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Mike Beatty
Mike Beatty has been in the newspaper business for 31 years. Mike began his career as a sales executive at the Dubuque Telegraph Herald working for Woodward Communications. Mike has enjoyed success in small, mid and metro markets. Mike has been the Director of Advertising for the Chicago Sun Times, Sales and Marketing Director for Liberty Publications in Chicago, the Senior Director of Sales for the Baltimore Sun, Publisher of the Baltimore Examiner and now is the Publisher of the Joplin Globe. Over the years Mike has been a trainer and speaker for numerous organizations including Inland Press, SNA and numerous state press associations and several universities and colleges. Mike is currently on the Board of the Joplin Regional Prosperity Initiative, Joplin High School Academic All Stars, Advisory Board for Joplin School District, Committee Chair for Rotary and manager of his sons little league Team. Mike is a graduate of Luther College and enjoys Sailing, Golf, Community Involvement and Church leadership.
Brad Best
Brad Best joined the Reynolds Journalism Institute in November 2008 as Advertising Editor. Brad graduated from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1999 earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing. Upon graduation he took a position with FOX Television Sales in Chicago selling commercial airtime on behalf of several FOX TV stations in top 20 U.S. markets.
Best then switched over to the media buying side accepting a broadcast negotiator position with MindShare. While at MindShare he led the negotiation process in several local television and radio markets for clients such as Ford, Sears, Arby’s, White Castle, Burger King and Unilever. He then moved on to Carat as a direct response media buyer negotiating, executing and optimizing both local and national television direct response campaigns for clients such as Jenny Craig, Papa John’s and the National Association of Realtors.
In 2005, Best accepted a position as the director of media buying and planning at a digital media agency where he oversaw the media department and led the planning, buying and optimizing of all online media campaigns.
Paul Bolls
2011-2012 Reynolds Fellow Paul Bolls will study, using lab equipment that measures physiological responses, how the brain processes news and advertising. The expected outcome: news and advertising that users pay more attention to, understand better, and remember longer. Bolls is an associate professor and co-director of the Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects (PRIME) Lab at the Missouri School of Journalism.
Jason Collington
Jason Collington is the web editor of the Tulsa World in Tulsa, Okla. He is in charge of digital products for the newspaper. Before being named editor, he was the web content coordinator. He is an Oklahoma State University graduate and teaches a class in Internet Communication at OSU.
Doug Crews
Doug Crews is a native of Odessa, Missouri, and a 1973 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He worked as editor or publisher of four Missouri weekly newspapers after graduation. He joined the Missouri Press Association in June 1979, serving 11 years as assistant to the executive director. In 1990, he was named executive director. Among his duties is advocating in the state capitol on issues promoting open government meetings and records and the Sunshine Law. He's been active in organizations, including Newspaper Association Managers, the Mizzou Alumni Association, the State Historical Society of Missouri, and Literacy Investment for Tomorrow. He received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service to Journalism in 2009.
Roger Fidler
Roger Fidler is an internationally recognized new media pioneer and visionary. He is best known for his vision of digital newspapers and mobile reading devices, which he conceived and first wrote about in 1981. As Director of New Media for Knight-Ridder Inc. in the 1990s, he pursued his vision at the company’s Information Design Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. In 1994, his team at the lab produced a video titled “The Tablet Newspaper: A Vision for the Future” that demonstrated how people might one day read newspapers and magazines on tablets. The video has gone viral on the Web since the announcement of the Apple iPad.
As program director for digital publishing at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI), Fidler coordinates digital publishing research projects and the Digital Publishing Alliance, a member-supported initiative that includes The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. He has been at RJI since 2004 when he was named as the first Reynolds Journalism Fellow. At the time of his appointment he was a tenured professor of journalism and information design in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University in Ohio.
In addition to serving as Knight-Ridder’s Director of New Media, Fidler founded and directed the Knight-Ridder Graphics Network (now McClatchy/Tribune Graphic Service), the first computer-based news graphics service (1983-1988), and PressLink, the first global intranet for the newspaper industry (1985-1991). He also was a member of Knight-Ridder’s videotex development team, and served as the first director of design for the company’s pioneering consumer online service known as Viewtron (1979-1983).
Fidler began his career in 1962 doing a little bit of everything at a weekly newspaper in Eugene, Oregon. A year later the Eugene Register-Guard hired him as a science writer and illustrator. His early career took him from Oregon to Pacific Stars and Stripes in Tokyo as the Sunday magazine editor and editorial art director, to the St. Petersburg Times as a features editor, and to the Detroit Free Press as the paper’s first design director and editorial systems manager.
For his innovative work in digital publishing, Fidler was named one of four finalists in 2003 for the prestigious World Technology Award in Media and Journalism and inducted as a World Technology Network Fellow. In 2004, he was again named as a finalist.
Fidler is the author of Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media (Pine Forge Press, 1997) and numerous articles and book chapters. In 1999, the Freedom Forum Newseum honored Fidler as an electronic news pioneer and one of history’s “Most Intriguing Newspeople” in its book Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists (Eric Newton, ed., Times Books/Random House). He is a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide on topics relating to digital publishing, new media and the future of print media.
He attended the University of Oregon (1962-66) and earned a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Kent State University in 1999. In 2004 he was inducted into the University of Oregon School of Journalism’s Hall of Achievement.
Roger Gafke
Roger Gafke is professor emeritus at the Missouri School of Journalism and director of program development for the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. In that role he builds partnerships for research projects, programs and funding from corporations, foundations, associations and individuals who share RJI's priority to advance the practice of journalism.
He has expanded the international programs and relationships for the Missouri School of Journalism. He has led several cooperative projects with journalists and educators in the Middle East. He is the first American journalist to deliver training at the Aljazeera Media Training and Development Center in Doha, Qatar. He has also provided training programs for the Alhurra Television Channel, U.S. He serves as faculty adviser for the International School of Media and Entertainment Studies in Delhi, India. He was primary host and coordinator for international journalists in the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship program at the Missouri School of Journalism.
His work also has emphasized the use of the Internet and related digital technologies for training, education, journalism and public relations. He has created Web-based training programs, commercial Web sites, an award-winning Web and e-mail solicitation project, training videos and audio cassettes, newsletters, articles and other print support pieces.
Gafke received bachelor of journalism and master of arts degrees from the University of Missouri and holds professional accreditation from the Association of Fundraising Professionals and from Langevin Learning Services. Before joining the faculty in 1968, he served as a radio news director, newspaper city editor, public information officer for the U.S. Air Force and as a political science instructor. At the university, he was vice chancellor for development, university and alumni relations from 1984 to 1994 and executive director of the Accrediting Council on Education for Journalism and Mass Communications from 1983 to 1985.
Brad Gentry
Brad Gentry is publisher of the county-seat weekly, the Houston Herald. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Gentry returned home to his native, Houston, Mo., in 1985, where the newspaper has been a leader in the weekly newspaper industry by converging its print offering with the Internet.
In 2004, the newspaper digitized every issue published since 1949, which is available on the Internet.
Today the website includes a variety of tools to connect the county to the outside world. It publishes an e-edition, provides text messages about news events, uses social media and offers video on its site.
It addition to the website and newspaper, the Herald provides content for a cable channel that serves three communities.
Gentry, who serves on several community boards, is a Missouri Press Association director.
Timothy Haithcoat
Timothy L. Haithcoat has 26 years experience developing and managing geospatial technologies in both the research arena of the University of Missouri (MU) and applied environments in support of the missions and mandates of the State of Missouri and the Nation. He has currently served as Missouri’s State Geographic Information Officer (Missouri Office of Administration, Information Technology Services Division). He is also the Director of Missouri’s NSDI Clearinghouse (MSDIS) as well as an applied research laboratory called the Geographic Resources Center within the Department of Geography at MU. He is Deputy Director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence within the College of Engineering. He has served as co-chair and member on numerous state and national committees regarding geospatial information. He was designated by Governor Nixon to lead the Mapping and Planning elements of Missouri’s Broadband Data and Development initiatives.
Michael Jenner
Michael Jenner, an award-winning editor with a strong history of innovation, is the Houston Harte Endowed Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism. Jenner focuses on innovation's role in journalism.
In 2010 Jenner joined the faculty from The Bakersfield Californian, the family-owned community daily newspaper where he was a leader for almost 17 years, 11 of them as top editor.
Jenner works closely with all areas at the School and Missouri's Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, a world-class center for researching and testing new models of journalism. He is involved in teaching, research and in identifying, testing and promoting new business models
and approaches to journalism.
Jenner joined The Californian in 1993 as managing editor. He launched the company's interactive media division, developing Bakersfield.com. He was then appointed top editor. Under his leadership, The Californian became known as a champion of watchdog reporting and a feisty local paper. Through a focus on transparency and ethics, Jenner helped develop an enduring bond with readers.
Under Jenner's leadership, The Californian became an early leader in convergence journalism and one of the first Web-first newsrooms in the country. It was one of the first papers to develop live-blogging as a reporting tool, from trials, meetings and other live events. It was an early adapter to video, with all reporters producing video. The newsroom was an audience-focused newsroom, with all staffers trained in attributes and interests of target reader groups. It also was a leader in citizen journalism and user-generated content. Jenner led the newsroom through two radical reorganizations, and as a Learning Newsroom participant, helped change the culture from closed and defensive to open and constructive.
Prior to joining The Californian, Jenner was the managing editor of the Hartford Courant. He also served in a variety of roles at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, Coffeyville (Kan.) Journal and Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, and worked as a consultant for several years, working with newspapers of varying size across the country.
Jenner earned his bachelor's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism in 1975.
Colin Kilpatrick
As executive director of advancement for the Missouri School of Journalism, Colin Kilpatrick oversees the School's fund-raising efforts to support faculty, students, facilities and programs. Prior to joining the School of Journalism, he served as director of public relations and, subsequently, vice president for advancement for Stephens College, a national liberal arts college for women located in Columbia, Mo. From 1988-1992, Kilpatrick worked for New Directions for News, a newspaper think tank located at the School. He is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.
Mike McKean
Mike McKean directs the Futures Lab, the experimental newsroom and technology testing center of the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He founded the School's Convergence Journalism program and is a leader in the School's partnerships with Apple, Inc., Adobe Systems, AT&T, Hearst Innovation and other top tech and media firms working to transform journalism and journalism education.
He is a frequent trainer and guest lecturer at top media companies and universities in China, has helped establish convergence journalism programs at Shantou University and Nanjing University in China and Moscow State University, and has conducted Internet workshops in the United States, Belgium, Spain, New Zealand, the Russian Federation and Albania.
McKean hosts Views of the News, a weekly media criticism program that airs on KBIA-FM and KBIA.org. He earned a bachelor's degree at the Missouri School of Journalism in 1979 and a master of arts in political science from Rice University in 1985. McKean has served on the J-School faculty since 1986.
Dean Mills
Dean Mills is a professor and the dean of the Missouri School of Journalism. His research interests include international journalism, journalism ethics, cross-cultural journalism and qualitative methods. Mills is an author of a Ford Foundation study on race and the news and a book on cross-cultural journalism, Journalism Across Cultures, that he co-wrote with Missouri School of Journalism colleagues Fritz Cropp and Cynthia Frisby.
Mills began his academic career at the University of Illinois, where he completed a doctorate in communications in 1981. Before coming to Missouri in 1989, he served as director of Pennsylvania State University's School of Journalism and then as coordinator of graduate study in communications at California State University, Fullerton.
Before entering academia, Mills worked as a professional journalist. He became Moscow Bureau Chief for the Baltimore Sun in 1969, after earning a master's degree in journalism at the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in Russian and journalism at the University of Iowa. From 1972 to 1975, he was a Sun correspondent in Washington, D.C., where he covered the Watergate scandal, the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision.
Peter Meng
Peter Meng, an online marketing and advertising professional, is a seasoned entrepreneur and a 30-year technologist. Meng has developed numerous relationships within the University of Missouri, the Missouri School of Journalism as well as RJI. He spent seven years with Apple and is considered an expert in new Internet technologies, eLearning, and online marketing. His skills include: system and technical design, business process management and vision based leadership.
Bill Miller Jr.
Bill Miller Jr. began his newspaper career at age 7 selling newspapers on a paper route in downtown Washington for his family's newspaper. Since that time, he has worked in almost every department at the Missourian Publishing Co. For the past 15 years, has served as General Manager and General Counsel. Miller is involved in all facets of the newspaper's operations including contributing editorial content. He has won state and national awards for reporting and editorial writing including a first place best feature story award in both the 2011 MPA and 2011 NNA Better Newspaper Contests. He is 1987 graduate of Spring Hill College, Mobile Alabama and a 1992 graduate of St. Louis University Law School. He has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in Missouri Civil Courts and the Missouri Court of Appeals and has successfully defended the Missourian in a libel action.
Stephanie Padgett
Stephanie Padgett brings more than 20 years of advertising and media experience to her role as assistant professor in strategic communication. She teaches classes in media planning and serves as director of media, research and operations for Mojo Ad, the student-staffed advertising agency that specializes in the Youth and Young Adult (YAYA) market.
Prior to arriving at School of Journalism, Padgett worked at Empower MediaMarketing, Cincinnati. In this role, Padgett developed and executed media plans for clients as diverse as Marion Merrel Dow, Roto-Rooter and Lens Crafters, as well as leading the agency training and research departments. She was part of the successful launch of Nicoderm and Nicorette, one of the first direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns. Padgett served as the Midwest manager for The Media Audit, a syndicated research provider based in Houston.
During the 2009-2010 academic year, Padgett served as a Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute, where she studied ways for newspapers to increase their revenue from online advertising.
Padgett previously served as an adjunct professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati. She has been recognized as an industry leader by the American Academy of Advertising.
Padgett earned a bachelor of arts degree in English at the College of William and Mary.
Keith Politte
Keith Politte earned his BA with honors from Boston University and his JD from Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. He also has extensive course work in internet design and development from San Francisco State University’s Multimedia Studies Program.
Politte's career spans a wide range of experiences in law, politics, and strategic communications. He has served as a development officer for the Missouri School of Journalism and the MU campus.
Walter B. Potter Jr.
Walter B. Potter Jr., is the third generation of a newspaper family. He grew up working on the Culpeper (Va.) Star-Exponent at jobs including reporter, editor, ad salesman and even newspaper carrier. After getting a bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt University, young Potter worked on several of his father’s small papers as well as a short stint as police reporter for the Norfolk (VA) Virginian-Pilot.
Potter then earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1981. He then worked as business reporter and editor on the Nashville Banner and Kansas City Times, as editor and business manager of The Independent- Messenger of Emporia, Va. (a paper his grandfather founded), and as a reporter for Presstime Magazine, journal of the Newspaper Association of America.
Walt is now retired and lives in Falls Church, Va.
Lee Sawyer
Lee Sawyer has been with NPG Newspapers Inc Since 1995. Currently, Lee holds the position of Chief Operating Officer. He has responsibilities over newspapers in St. Joseph Missouri and the Kansas City Region. Those newspapers include The St. Joseph News-Press, The Warrensburg Star Journal, Miami County Newspapers, Kearney Courier, Smithville Herald, Atchison Globe and others. Lee has a background in many different areas of newspaper operations. Prior to working for NPG Newspapers Lee worked for the Lincoln Journal-Star in Lincoln Nebraska. Lee began his newspaper career at Sentinel Newspapers in suburban Denver.
Lee has been involved with Inland Press association, Missouri Press association and attended the Advanced Executive Program at the Readership Institute at Northwestern University. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska.
John Schneller
Associate Professor John Schneller has worked as a journalist in Columbia since shortly after arriving at the University of Missouri in 1973. He was a correspondent for the Kansas City Star and Times and city editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune before joining the School of Journalism faculty in 2000. He was named a 2005 William T. Kemper Fellow for Excellence in Teaching and Educator of the Year in 2005 by the Arab-U.S. Association for Communication Educators. Previous honors include a Scripps-Howard Foundation Distinguished Journalism Citation for outstanding reporting in the field of conservation as well as honorable mention from the Washington Journalism Center in competition for the Thomas L. Stokes Award for the best daily newspaper reporting on protection of the environment.
Randy Smith
Randy Smith, BJ '74, is the first Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism. He joined the Missouri School of Journalism in August 2009. His 30-year career at The Kansas City Star began in 1979, and he has worked on both the news and business sides. Smith started as a copy editor, rising to the positions of business editor and deputy managing editor, and most recently, to director of strategic development.
Smith is a former president of the Society of American Business Writers and Editors and a recipient of the organization's Distinguished Achievement Award. He played a major role in conceiving the idea and raising the money for the School's SABEW endowed chair.
He is the vice chair and first non-family member of the board of the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships. The author of the book "A Kenyan Journey," Smith has lectured to classes in China, Africa and the U.S. Throughout his career Smith has been involved with helping promote young minority journalists, and he played a key role in getting Knight Ridder to adopt the Rotating Internship Program, which placed more than 250 journalists into newspapers during a 20-year run.
As an editor Smith has worked with award-winning newsroom teams that have earned the profession's top awards and honors. One won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for coverage of the Kansas City Hyatt skywalks disaster in July 1981. Other staff recognitions include a Sigma Delta Chi award, an Eppy award, a Philip Meyer Award, 12 Missouri Press Association Gold Cups and a Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award.
Smith received the Mizzou Alumni Association's highest recognition, the Faculty-Alumni Award, in 2005.
Gary Sosniecki
Gary Sosniecki, B.J. 1973, is general manager of Creative Services and a regional sales manager specializing in weekly newspapers for TownNews.com, which designs and hosts websites for more than 1,500 newspapers of all sizes. He joined TownNews in 2008 after a 34-year newspaper career that included owning, with his wife, Helen, three weekly newspapers and publishing a small daily, all in Missouri. Gary also has worked for newspapers in Tennessee, Illinois and Kansas. He is a past president of the Missouri Press Association, the Ozark Press Association and the Missouri Press Service. Among his many awards are two Golden Quill awards for editorial writing and, with Helen, the Cervi Award for lifetime achievement from the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE). In 2010 he was elected to a three-year term on the ISWNE board. He currently lives in Le Claire, Iowa.
Carol Stark
Carol Stark has been the editor of The Joplin Globe since 2007. She began her careers in journalism in 1977 at The Carthage Press as a reporter, and joined the Globe's reporting staff in 1983.
She was named Metro Editor of the newspaper in 2003, before being named editor. Stark is a former APME president, and earlier this year served as a Pulitzer Prize juror in the commentary division.
A stage 4 cancer survivor and and a survivor of a 2008 EF-4 tornado, Stark says both experiences have helped her lead coverage of Joplin's May 22, 2010
EF-5 tornado.
Jim Sterling
Jim Sterling, the Missouri Chair in Community Newspaper Management. He has more than 30 years of professional experience in the newspaper industry. He is a former member of the Board of Curators, the governing body of the University of Missouri, and a past president of the Missouri Press Association. In 1999 Sterling received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, the highest honor bestowed by the Missouri School of Journalism.
Reuben Stern
Reuben Stern is the Futures Lab's Print and Graphics Editor. Stern was most recently the managing editor for the Columbia Missourian, where he directly managed the day-to-day news operations for the Missourian, a community newspaper published six mornings a week by a staff of student reporters, copy editors, designers, photographers and professional faculty editors.
Stern returned to his alma mater in 2002 as graphics editor and assistant professor. The next year he was promoted to senior news editor.
Before coming back to MU, Stern worked as a news artist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; editor and art director of The Budapest Sun, an English-language newspaper in Hungary; and design editor at the Los Angeles Daily News. He also spent several years working as a freelance editor and graphic designer.
Esther Thorson
Esther Thorson is the associate dean for graduate studies and research and serves as the director of research for the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. She continues to serve as a professor of strategic communication.
Thorson has published more than 100 scholarly pieces on news effects, advertising, media economics, and health communication, and she has edited six books. Thorson has headed grant and research contracts totaling nearly $3 million. She is the only female Fellow of the American Academy of Advertising. Thorson applies research, both hers and that of her colleagues, in newsrooms and advertising agencies across the United States and abroad. She serves on eight journal editorial boards.
Her research with colleague Margaret Duffy for the Newspaper Association of America has been presented in national forums throughout the United States. Other recent projects focus on Internet advertising, the choice of news sources of the 18-34 demographic, the emotional effect of negative news photographs and the impact of the Internet on traditional media use for news.
Thorson has advised more than 35 doctoral dissertations, and her former students hold prestigious professorships throughout the United States and Asia. She is the recipient of the American Advertising Federation's Distinguished Advertising Education Award, the American
Academy of Advertising's Outstanding Contribution to Research Award, a Mizzou Alumni Association Faculty Award and the Missouri Curator's Award for Scholarly Excellence. In August 2008, Thorson was named Outstanding Woman of the Year in Journalism Education by the Commission on the Status of Women of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Andy Waters
Andy Waters has worked at the Tribune as a general assignment reporter, business writer/editor, city editor, head of online operations and now is the company's general manager. His first exposure to the newsroom came as a reporting intern during summers off from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. After graduating with a journalism degree, Andy worked four years for The Associated Press in Kansas City, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. He came back to Columbia to join other family members at the Tribune full-time in 1995. When he's not at work, he's probably somewhere in the vicinity of his wife, Suzette, and two kids, Anna and Nathan.
