The WVU Reed College of Media has announced six innovative media members as NewStart Fellows for 2021.
(WVU Photo / Jennifer Shephard)
Innovative media members who want to engage their audiences in new ways, develop customer branding and marketing strategies, and promote innovative storytelling are the NewStart Fellows 2021 at the Reed College of Media at West Virginia University.
NewStart and the annual online MS in Media Solutions were developed last year in partnership with the West Virginia Press Association to train the next generation of community media owners and publishers. NewStart works with government press associations to identify small-market, independent newspapers in areas with economic growth potential that are ready for transition. Each of these NewStart Fellows has a desire to own and operate a local media company.
This year’s NewStart Fellows include Sara Fiedelholtz, chief creative strategist at Thinkbox Strategies in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Larry Graham, founder and COO of Diversity Pledge, Inc. in Perrysburg, Ohio; Maggie McGuire, owner and editor-in-chief of Moab Sun News, Utah; Alicia Ramirez, a web producer at CBS Los Angeles; Jan Risher, director at Shift Key in Lafayette, Louisiana; and Brennan Stebbins, a freelance reporter and photographer based in Joplin, Missouri.
Fiedelholtz has launched nearly 60 magazine and multimedia brands, eight of them for their own media companies. She has worked for several Fortune 500 companies as editor-in-chief, publishing director, editor / reporter, creative strategist and editor for special projects. Most recently, she was Editor-in-Chief of Fort Wayne Magazine, where she oversaw the development and launch of several successful brand extensions and forged collaborative relationships with other local and regional media. Today Fiedelholtz works full-time for the creative strategy company thinkbox Strategies, which she founded in 1993. She manages business development, branding, marketing and strategic initiatives for clients.
Graham is the founder and COO of Diversity Pledge Inc., an organization dedicated to solving the industry’s diversity pipeline problem. He has spent most of his career as a senior sports journalist in newsrooms across the country including ESPN.com, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and The Kansas City Star, to name a few. Most recently, he was associate director of local news transformation at the American Press Institute, where he built tabletakes.org. Graham serves on the board of the APSE Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting diversity in sports departments, and is co-chair of its flagship program, the Diversity Fellowship. He is also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the Online News Association.
McGuire is the owner and editor-in-chief of Moab Sun News in Utah. She bought the newspaper in March 2021 after two years as senior editor and is currently researching and updating the newspaper’s systems as well as deepening her connection with the wider community through partnerships with local nonprofits, libraries and museums. She hopes to expand the newspaper’s audience and reach the region’s millions of tourists. McGuire is originally from Detroit, where she worked in public relations, youth development, and social justice, including six years as a digital media strategist leading multiple viral information campaigns for the ACLU in Michigan.
Aa web producer at CBS Los Angeles, Ramirez is working to bring both breaking news and feature stories to a wider audience through the use of social media. Prior to CBS, Ramirez was a designer and editor at the Chicago Tribune. Her career as a journalist began at Cornerstone Publications, an independent outlet in Castroville, Texas, where she led efforts to get the newspapers online with the first website and social media accounts. She has been promoted to news editor and has received multiple awards from the Texas Press Association.
Riser has covered Gulf hurricanes, the Iraq war, Louisiana politics and more during her time as a journalist. She has won numerous awards for investigative reporting and feature writing. She writes a Sunday newspaper column called “Long Story Short,” which is published in The Acadiana Advocate, and currently owns and manages Shift Key, a public relations firm that helps companies find and find innovative ways to tell their stories . In 2018 the University of Louisiana Press published her book “Looking to the Stars from Old Algiers and other Long Stories Short,” a collection of newspaper columns published between 2002 and 2017. She is also the co-author of Team Renaissance: The Art, Science and Politics of Great Teams and has ghost-written several business books and memoirs.
Stebbins, a freelance reporter and photographer, began his journalistic career at the age of 14 with a weekly column in his local newspaper. Since then he has written for more than a dozen newspapers and magazines. He was the sports editor for Carthage Press and Pittsburg Morning Sun and has also written for the Miami News-Record, Vandalia Leader, Webb City Sentinel, West Valley View in Arizona, Ozarks Sports Zone in Missouri, and Missouri Life Magazine. He has earned regional and national recognition for editorial writing and was named Journalist of the Year by the Missouri College Media Association.
One of the early NewStart Fellows, Crystal Good recently launched Black by God The West Virginian, an emerging storytelling organization dedicated to delivering relevant news to Black West Virginians.
“Crystal has worked so hard over the past year to make their printing dream come true while building their digital audiences and platforms,” said Jim Iovino, Ogden Newspapers Visiting Lecturer on Media Innovation and Director of NewStart. “This is just one example of the invaluable work NewStart Fellows are doing across the country at a time when there is a great need for credible local news outlets. We look forward to accompanying this next class of various NewStart scholars through the master’s program. ”
The MS in Media Solutions and Innovation program is fully online and concludes with a closing course where students immerse themselves in real-world research with a news organization. For more information or to apply, visit mediacollege.wvu.edu/msi. Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree and be interested in owning or running a local newspaper.
NewStart was funded by the Knight Foundation and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation. It is also supported by the West Virginia Press Association and other regional press associations, regional development and financial institutions, the John Chambers College of Business and Economics, Vantage Ventures, and the West Virginia Small Business Development Center. Learn more at www.newstart.media and follow @wvunewstart for updates.
-WVU-
on / 06/29/21
CONTACT Erica Lindsay
WVU Reed College of Media
304.293.7016; erica.lindsay@mail.wvu.edu
Call 1-855-WVU-NEWS for the latest West Virginia University news and information from WVUToday.
Follow @WVUT on Twitter today.
source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/wvu-reed-college-of-media-announces-innovative-2021-newstart-fellows-cohort-wvu-today/
No comments:
Post a Comment