ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Sept. 18, 2024) — The Poynter Institute is happy to announce the promotion of two key leaders who will proceed to boost Poynter’s already sturdy efforts round native information and synthetic intelligence.
School member Kristen Hare has been promoted to Director of Craft and Native Information, and MediaWise Director Alex Mahadevan joins the Poynter school.
Hare has labored at Poynter since 2013 as a journalist and school member. Mahadevan joined Poynter in 2019, first as senior multimedia reporter, then program supervisor and finally director of MediaWise, Poynter’s digital media literacy mission.
“These new roles replicate Poynter’s dedication to strengthening native information and democracy,” stated Sitara Nieves, vp/instructing and organizational technique. “Kristen and Alex deliver a mixture of deep experience, real-world expertise, and contemporary concepts to advance our instructing in craft and AI literacy and ethics.”
Craft has lengthy been on the coronary heart of Poynter’s instructing, and the main focus of our signature packages on writing, modifying, reporting and producing. Hare’s new position will present devoted management to deepen and evolve our instructing on craft, broadening our focus throughout platforms.
She created and runs the annual Level Up local reporting course, managed a fellowship for early profession journalists, writes the Local Edition e-newsletter and is answerable for certainly one of Poynter’s signature trainings, Work-Life Chemistry.
Earlier than becoming a member of the school in 2021, Hare spent eight years overlaying the individuals and enterprise of native information for Poynter. She beforehand labored as a initiatives reporter with the St. Louis Beacon and as a options author with the St. Joseph (Missouri) Information-Press. Hare served within the Peace Corps in Guyana, South America, after graduating from the College of Missouri.
Hare is the writer of the e-book collection “100 Issues to Do in Tampa Bay Earlier than You Die” and the brand new e-book “Hotels, Motels & Inns of Florida: Historic and Beloved Places to Stay in the Sunshine State.”
“I first found Poynter as a younger journalist who wished to inform highly effective tales concerning the individuals in my group. I had the fundamentals and an awesome editor, however Poynter was the lighthouse, displaying highly effective storytelling of all types and breaking down the way it occurred,” Hare stated. “The panorama of our business has modified dramatically since then, and I’m excited to shine a lightweight on the brand new and enduring methods we apply the craft of journalism. These practices are on the coronary heart of what’s greatest about native information and so they’re on the core of probably the most promising issues occurring in native information.”
As director of MediaWise, Mahadevan oversees program and curriculum growth, analysis and editorial content material for MediaWise, which has reached greater than 80 million individuals in 12 nations. He has taught media literacy to 1000’s of center and excessive schoolers, and has educated a whole lot of worldwide journalists in verification and digital investigative instruments. He follows and writes about the usage of generative AI fashions in journalism and their potential to unfold misinformation, and co-wrote Poynter’s AI ethics guide.
The school distinction means Mahadevan will develop his public-facing management of AI initiatives, working much more intently with Poynter’s instructing staff to supply extra thought management, reporting, coaching workshops and curricula round misinformation, verification, AI literacy and AI ethics.
Earlier than turning into director at MediaWise, Mahadevan was MediaWise program supervisor, and oversaw the launch of packages for faculty college students and older adults. Previous to becoming a member of the employees at Poynter, he labored as an information journalist on the private finance startup The Penny Hoarder. Mahadevan additionally served because the information innovation editor at Observer Media Group.
“I really love instructing, so I’m thrilled for the chance to collaborate with school, attain new audiences and elevate Poynter’s work on generative AI, digital media literacy and misinformation,” Mahadevan stated.
The Poynter Institute is a worldwide nonprofit working to handle society’s most urgent points by instructing journalists and journalism, overlaying the media and the complexities going through the business, convening and group constructing, enhancing the capability and sustainability of reports organizations and fostering belief and reliability of knowledge. The Institute is the gold commonplace in journalistic excellence and devoted to the preservation and development of press freedom in democracies worldwide. By way of Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, companies, huge tech firms and residents convene to seek out options that promote belief and transparency in information and stoke significant public discourse. The world’s high journalists and rising media leaders depend on the Institute to be taught new expertise, undertake greatest practices, higher serve audiences, scale operations and enhance the standard of the universally shared data ecosystem.
The Craig Newmark Heart for Ethics and Management, the Worldwide Truth-Checking Community (IFCN), MediaWise and PolitiFact are all members of the Poynter group. Help for Poynter and our entities upholds the integrity of the free press and the U.S. First Modification and builds public confidence in journalism and media — a necessary for wholesome democracies. Be taught extra at poynter.org.
Media Contact:
Jennifer Orsi
Vice President, Publishing and Native Information Initiatives
