We have big news to share from Growing Community Media.
We have hired an editor to lead our newsroom, to mentor our newsroom staff and to guide our efforts to grow our reporting and widen our ways of telling stories.
Erika Hobbs is a veteran editor and reporter who has worked in the newsrooms of good-sized regional dailies (Orlando and Baltimore), at national publications and in digital newsroom startups. She has also been an editor with Patch, a hyperlocal news project, and she has worked toward the launch of her own local digital newsroom called Citizen Grit covering Chicago Heights. Her reporting focus has been in education, equity and social justice. She also has expertise in running investigative projects.
Erika is also active as a member of national journalism organizations including the Poynter Institute, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS).
We have been planning to add this position for a year and began actively searching for the right person to fill this new post this spring. We have talked to many talented journalists. But in interviews with our editorial staff, with input from members of our board, Erika was our clear choice.
She’ll join us this week and we cannot be more excited.
With Erika leading our newsroom, my role as publisher at Growing Community Media will refocus on growing the organization particularly on our philanthropic and advertising sides.
This is a big, bold moment for GCM as we continue to build a new model for community news that is sustainable for years to come and which always builds connections in the communities we cover.
Always feel free to reach out to either one of us with a question, concern or suggestion.
I’m at dhaley@wjinc.com. Erika is Erika@GrowingCommunityMedia.org.
With thanks.
Dan Haley
Publisher
Growing Community Media
