni became associate politics editor at CQ Roll Call in October 2010.  She worked as a senior reporter-blogger at Talking Points Memo’s Washington bureau covering the White House and Washington at large from October 2009 through October 2010. She helped launch a major expansion for TPM, getting the political news site into the White House Correspondents Association and the White House press pool.  Before joining TPM, Bellantoni was a White House correspondent for The Washington Times, where she worked since 2003, and covered local politics in California.

David Cohn
Founder, Spot.us and Fellow, Reynolds Journalism Institute

Dave Cohn has written for Wired, Seed, Columbia Journalism Review and The New York Times among other publications. While working toward his master’s degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Cohn worked as the editor at groundbreaking newassignment.net in 2006, which focused on citizen journalism and ways news organizations could explore the social web. He has been a contributing editor at NewsTrust.net, a founding editor of Broowaha and most recently created Spot.Us, a nonprofit that is pioneering “community funded reporting.” He is currently a fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and is a frequent speaker on topics related to new media and beyond.

Monica Guzman
Director, Editorial Outreach, Intersect

Mónica Guzmán is director of editorial outreach at Intersect, a Seattle-based start-up.  From January 2007 to May 2010, she was a reporter at seattlepi.com, where she ran the award-winning Big Blog and drew a community of readers online and through weekly meetups. Exploring ways to engage readers made Moni into an online news evangelist; since 2007 she’s spoken regularly about new tools in online conversation.  She’s been named one of the Top 100 Women in Seattle Tech, one of the Poynter Institute’s 35 social media influencers and one of the Society of Professional Journalists’ “Quill” magazine’s 20 journalists to follow on Twitter.

Cory Haik
Deputy Editor, Universal News Desk, The Washington Post

Haik is an online journalist who has spent her last decade managing the disruption of web publishing—which she likes. From producing content to managing people and products, from reporting to editing, multimedia, back-end production and development, she has happily had her hands in many things that make online journalism work. Haik shared two Pulitzer Prizes with The New Orleans Times-Picayune for the staff coverage of Hurricane Katrina, for breaking news and public service in 2006. She also shared a 2010 Pulitzer Prize with The Seattle Times for breaking news coverage of the shooting deaths of four police officers.

Mary Katharine Ham
Writer, The Weekly Standard and Political Commentator, Fox News Channel

Ham is an American journalist and video blogger. Her video blog series, “HamNation”, won a Golden Dot award for Best Vlog of 2006 from the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. Ham appears regularly on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News program, The O’Reilly Factor, and she has been a guest-panelist on Fox’s late-night satire show Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. She describes her political leaning as “primarily fiscal- and security-conscious conservative.” Ham was previously Online Editor for The Washington Examiner.

Reeve Hamilton
Reporter, The Texas Tribune

Reeve Hamilton is a reporter at The Texas Tribune. He interned at The Nation and The Texas Observer, for which he covered the 2009 legislative session. Most recently, he was a desk assistant at The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. A Houston native, he has a bachelor’s degree in English from Vanderbilt University.

Reyhan Harmanci
Culture Editor/Writer, The Bay Citizen

After seven years at the San Francisco Chronicle, first as editorial assistant and then as arts/trends reporter, Reyhan Harmanci is the culture/editor writer at the Bay Citizen. The Bay Citizen is a non-profit online news site that provides content to the New York Times Bay Area section.

Robert Hernandez
Asst. Professor, USC Annenberg

Robert Hernandez is Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at USC Annenberg. He worked for The Seattle Times from 2002 until 2009, where he was promoted from news producer to senior news producer to director of development. Hernandez helped shape and execute the vision for the website and company, leading a team of engineers and designers in research and development focusing on creating innovative tools and applications for both staff and readers, among many other duties. He was a Web designer and consultant for El Salvador’s largest daily newspaper site, La Prensa Gráfica, Web producer for The San Francisco Chronicle and online editor of The San Francisco Examiner. He is also on the board of directors for the Online News Association, and has served as the online officer for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists board in the past. He is a member of ONA and a lifetime member of NAHJ.

Mandy Jenkins
Social Media Producer, TBD

Mandy Jenkins acts as “the voice” of TBD in social media, overseeing their social media strategy, training staff and occasionally writing a bit of breaking news. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., she was the social media editor for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Jenkins received a BS in journalism and an MA in media management from Kent State University.

Joshua Johnson
Morning Newscaster, KQED

Joshua Johnson joined KQED in the Bay Area as its new morning newscaster after six years as an anchor/reporter in his native South Florida. There he helped to launch an innovative partnership known as WLRN Miami Herald News.  Joshua served as afternoon anchor and general assignment reporter, with emphases on policy, science and government stories. He also served as operations director, overseeing the equipment and technology for WLRN’s radio staff within the Herald’s multimedia newsroom. Joshua was a frequent contributor to NPR newscasts, CBS Radio News, American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” and PRI’s “The Takeaway.” Before working in public radio, Joshua was an assignment editor for WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, his hometown, and for WTVJ-TV in Miami.

Mark Luckie
National Innovations Editor, Washington Post

Mark S. Luckie is a digital journalist and founder of the digital journalism blog 10,000 Words and author of the The Digital Journalist’s Handbook, a guide to the tools necessary to thrive in the digital newsroom. He currently serves as National Innovations Editor for the Washington Post. Luckie has produced multimedia and interactive stories for the Center for Investigative Reporting, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, The Contra Costa Times, and is a former crime and justice reporter for The Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Seung Min Kim
Assistant Editor, The Arena, POLITICO

Kim joined POLITICO in August 2009. Prior to that, Kim was at USA Today for 11 months, where she reported from the paper’s Washington bureau and worked on its online news desk. Before making her way to Washington, she covered suburban New Jersey for The Star-Ledger of Newark. She also completed internships at The Des Moines Register, the St. Petersburg Times and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She is the vice president of digital media for the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association.

Alexis Madrigal
Lead Technology Writer, TheAtlantic.com

Madrigal is the author of a forthcoming book about the surprisingly long history of green technology, and the co-founder of Longshot Magazine (formerly 48 Hour Magazine), a high-speed media experiment that garnered attention from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. While at Wired.com, he built Wired Science into one of the most popular blogs in the world. The site was nominated for best magazine blog by the MPA and best science website in the 2009 Webby Awards. He also cofounded Haiti ReWired, a groundbreaking community dedicated to the discussion of technology, infrastructure, and the future of Haiti.

Laura McGann
Deputy Congressional Editor, POLITICO

Laura McGann joined POLITICO in 2010 as deputy congressional editor, after serving as assistant editor at Nieman Lab.  Previously, she was the founding managing editor, and later editor, of the nonprofit national news and politics site The Washington Independent. Before that she covered politics for TPM Muckraker. She worked the bankruptcy beat for Dow Jones, where many of her stories were picked up by The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.

Mekahlo Medina
Anchor, “News Raw”, KNBC

Mekahlo Medina joined KNBC in January 2006 to serve as anchor of the station’s digital service, “News Raw,” which allows viewers to join KNBC journalists in behind-the-scenes action.  He was a general assignment reporter for KSTP-TV (ABC) in Minneapolis, Minnesota from November, 2004 to December, 2005.  Before that, and in dramatic contrast, Medina worked for KPNX-TV in Phoenix, where The Arizona Associated Press awarded him “Journalist of the Year” for his body of work at KPNX.

Geraldine Moriba
Executive Producer, “In America” Unit, CNN

Emmy award-winning producer Geraldine Moriba, is the executive producer of CNN’s “In America” unit. Moriba comes to CNN after 16 years at NBC News, where for 12 years, she served as a producer for Dateline NBC. Most recently she has served as senior producer for Broadcast Standards, monitoring news reports on all NBC News platforms. Before joining NBC, Moriba was a researcher at ABC’s PrimeTime Live. She was also a producer for As It Happens, the news and current affairs broadcast of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Canada, covering stories ranging from the LA Riots to the Gulf War. Moriba has won five Emmy Awards, including most recently in September 2009 for Outstanding Coverage for a Breaking News Story Long Form, NBC News Decision 2008 Election Night.

Jay Newton-Small
Washington Correspondent, TIME

Jay Newton-Small, Washington correspondent for TIME, writes about Capitol Hill and Washington politics.  In 2008, she covered the presidential campaign hitting nearly every primary and caucus and traveling extensively with Senator Barack Obama. Newton-Small, who joined TIME in 2007, also contributes regularly to TIME.com’s political blog, “Swampland.”  Before joining TIME, Newton-Small was a reporter for Bloomberg News, where she covered the White House, Congress and the 2004 presidential campaign.

David Nathaniel Philipps
Reporter, Colorado Springs Gazette

David Philipps is an award winning journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times, among others. For his coverage of the violence at Fort Carson in the Colorado Springs Gazette he won the Livingston Prize for National Reporting and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His book, Lethal Warriors, was a finalist for the Anthony J. Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. Philipps has appeared on CNN, NPR, MSNBC and ABC. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his family.

Ben Poston
Investigative reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Ben Poston is a watchdog reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, specializing in data analysis. He joined the newspaper in 2007 and in recent months he has written about how the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is hamstrung by Congress and rarely revokes the licenses of gun dealers who break the law.  He was part of a team that won the 2010 award for best breaking news investigation from Investigative Reporters and Editors. Ben also was named a finalist for the 2009 Livingston Award, which recognizes the nation’s top young journalists. Previously, he worked as a data analyst at the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting in Columbia, Mo., and as a reporter for Cox Newspapers in Ohio.

Nico Pitney
National Editor, Huffington Post

Nico Pitney is National Editor at the Huffington Post. He was previously Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and Managing Editor of ThinkProgress. He lives in Washington, DC, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR.

Hari Sreenivasan
Correspondent, Director of Digital Partnerships, PBS NewsHour

In December 2009 Hari Sreenivasan joined the new PBS NewsHour as an online and on-air correspondent. Hari makes regular news updates throughout the day on the NewsHour’s Web site in addition to appearing nightly on the program.  While at CBS News, Hari reported regularly on the “CBS Evening News,” “The Early Show;” and “CBS Sunday Morning.” Before that, he served as an anchor and correspondent for ABC News, KTVU-TV in Oakland, California, CNET Broadcast and WNCN in Raleigh, NC.

Brian Stelter
Media Reporter, New York Times

Brian Stelter covers television and digital media as a reporter for The New York Times. He writes frequently for both the Business and Arts sections of the newspaper, and is a lead contributor to the Media Decoder blog. He joined the Times in 2007 after spending three and a half years as the editor of TVNewser, a popular blog covering the television news industry.

Matt Thompson
Editorial Product Manager, Project Argo, NPR

Matt Thompson is an Editorial Product Manager at NPR, where he’s helping to coordinate the development of 12 topic-focused local news sites in conjunction with member stations. Before moving to DC, Matt served as the interim Online Community Manager for the Knight Foundation. A 2002 Harvard graduate, Thompson also completed a Donald W. Reynolds Fellowship at the Reynolds Journalism Institute; served as deputy Web editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and worked as an online reporter/producer for the Fresno Bee. He also worked at the Poynter Institute from 2003-04 as the Naughton Fellow for Online Reporting and Writing and served on the organization’s National Advisory Board.

Wendy Warren
VP and Editor, Philly.com

Wendy Warren is Vice President and Editor of Philly.com, the Philadelphia area’s leading news website. A manager with 18 years of experience, Warren previously worked as assistant managing editor for the Philadelphia Daily News and as an editor and writer in Allentown, Pa. and Columbia, S.C.