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Patricio G. Espinoza is a New Media Entrepreneur, Hyperlocal Web Developer, and Emmy award-winning Journalist. His current and latest projects include AlamoCityTimes.com, a 99% user generated community news site, and SA4Mayor.com, a one-man-band effort covering politics using the only video generated web content. In 2009 SA4Mayor hosted San Antonio's first ever virtual town-hall meeting, and on elections night called the Mayoral race before all local traditional media. Patricio publishes espiBlog.org, 2009 Emmy Advance Media Award recipient. He is now developing Testigos.us using mobile technology to track abuses against immigrants in the US and iTeamTX an investigative network. As a Hyperlocal Web Developer, Patricio's espiMedia.com consults and builds turned-key Hyperlocal News Websites, and provides Digital Journalism training, Wordpress, and Social Media to produce, distribute and market news content.
During the last two decades, Espinoza has worked within NPR-Spanish, ABC and Fox News, CNN, Discovery and A&E. Most recently, VP of News & New Media Integration with Quepasa.com, the largest Latino social network next to Facebook and Myspace. Patricio is a Poynter, Knight KDMC and McCormick Fellow, and serves as VP of Online with NAHJ's Board of Directors.
Liz George is co-owner and editor of Baristanet(www.baristanet.com), the veteran hyperlocal online community born in May 2004 and based in Montclair, N.J. Baristanet receives more than 9,000 visits a day, has inspired local news sites around the country and recently expanded its reach to cover additional towns in Essex County (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=186218). Liz has written about hyperlocal journalism for Nieman Reports (http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100129) and PressThink (http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/11/30/lz_bcfc.html). An NYU J-school grad and working journalist for more than 20 years, Liz is special sections editor at the New York Daily News and holds a masters degree in social work from NYU.
Polly Kreisman is a 15 time Emmy Award winning Broadcast Journalist and has worked as an Investigative Reporter on New York local television, as a Capitol Hill Correspondent in Washington, and as a Network Producer. In 2007, she founded theLoop (www.theloopny.com), a pioneering hyperlocal covering Lower Westchester County, NY. This Fall, she will launch InvestigateNY.org, a regional investigative news center for the New York area, which will provide high quality stories to media on all platforms, TV, Radio, Print and Digital. You can find out more than you need to know at www.reporteratlarge.com
With more than 20 years of newsroom experience at the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., and The Oregonian in Portland, Michele McLellan has worn a variety of different hats: ombudsman, politics editor, assistant city editor, staff writer, and special projects editor, among others.
From 2003 to 2007, as founder and director of Tomorrow’s Workforce at the Medill School of Journalism, McLellan explored the learning needs of professional journalists and worked to help newsrooms build robust professional development programs.
In 2004 she co-founded the Frontline Editors Project, a partnership of Tomorrow’s Workforce, the Knight Chair in Editing, and the Poynter Institute’s News University. The project conducted research and developed a sophisticated profile of effective frontline editors, which was used to create two online distance learning modules and other resources for frontline editors. McLellan served as coordinating director from its inception until 2007.
Susan Mernit is editor & published of Oakland Local (oaklandlocal.com) a news & community hub for Oakland, CA focused on social justice issues that combines reported stories with community media & diverse voices and training to bridge the digital divide.
A former VP at AOL & Netscape, & a former Yahoo Senior Director, Mernit was consulting program manager for The Knight News Challenge, 2008-09, as well as a consultant to organizations including Salon.com & TechSoup Global, where she led the re-design of their portal. She is also a circuit rider for The Knight Community Information Challenge and a frequent facilitator for The Knight Digital Media Center at The Annenberg School of Journalism, USC.
A popular trainer and speaker, Mernit was the Keynote program chair for the October 2009 Online News Association conference in San Francisco. She spent the summer 2008 at TechStars, incubating a company that died; that experience has super-fueled her energy. She is a CE at BlogHer, an avid blogger, and a recovering journalist. She is also a consultant focused on local media, community engagement & the future of news
André Natta started The Terminal (http://bhamterminal.com), a hyperlocal site about Birmingham, AL, in March 2007. The site was included in Birmingham Magazine’s 2007 Hot List. It has also placed in The Birmingham News’ annual reader’s poll for best website each of the last two years.
He’s a native New Yorker – from The Bronx - who originally thought his life would be spent behind a drafting table, leading to him study architectural history and architecture at The Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. André received his Certification in Main Street™ Management from the National Trust Main Street Center in 2008 and has previously worked as Programs Assistant for Marketing at the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority and as Senior Main Street Coordinator at Main Street Birmingham.
He has currently writes a monthly column on social media and how it’s impacting the future of Birmingham, The Digital City, for B-Metro Magazine and works as a digital communications consultant for non-profit organizations and economic development initiatives.
Natta stays fairly active civically, currently serving as treasurer of the Jefferson County Historical Commission and secretary for the Ruffner Mountain Nature Coalition. He has served as a co-chair of the Young Professionals Roundtable (a networking opportunity for YP organizations in metro Birmingham he helped start in 2006) and is a founding organizer of WordCamp Birmingham, Birmingham’s edition of the mini-conference for users of the popular web publishing software, held annually in mid-September since 2008.
In his 20-year career, Mike Orren has never held a job that wasn't at a swimming pool or a media company. In 2005, he founded PanLocal Media, which includes The Daily You™ network and its flagship site, Pegasus News. With a small team and angel capital, Pegasus News became Dallas / Fort Worth's top community entertainment and news portal with more than 350,000 unique monthly visitors. In 2007, Mike sold Pegasus News to Fisher Communications (NASDAQ: FSCI). In 2009, Archstream Media, a subsidiary of GAP Broadcasting, bought the company from Fisher. Orren still leads the operations of Pegasus News and a growing list of affiliate sites as publisher. PanLocal sites have won the Katie Award for best news website and an EPpy award for best entertainment website. Mike was the publisher of American Lawyer Media's Texas Lawyer and its affiliated businesses from 2001-2005. That followed a stint as a consultant to several regional publishers, focusing on digital media and ancillary products. In the early nineties, Mike was a key member of the relaunch team at D Magazine, serving in myriad editorial and business roles including Associate Publisher / General Manager. Last year, NBC5 named Mike one of the 25 most interesting people in Dallas. He was named a top business leader under 40 by the Dallas Business Journal and won a North Carolina Press Association award. He is a past president of the Duke University Alumni Club of North Texas and was a founding member of the North Texas Chapter of Young Presidents Organization. When he's not tilting at New Media windmills, you'll find him sailing on Lake Ray Hubbard or performing improvisational comedy.
Mark Potts is a leader in the development of innovative content and business strategies and products in online and print media. He is CEO and Co-Founder of GrowthSpur.com, which provides tools, training, technology and networks to support local news and information sites. His blog, www.recoveringjournalist.com, is one of the leading sources of analysis of the intersection between technology and media, and he is regularly quoted in industry publications.
Mark created one of the first electronic newspaper prototypes in the early 1990s, and then co-founded The Washington Post Co.’s digital division. As co-founder of Backfence Inc., he was a pioneer in the field of user-generated, hyperlocal citizens media. Mark also was acting VP-editor at Philly.com, the web site for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, where he oversaw a major redesign and relaunch of the site that has led to sharply increased traffic.
Mark also has served as Chief Product Officer for Cahners Business Information (now Reed Business Information), the nation’s largest trade publisher, where he managed Cahners Digital and oversaw the development of 120 trade magazine Web sites, include Variety.com and PublishersWeekly.com. He was a member of the founding team of the @Home Network, where he led the creation of the first consumer broadband programming service.
As a consultant, Mark has developed strategies and products for The Washington Post Co., Philly.com, Allvoices.com, Cox Communications, HealthCentral Network, DigitalSports, Variety.com, Classified Ventures, Tribe Networks and others.
Formerly a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner and the Associated Press, he is the co-author of two business books, The Leading Edge and Dirty Money.
Tracy Record is founder, editor and co-publisher of West Seattle Blog, an online-only community-collaborative news service. Previously, Record was assistant news director at KCPQ-TV in Seattle, a position she left in 2007 to work on WSB full-time. Before that, Record spent two years with the Walt Disney Internet Group in roles including executive producer of ABCNEWS.com. That followed eight years at KOMO-TV, which she left as its first-ever executive producer of new media. Record has received three Regional Emmy Awards and currently serves on the board of the Seattle chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The West Seattle Chamber of Commerce recently honored WSB as its Business of the Year. In August 2010, WSB had 834,000 pageviews, a new record - breaking the one that had stood since two weeks of snowfall caused trouble galore back in December 2008.
Jay Rosen teaches journalism at New York University and is a former chair of the department. In 1999, Yale University Press published his book, What Are Journalists For? which is about the rise of the civic journalism movement in the 1990s. He is the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its ordeals (www.pressthink.org ), which he introduced in September 2003. On Twitter he is jayrosen_nyu. In July 2006 Rosen announced the debut NewAssignment.Net, his experimental site for pro-am, open source reporting projects. In 2007-08 he was the co-publisher, with Arianna Huffington, of OfftheBus, a colloboration between NewAssignment.Net and the Huffington Post.
In 2009 he founded the Studio 20 program at NYU, which is focused on innovation. He lives in Manhattan.
