The News Literacy Project

New York Advisory Committee

Victoria Elenowitz

Victoria Elenowitz is a member of the New York City advisory board of Teach for America, which she has served on since 2002. She is also the immediate past chair and president of the Southampton Bath and Tennis Club and co-chair of the club’s charitable fund, which she co-founded in 2001. She chaired the U.S. Committee for Newnham College, Cambridge, from 2005 to 2009. She was previously marketing director for various financial software and technology consulting firms.

Linda Gelfond

Linda Gelfond is a member of the board and the treasurer of the LearningSpring School, a New York City private school for high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders. She has also served since 2001 on the executive committee of Project Cicero, which collects and donates books to under-resourced New York City public schools. She is a candidate for a master’s of education degree from Bank Street College of Education, specializing in reading and literacy. A retired CPA, she previously worked in the financial industry.

David Moore

The David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation

David Moore and his wife head the the David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation. Based in Westchester County, N.Y., the foundation supports international education and economic development, national and regional social programs, and agencies working to strengthen democracy in the United States. It is a major support of the News Literacy Project as well. David is a member of the board of advisers at the World Security Institute and the nonprofit New York City Community Media Alliance and is a former board member of Pulitzer Inc. His grandfather was Joseph Pulitzer, whose will created the Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism.

Yasmin Namini

New York Times

Yasmin Namini is senior vice president for marketing and circulation at the New York Times Media Group. She has held this position since June 2007. She is responsible for marketing the Times brand across print, web and mobile platforms, including The New York Times and NYTimes.com., and for the circulation of The New York Times. She served as vice president for Circulation Marketing at The Times since 1999 and the chief customer officer for the New England Media Group and as a senior vice president at the New England Newspaper Group and The Boston Globe since 2000.

Peter Osnos

PublicAffairs Books

Peter Osnos is editor-at-large at PublicAffairs, an independent publishing company specializing in books of journalism, history, biography and social criticism. He founded PublicAffairs in 1997 and served as publisher and CEO until 2005. He was previously vice president, associate publisher and senior editor at Random House. Between 1966 and 1984, he was a reporter, a foreign correspondent, the foreign editor and the national editor at The Washington Post. He is vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dina Temple-Raston

NPR

Dina Temple-Raston is a correspondent for NPR, covering counter-terrorism efforts in the U.S. and abroad. Before joining NPR in 2007, she reported from Asia and from the White House for Bloomberg News. She has written three books: A Death in Texas, published in 2002, Justice on the Grass (2005) and The Jihad Next Door (2007), and co-authored In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties In the Age of Terror (2007).

Chicago Advisory Committee

Sonya Anderson, Ed.D.

First Five Years Fund

Sonya Anderson is national director of the First Five Years Fund, which advocates federally for early education opportunities for at-risk children. Previously, she served as education program director for the Oprah Winfrey Foundations, overseeing development of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and managing other domestic and international projects. She also worked as a senior associate for Creative Associates International, where she co-directed education development projects in West Africa and the Caribbean, and at the Ford Foundation as a program associate. 

David Hiller (ex officio)

McCormick Foundation

David Hiller is the president and chief executive officer of the McCormick Foundation, the major funder of the News Literacy Project in Chicago. He joined the foundation in May 2009. David is the past publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times and, before that, the Chicago Tribune. He is a former partner in the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin. Previously, he was a lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice and a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.

Andrew J. Mooney

LISC/Chicago

Andrew J. Mooney is executive director of the Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Considered a national model, LISC is a not-for-profit that provides grants, loans, equity and technical assistance to community organizations to revitalize neighborhoods. Since joining LISC in 1996, Andy has raised about $100 million in grants and loans, leading to the development of 23,000 units of housing, 2.5 million square feet of commercial space and health care and day care centers, parks and recreational facilities. Previously, Andy was executive director and chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority. 

Sheila Solomon

The Chicago Tribune

Sheila Solomon is the cross-media editor at the Chicago Tribune, where she helps to link editorial resources within the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Tribune Media Group.  From 2002 until 2009 she was the senior editor for recruitment, overseeing the newsroom’s internship and training programs and serving as a resource and liaison for the newsroom and Chicago Tribune Media Group partners. She has also worked at Newsday, The Charlotte Observer and the Daily Press (Hampton Roads, Va.), and was an adjunct journalism instructor at Hampton University. She is a member of the advisory board of the journalism department at Columbia College Chicago.

Los Angeles Advisory Committee

Noemi B. Donoso

Noemi B. Donoso is the chief academic officer and founding principal of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy and president of Great Gains, an education consulting firm. A former principal of Harbor Science and Arts Academy in New York, she has also taught high school English and history and in 1992 was named a Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellow for Aspiring Teachers of Color.

Jim Newton

Jim Newton is editor-at-large of the Los Angeles Times. He serves as a member of the Times’ editorial board, advises on editorial matters and writes and edits for the editorial and op-ed pages. A 20-year veteran of the paper, he has served as editor of the editorial pages and been a reporter and bureau chief, covering the Los Angeles Police Department, Mayor Richard Riordan, federal law enforcement and state and local politics. He is also a senior fellow with UCLA’s School of Public Affairs and teaches journalistic ethics at the Communications Studies Department. He is the author of Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made, a best-selling biography of the former chief justice and California governor, and is at work on a biography of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential years.

Gwen Potiker

Gwen Potiker is a former television literary and packaging agent for Creative Artists Agency. Previously, she was director of development for television movies at NBC and a creative executive in television development at New Line Cinema. She currently is active raising funds for Birthright Israel, New Visions Foundation, the Los Angeles Library Foundation and the Lung Cancer Foundation of America.

Advisory Council

Ron Claiborne

ABC News

Ron is the news anchor for “Good Morning America Weekend Edition” and a general assignment correspondent based in New York, where he reports for “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Good Morning America.” He joined ABC News in 1986. He has previously worked in the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Boston bureaus of ABC News and has covered stories worldwide. He was part of the ABC News team that won a 2000 Emmy Award for coverage of the seizure of Elian Gonzalez in Miami. In 2003, he was an Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, affiliated with the University of Washington. Prior to joining ABC News, he was a general assignment correspondent for WNYW-TV, New York from 1982 to 1986, and a reporter for the New York Daily News from 1980-1982, and a reporter and national editor for United Press International wire service in New York from 1977-80.

Stephen Day

International Ventures Associates and American University

Stephen is CEO and founder of International Ventures Associates (IVA), a private consulting and investment company providing strategic advice and support for telecommunications, IT and software industries. Before founding IVA in 1991, he spent nine years at COMSAT in senior management positions, including vice president for ventures, where he directed the commercialization of COMSAT’s technology through licensing, joint ventures, new business spin-offs and technology relationships. From 1969 to 1982 he worked at E.I. DuPont. He is chairman of JUSTSAP (Japan-U.S. Science, Technology and Space Applications Programs); an adjunct professor for the MBA program at American University’s Kogod School of Business; a member of the Arts Advisory Council at American University; a member of the corporation board at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and a board member of a high-growth software company. He has also served on two NASA external advisory boards.

Bill Gentile

American University and Independent Journalist

Bill is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker who teaches at American University. His career spans three decades, five continents and nearly every facet of journalism and mass communication, most especially visual storytelling. His Backpack Journalism Workshops With NOW on PBS have received wide notice and acclaim. His recent works include “Nurses Needed,” about the nursing shortage across the United States, and “Afghanistan: The Forgotten War,” about America’s deepening involvement there. He also worked as a documentary consultant on “The White House: Inside America’s Most Famous Home.” Bill previously worked in Mexico City and on the Foreign Desk in New York for United Press International. His book of photographs, “Nicaragua,” won the Overseas Press Club Award for Excellence. He has shared an honorable mention for the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights Reporting for a story on rape during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and two National Emmy Awards.

Steve Lopez

Los Angeles Times

Steve has been a columnist at the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He previously spent four years at Time Inc., where he wrote for Time, Sports Illustrated, Life and Entertainment Weekly. Before joining Time Inc., he was a columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune. His columns and magazine articles have won numerous national journalism awards. He is also the author of three novels and a book of non-fiction, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, which was made into the critically acclaimed 2009 movie The Soloist.

Dana Perino

Fox News

Dana is a commentator for Fox News and is president of Dana Perino and Company, which provides strategic communications advice to the private sector. From 2007 to 2009 she was White House press secretary to President George W. Bush—the first Republican woman to hold that position. She previously served as deputy White House press secretary and director of communications for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Before joining the White House, she was the Justice Department’s spokeswoman. President Obama has nominated her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees all U.S. civilian international broadcasting. Dana is also the founder of Minute Mentoring, an organization that provides professional guidance to young women starting their careers.

John Quiñones

ABC News

John is the co-anchor of the ABC newsmagazine “Primetime” and a correspondent on the newsmagazine “20/20.” He is also the host of the ABC News series “What Would You Do?”, a social experiment that delves into human behavior using hidden cameras. Previously a reporter at WBBM-TV in Chicago, he joined ABC News in June 1982 as a general assignment correspondent based in Miami, providing reports for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings” and other ABC News broadcasts. He spent much of the 1980s in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama and was one of the few American journalists reporting from Panama City during the U.S. invasion in December 1989. More recently he has reported for the newsmagazines “Primetime” and “20/20.” John has won seven national Emmy Awards for his reporting, including coverage of the Congo’s virgin rainforest and a look at the Yanomamo Indians of Venezuela.

Lynn Sherr

Formerly of ABC News

Lynn spent more than 30 years as a reporter at ABC News, including more than two decades with the news magazine “20/20.” She specialized in women’s issues and social change as well as investigative reports.  She was also a national correspondent and part of the network’s political team in every election cycle from 1978 to 2000.  Before joining ABC News, she worked at WNET in New York, WETA in Washington, WCBS in New York, Associated Press and Condé Nast Publications.  Her numerous honors include an Emmy, two American Women in Radio and Television Commendation Awards and a George Foster Peabody Award.  She is the best-selling author of six books, including Outside the Box: A Memoir, published in September 2006, and she co-edited Peter Jennings: A Reporter’s Life, published in 2007.  Currently, she writes for various magazines and online for The Daily Beast (www.thedailybeast.com), and she also appears on PBS.

Ellen Weiss

NPR

Ellen Weiss is senior vice president for news at NPR, overseeing more than 400 staff members in 19 domestic and 17 foreign bureaus. She joined NPR in 1982 and was a director, a field producer, an editor and a senior producer before becoming executive producer of the daily newsmagazine “All Things Considered,” a job she held for 12 years. From 2001 to 2006 she was senior editor of NPR News’ National Desk.  She has been part of NPR News teams that have won numerous awards, including the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Overseas Press Club Award. She was named to NPR’s top news management position in 2007.

Education Committee

Frank W. Baker

Media Literacy Clearinghouse

Frank W. Baker, national media literacy consultant; maintains the Media Literacy Clearinghouse website (www.frankwbaker.com); former president, National Association for Media Literacy Education; author of two books on media literacy; worked in television broadcasting in South Carolina, Maryland and Florida and in the Orange County (Fla.) schools. 

Howard Gardner

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Howard Gardner, John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; author of over 20 books translated into 27 languages; best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there is a single human intelligence to be assessed by standard psychometric instruments; has received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in Education and honorary degrees from 22 colleges and universities.

Eric Schwarz

Citizen Schools

Eric Schwarz, CEO and co-founder of Citizen Schools, a national education initiative that helps improve student achievement by offering after-school programs that blend real world learning projects and rigorous academics; was a public service fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; former executive director, City Year Boston, and vice president, City Year.

Technology Committee

Nicco Mele

EchoDitto and Harvard University

A pioneer in the social media and Web 2.0 field, Nicco is a co-founder and partner at EchoDitto, a strategic online communications firm dedicated to building vibrant communities online and empowering people through the creative use of emerging technologies. He is also a co-founder of GeniusRocket.com, a crowd-sourced creative ad agency, and ProxyDemocracy.com, an online resource for proxy voting and shareholder resolutions. In 2003 he was the Internet operations director for former Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential primary campaign and was named one of America’s “best and brightest” by Esquire magazine. Nicco teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and was a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2008.

Walt Mossberg

The Wall Street Journal, D: All Things Digital and allthingsd.com

Walt Mossberg has been described by The Washington Post as “one of the most powerful men in the high-tech world” and “a one-man media empire whose prose can launch a new product.” He is the author and creator of The Wall Street Journal’s weekly “Personal Technology” column, which has appeared every Thursday since 1991. He is also the co-creator and co-producer of D: All Things Digital, an annual conference for the technology industry, and is co-executive editor of the technology web site allthingsd.com, which extends the experience of the D Conference to the Internet. In addition to “Personal Technology,” he writes the Journal’s “Mossberg’s Mailbox” column and edits the “Mossberg Solution” column. The only technology writer to win the Gerald Loeb Award for commentary, he appears regularly on television and Internet video as a commentator on technology issues and is a weekly contributor to the Fox Business Network. He previously spent 18 years covering national and international affairs for the Journal.

Craig Newmark

Craigslist

Craig Newmark is the founder of craigslist.org, a community-moderated website that offers classified ads and discussion forums for basic day-to-day necessities, such as finding a job and a place to live, and for diversions such as personals and events listings. Begun in 1995 as an occasional e-mail to friends of fun things to do in San Francisco, Craigslist now has local sites for more than 700 cities in 70 countries. Craig is on the National Advisory Council of Donorschoose.org, which enables individuals to fund classroom projects in schools throughout the United States. He also serves on the boards of Consumers Union (the publisher of Consumer Reports) and the Sunlight Foundation, which fosters greater openness and accountability in government.