Speakers' Bios

Penny Muse Abernathy is a journalism professional with more than 30 years of experience as a reporter, editor and senior media business executive, who specializes in preserving quality journalism by helping the news business succeed economically in the digital media environment. Panny, a former executive at the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, is the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She focuses her expertise on developing 21st-century economic models that will improve the ability of journalists to produce news in the public interest. As a senior executive, Penny was responsible for both creating and implementing strategies at some at some of the nation’s most prominent news organizations and publishing companies, including the Journal, The Times and the Harvard Business Review. She oversaw the successful launch of new multimedia enterprises, which helped increase both revenue and profit. She was also vice president and executive director of industry programs at the Paley Center for Media in New York City, which counts as its members some of the world’s leading media companies and executives. She was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998.

Molly de Aguiar directs the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s Media grants, which strengthen and expand New Jersey's news and information ecosystem, support and experiment with collaboration and resource-sharing, and encourage deep community engagement. Prior to joining the Dodge staff in 2005, Molly spent 10 years working for arts and education nonprofits in Philadelphia and was active in independent media issues. She is a blogger, a list maker, a weekend baker, and an avid traveler with her family.

Bill Allison is the editorial director at the Sunlight Foundation. A veteran investigative journalist and editor for nonprofit media, Bill worked for the Center for Public Integrity for nine years, where he co-authored "The Cheating of America" with Charles Lewis, was senior editor of "The Buying of the President 2000" and co-editor of the New York Times bestseller "The Buying of the President 2004." He edited projects on topics ranging from the role of international arms smugglers and private military companies in failing states around the world to the rise of section 527 organizations in American politics. Prior to joining the Center, Bill worked for eight years for The Philadelphia Inquirer -- the last two as researcher for Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.

Kevin Allman is the editor of Gambit Weekly in New Orleans. Follow NOLAKevin on Twitter.

Laura Amico is founder of the award-winning Homicide Watch enterprise and is a core member of digital journalism's Structured Journalism movement. An inaugural Nieman-Berkman fellow in journalism innovation at Harvard, she's now working with WBUR to launch a structured journalism beat covering education reform in Massachusetts. She is a 2011 MJ Bear Fellow with the Online News Association, a fellow at the 6th Annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, a Knight News Entrepreneur Boot Camp alum, and a New York Times Chairman’s award winner.

Amy Kovac-Ashley is the assistant dean of Georgetown's Master's in Professional Studies Program in Journalism, where she focuses on curriculum and faculty development, industry connections and careers. She is also the adviser to the Georgetown student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Previously, she was a regional editor for Patch.com, where she helped launch the D.C./Baltimore region of sites, led the editorial Recruitment and Training Committee and created and team-taught a Capstone class at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism that focused on hyperlocal and niche journalism. Before that, she worked at The Washington Post, where she was the social media editor, the local community editor of LoudounExtra.com and a senior producer for local news and interactivity.

Gary Angel is president and co-founder of Semphonic, one of the largest web analytic consultancies in the United States. He's responsible for leading Semphonic's development of web analytics for web marketing professionals. He helps companies like WebMD, Intuit, American Express and Charles Schwab maximize their web channel marketing through intelligent use of enterprise web analytics. A frequent speaker on web analytics at events like eMetrics, VisCon, Searchnomics and Engage, Gary has published articles on web and SEM analytics in ADOTAS, DM News, American Demographics, CRM Guru, CRM Buyer, IMediaConnection, Business Geographics and Business Insurance.

Gustavo Arellano is the editor of OC Weekly in Orange County, Calif., author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, and lecturer with the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at California State University, Fullerton. He writes "¡Ask a Mexican!," a nationally syndicated column in which he answers any and all questions about America's spiciest and largest minority. Arellano has been the subject of press coverage in national and international newspapers, The Today Show, Hannity, Nightline, Good Morning America, and The Colbert Report, and his commentaries regularly appear on Marketplace and the Los Angeles Times. Gustavo is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one whom was illegal.

Emilio Arriaga

Anke Audenaert is the Vice President of Revenue Intelligence at OpenX and the Chief Research Officer at JumpTime. An Internet industry veteran, Anke previously worked at Yahoo! for 8 years, building and leading its Global Market Research team. Anke also created and led Yahoo!’s Homepage Network Optimization Team, which was responsible for driving over 100 million-plus unique users per month through its media and entertainment network. Anke is an Adjunct Professor at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, where she teaches Online Marketing and Analytics.

Blair Barna has worked in the world of alt-weeklies for 20 years and is the advertising director of the Charleston City Paper in Charleston, S. C. He founded and co-owns the paper -- now in its sixteenth year -- with his two business partners, publisher Noel Mermer and editor Stephanie Barna. One of them is also his life partner -- he'll leave it up to you to guess which. Barna has two children, three cats, two dogs, and no time to himself. Prior to blazing trails in Chucktown, he worked for Creative Loafing in Savannah and Atlanta.

Tina Barnes With over 20 years of experience in digital and mobile advertising, Tina Barnes has become one of Canada’s leading authorities in mobile products and services. She has worked with some of Canada’s leading media and communications companies including Rogers Communications, EastLink and Postmedia Network, as well as a number of mobile solution providers. Tina also has extensive experience working with small and medium businesses, and is eager to help companies of all shapes and sizes succeed continually evolving digital marketplace.

Chris Barr joined Knight Foundation in July 2012. He works directly with grantees in the prototype program and aids the Journalism & Media Innovation grantees with design and user experience support.With a background in design and new media, Chris previously served as an assistant professor of graphic design at West Virginia University. He has worked as a designer for a variety of organizations to combine technology development and design thinking. Chris holds a M.F.A. in media study from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a bachelor’s degree in fine art from West Virginia University.

Todd Bates is the creative director at Creative Loafing (Tampa), where he occasionally wears the hat of photographer as well. His award-winning designs have graced the pages of CL, off and on, for nearly a decade. During an 8-year break from the alt-weekly world, he escaped the Florida heat for a career in book design in Seattle. His publishing clients included Simon & Schuster, Pixar, NASCAR, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Barnes & Noble and Chronicle Books. When he’s off the clock he can be found roadside-shooting his ever-growing series on vintage neon signs.

Melissa Bell co-founded Vox.com in early 2014 and became the first person at Vox Media to hold both a technology and editorial title as Senior Product Manager and Executive Editor for Vox.com. Prior to Vox, Melissa oversaw digital platforms at the Washington Post. She was also a columnist for the Style section, writing on the culture of the internet. Before joining The Post, she helped launch Mint, a Wall Street Journal subsidiary in India, where she lived for four years. She hails from San Diego, California and makes a mean banana-and-cheese quesadilla.

Doug Benedicto leads the Chartcorps education team at Chartbeat, the leading online data service showing editorial and ad sales teams what matters, so they can act when it matters. He functions as a newsroom consultant and support engineer and has spent countless hours working with the editorial teams of every sort of digital content publisher, from niche blogs to fashion magazines to global news sites. Prior to studying newsroom workflows, Doug studied bats and neuroscience, and used robots to help in the fight against multiple sclerosis.

Kelly Benish is the VP of Sales and Marketing for Search Influence. She has a history of sales and business development specialization in the SEO, IYP, and vertical industries. After graduating with honors from the University of North Carolina with a degree in English, Kelly worked in finance before finding her passion in sales and business development on the interwebs. Kelly enjoys training and building the business development team at Search Influence, and in her spare time, she writes for the Movers and Shakers column of Street Fight. Her primary goal at Search Influence is to develop and enhance new and existing relationships between major reseller platforms and channel partners.

Jonathon Berlin is the graphics editor of the Chicago Tribune and the president of the Society for News Design. He has worked at the San Jose Mercury News, Rocky Mountain News and The Times of Northwest Indiana, in addition to the Tribune. He's been a design director and designer, a graphics editor and artist. He's worked days and nights, sports, features and news. He's rolled out Web sites and redesigns. Invented new publications and fixed old ones. He lives in downtown Chicago with his wife, two boys and dog, and he tries to do one marathon a year.

Helen Berman is president of the Berman Media Sales Institute and a brilliant, one-of-a-kind, strategic thinker and problem-solver. With Helen, there’s no cookie-cutter, heard-it-all-before presentation. No jargon. No dull lectures. Instead, Helen Berman steps in and reframes your media sales issues in ways you never considered. With laser-beam precision, she penetrates to the heart of your biggest sales dilemmas, and you get solutions you can act on immediately.

Phillip Beswick has 30 years experience in media research, sales and sales management. His research experience includes a stint as TV research director for the largest TV broadcaster in Canada, Baton Broadcasting. Subsequently he took on responsibilities in national sales, serving some of Canada's largest ad agencies in Toronto. After three years managing sales for an Ottawa radio station he opened Birch Radio's Canadian operation. Eventually Phillip left Toronto for New York as senior VP group sales for Birch/Scarborough Research and helped build the company into a major radio ratings and qualitative research company. In 1993, he joined The Media Audit as EVP with local market and group sales responsibilities. Working with media from small local operators to the country's largest  media companies, Phillip helps the media substantially increase their revenues by matching their strengths to the market needs.is executive vice president of The Media Audit.

Nick Bilton has worked in a number of different industries within the contexts of design, technology and journalism. Currently he is employed at The New York Times, where his time is shared between the newspaper, where he serves as design integration editor, and The Times' R&D lab, where he is the user interface specialist. During his tenure at The Times, Nick has worked editorially with Sunday Styles, Circuits, Business Day, Sports and a variety of special sections, including Elections, Oscars and section redesigns. He was also one of the co-creating team members of the Times Reader, a newspaper-like application that is downloaded to a computer, laptop or tablet PC and has the look and feel of the print publication while maintaining the immediacy of nytimes.com online news.

Tim Bingaman , President & CEO of Circulation Verification Council (CVC), believes that necessity is the mother of invention. Tim spent the 1980’s & early 1990’s working for Gannett, Ingersoll Publications, JRC, Thompson, and independently owned newspapers analyzing struggling community newspapers. He traveled the country working at papers in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Missouri. While studying the feasibility of a publication in California Tim realized that he did not have the kind of data he needed to make important decisions and the idea for CVC was born. In 1992, Circulation Verification Council (CVC) was created with only 13 member publications to meet the data needs of advertisers and publishers who struggle evaluating community newspapers, shoppers, niche publications, and magazines across the country. CVC processes were designed to give an accurate picture of publication’s circulation and readership so that publishers and advertisers can make informed decisions. CVC now audits over 4,000 editions nationwide with a combined circulation over 70,000,000. Tim travels the country 26 weeks a year to talk to publishers and advertising professionals about the benefits of working with audited publications.

Jimmy Boegle is the founding editor and publisher of the Coachella Valley Independent in Palm Springs, Calif. He's a former AAN diversity chair and currently serves on the editorial and membership committees. He is a veteran of the Tucson Weekly, Las Vegas CityLife, the Reno News & Review and The Associated Press. He decided to make the move to Palm Springs because the weather in Tucson and Las Vegas simply was not warm enough for him.

Grace Lee Boggs is an author, lifelong social activist and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. She eventually went off in her own political direction in the 1960s with her husband of some forty years, James Boggs, until his death in 1993. By 1998, she had written four books, including an autobiography. In 2011, still active at the age of 95, she wrote a fifth book, “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century,” co-written by Scott Kurashige and published by the University of California Press.

Sanford L. Bohrer heads Holland & Knight's Class Action Litigation Team and has litigated class actions in state and federal courts, including appeals throughout the United States. He was special counsel to the Florida Department of Children & Families from 2009 to 2010 and has has represented the press in most of the major media cases that have arisen in South Florida, including representing the press before the Supreme Court on four occasions. He has represented publishers and broadcasters in approximately 100 defamation, privacy and intellectual property cases. He also founded Florida's First Amendment Hotline.

Max Brantley has been editor of the Arkansas Times since 1992. He worked almost 19 years before that as a reporter, city editor and political columnist for the daily Arkansas Gazette.

Jamie Breitbach is the Consumer Events Manager for SouthComm, Inc which produces approximately 50 B2B and B2C events per year on behalf of the Nashville Scene, Nfocus Magazine, Nashville Post and Nashville Medical News. Prior to joining SouthComm, Ms. Breitbach spent 3 years as Marketing Director and VP of Operations for RK Motors Charlotte, the nation's leading collector and classic car dealership, as well as 6 years as Marketing Project Manager at Barrett-Jackson Auction Company which held annual, multi-million dollar events in Scottsdale, AZ, Palm Beach, FL, Las Vegas, NV, and Orange County, CA. Before entering the classic cars world, she worked as a cast member at Disney MGM Studios while studying Disney's branding and leadership techniques.

Mike Brenner grew up in Los Angeles immersed in mass media and pop culture. As a teenager, he was an actor and musician as well as an honored playwright and public speaker. After graduating UCSB with a BA in English and Psychology, he played music in various bands while working as a designer and production manager at The Santa Barbara Independent where he was also a regular arts reviewer. He has worked in film, theater, and music production. When he became too impatient to see the dream of rock stardom to fruition, Mike returned to school at the Academy of Art to earn his MFA in Advertising. He received a Merit award from the One Club in 2006 and has been a copywriter at ATTIK for over a year. His work for AOL RED was AdCritic's Print Pick of the Day and Mike was recently named the "Best Emerging Talent" of 2007 by Adweek magazine. He continues to work on Boost Mobile, ExpressJet Airlines and Scion.

Hal Brody was the owner/publisher of the Pitch in Kansas City from its inception in 1980 until 1999. With some partners he purchased the East Bay Express in 2007. Their first Give! Guide is scheduled for publication this fall.

Christy Bryan is a native Nashvillian and co-founder of Events Hatched, a Nashville based event production firm. Christy most recently held the position of National Sponsorship Director for SouthComm Inc. where she spent 7 years creating and developing events for the company. She was instrumental in converting events from purely a marketing tool to a significant revenue stream. Christy resides in Franklin TN with her husband, Andrew, and son, Jennings.

Neil Budde joined DailyMe.com, a start-up specializing in news discovery and personalization, in April 2008 after nearly 30 years of news experience -- more than half of it online. He began working in online news at Dow Jones, where he ultimately was founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online. Most recently, he was vice president and editor in chief at Yahoo! News, Finance and Sports for three years. His career began in print as an editor and/or reporter at The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and USA Today. Neil earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western Kentucky University, where he is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni, and an MBA from the University of Louisville. Neil has been on the board of directors of the Online News Association for four years and treasurer for two years. He also is on the board of the News Literacy Project, the California First Amendment Coalition and the Foundation for American Communications. He is an avid photographer, and you can find his photos on Flickr.

Michael Burcham is Founder and CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Michael has extensive experience in healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship, and startup venture coaching. He served as President of ParadigmHealth, a provider and integrator of care and disease management services for health plans and employers, from 2001-2007. He also founded and served as President of Theraphysics, a venture-backed specialty healthcare firm managing rehabilitation services, from 1992-2000. He is founder and Director of the Accelerator Summer Business Institute, a 4-week intensive immersion program designed to challenge undergraduate students to develop their own personal brands and business skills. At the Owen Graduate School of Management, Michael teaches healthcare innovation and strategy. He is passionate about helping the creative class transform their ideas into real businesses, and looks to the Entrepreneur Center as an opportunity to revolutionize Nashville’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and creative venture development on a large scale. Michael received his PhD in Healthcare Administration from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2003.

Thomas Burke is a media lawyer and partner with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in San Francisco. For 20 years, he has represented media clients in the trial and appellate courts in newsroom-related libel, invasion of privacy and intellectual property litigation. Mr. Burke's internet practice encompasses all aspects of internet content liabilities including Section 230, DMCA, online disabilities and privacy issues. Mr. Burke is a regular columnist on internet legal issues for the California Newspaper Publisher's Association. He and his firm filed influential amici briefs on behalf of the media in the closely-watched Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (addressing the scope of Section 230 protection for online speech) and the Bank Julius Baer v. Wikileaks.org (leaked confidential documents) internet law matters.

Patricia Calhoun has the world’s shortest resume. After graduating from Cornell University, she founded the SandPaper, a weekly on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. In 1977, she started Westword, an alternative weekly in Denver, where she's been the editor ever since. Her columns have been awarded the Golden Quill, the Unity Award and the national Women in Communications prize, in 2006 and again this year. Her career highlights including serving as the president of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and, interviewing President Bill Clinton (in flip flops!), and playing an actual reporter in John Sayles’s movie Silver City.

Ben Callahan is president of Sparkbox and co-founder of the Build Responsively workshop series. Ben is a thought leader on front-end development sharing his ideas about the web on the Sparkbox Foundry and industry blogs like Smashing Magazine. His leadership at Sparkbox has driven the organization to be a leading provider of responsive web design and he continues to push for better user and content experiences outside the context of specific devices.

Luther Campbell is a record label owner, rap performer, actor, and the former leader of the Miami hip-hop group 2 Live Crew. 2 Live Crew's double platinum album As Nasty As They Wanna Be was ruled legally obscene by a U.S. District Judge in 1990, making it illegal to sell in three South Florida counties. After performing four songs from the album in a Hollywood, Fla. nightclub, Campbell and two other band members were arrested and put on trial for violating obscenity laws. A jury acquitted the group of all charges, and two years later, a U.S. Appeals Court overturned the ruling which found the album obscene. It was the first time any federal appellate court had been asked to rule whether a musical composition was obscene. Campbell has been writing columns for Miami New Times since February 2010, where he shares his "crazy-ass views on current events."

David Carr writes the Media Equation column for the Monday Business section of The New York Times that focuses on media issues including print, digital, film, radio and television. He also works as a general assignment reporter in the Culture section of The Times covering all aspects of popular culture. For the past 25 years, David has been writing about media as it intersects with business, culture and government.He began working at The Times in 2002 covering the magazine publishing industry for the Business section. Prior to joining The Times, David was a contributing writer for The Atlantic Monthly and New York Magazine. In 2000, he was the media writer for Inside.com, a web news site focusing on the business of entertainment and publishing. Before coming to New York, David served as editor of the Washington City Paper for five years. From 1993 to 1995, he was editor of the Twin Cities Reader and wrote a media column there as well. On August 5, 2008, David's book, "The Night of the Gun," came out on Simon and Schuster. The book is a memoir of addiction and recovery that used reporting to fact check the past. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey with Jill Rooney Carr and has three children. By the way, David will talk about anything, except the hardy AAN perennial, 'What is alternative?' He has no idea.

Carrie Simison-Bitz

Chris Chamberlain is a food, drink, wine, spirits, travel and personal interest writer based in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has lived his entire life except for four years in California where he studied liberal arts at Stanford University and learned how to manipulate chopsticks. He is a regular writer for the Nashville Scene and their “Bites” food blog as well as Nashville Lifestyles magazine. He is also the Southern correspondent for FoodRepublic.com, a national website dedicated to “Drinking, Eating, and Living the Way a Man Should.” He has also contributed to the Nashville City Paper, Her Nashville, Relish, Julep, Local Palate, The Bourbon Review, 2001 Edgehill, the SFA’s Gravy newsletter and as a kitchen gadget reviewer at www.geardiary.com. His travel guide and cookbook, The Southern Foodie: 100 Places to Eat before You Die and The Recipes That Made Them Famous was released in 2012 by Thomas Nelson Publishing, and he is currently working on a sequel, The Southern Foodie’s Guide to the Pig for release in fall of 2014. Another book on the history of beer and breweries in Middle Tennessee for History Press out of Charleston will come out later this year.

Jen Chan has been with NOW Magazine since 2001 and took on the Interactive Manager position in 2004. She oversees day-to-day nowtoronto.com operations, including online advertising as well as developing other content initiatives. She actively represents NOW on the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada's Ad Ops council, setting country-wide policies and standards, and is a member of AdMonsters.

Neil Chase is senior vice president for editorial at Federated Media, where he works with more than 100 of the best independent publishers on the web and oversees custom publishing projects for major clients. He has worked as an editor and page designer at a number of news organizations, including stints as managing editor at CBS MarketWatch and continuous news editor at The New York Times, and for five years he was an assistant professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Neil has also been a consultant for dozens of companies and publications.

Dante Chinni has been a journalist for some two decades now with stints at Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor and the Project for Excellence in Journalism. He has also lived the freelance life with pieces appearing in outlets ranging from the Washington Post Magazine to The Economist to The New Republic. Although a card-carrying member of the East Coast Media Industrial Complex (bouncing between DC and New York), Dante’s roots are still firmly planted in the Industrial Midwest. He grew up outside Detroit and went to college at Michigan State University, where he studied journalism and history. Dante's work now centers on exploring the country through the lens of the 12 community types of Patchwork Nation. The project is the focus of "Our Patchwork Nation," available now from Gotham Books. Patchwork Nation is part of the Jefferson Institute, an independent research and education institution, inspired by Thomas Jefferson's challenge to pursue truth, wherever it may lead. Dante lives in DC with his wife, Christina Ianzito, and their two children. Feel free to ask any and all questions you might have --  except those concerning the Detroit Tigers 2009 collapse. He won't answer those.

Leanne Cindea is vice president/employee benefits at Evesham Capital Management. She helps small to mid-size businesses in the Delaware Valley area with health and welfare benefits packages.  In addition, she helps individuals and business owners protect their assets through the use of life, disability and long-term care insurance. Leanne began her now 15-year career in the insurance industry as a marketing representative and sales manager for US Healthcare and continued her career in the brokerage community working for Reimbursement Services and USI Consulting Group before joining ECM. She is a graduate of Rutgers University where she earned a BA in Communications and English and a minor in Business Administration.

Dianne Ciotta , a bit against the norm and quite outside the box, has been presenting captivating skills refinement seminars to advertising sales executives and managers for over 18 years. Her Need Development Process includes modules emphasizing boycotting business cards and having bonfires with rate cards. Dianne exclaims, "My objective is to encourage the group not to sell any more ads, to stop closing so much and to quit talking about advertising. Rather they should be selling results, opening relationships and talking about the prospect's business." She was a top-producing display representative at a Harte-Hanks shopper in Miami during the early 80's. Last year, she became a publisher for a Kidsville News! franchise in central New Jersey.

Martin Cizmar is the arts & culture editor at Willamette Week.

Jody Colley is the publisher of the East Bay Express and an at-large board member of AAN. Jody has served on the AAN marketing and classified sales committees and was an executive committee member of the Alternative Weekly Network (AWN). Over the past decade, Jody has been actively involved with local and national organizations that promote sustainable economies and independent business alliances, as well as serving on the boards of merchant associations and business groups.

Peter Conti is executive vice president at Borrell and Associates. Peter received the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) 2010 Service Excellence Award for his dedication and leadership in helping educate local marketers and ad agencies in 2009. He has been engaged in traditional and online business start-ups for more than 20 years. After selling a retail business in late 1996, he began work in Richmond, Va., on one of the first e-commerce marketplaces for a 1,000+ member local merchants association. Peter joined Landmark Communications Inc. in 1998 to develop and manage the highly successful Richmond.com Web site. He has also served as director of interactive media for Media General’s Publishing division with shared responsibility for the online convergence effort of publishing and broadcast sites.Peter has been an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business teaching Global Internet Marketing. He attended the International Studies program at the University of Lund, Sweden, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Radio, TV & Film from the University of Maryland.

Roxanne Cooper is the associate publisher of Alternet.org.

David Crawford has made print media his career. He is currently a regional account manager at SRDS, but prior to that, he enjoyed over ten years as a print media buyer and planner. The account roster he helped manage is a who's who of Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, and JCPenney. He also worked on national campaigns for the likes of Coca Cola and Turtle Wax. He's worked day to day with the young media buyers and planners that we talk about on a daily basis (managing a staff of 15 with the average age of 24 during his agency days). He understands what it takes to get a planners attention and what information motivates them to look deeper within a market. His experiences buying and managing staffs of advertising decision makers have made David an asset to his media partners. He currently lives in suburban Atlanta with his wife Juli and two daughters, Lily and Miranda.

Chuck Creacy

Alisa Cromer is group publisher for Metro Newspapers.

Michael Crystal is a financial consultant based in Seattle. He has over thirty years of financial and strategic management experience, much of that time spent in publishing. He was the CEO and publisher of Seattle Weekly for 20 years. He also served as the publisher of the Chicago Reader and COO of its parent company, a multi-city publishing business. He was instrumental in creating the first AAN Financial Standards survey and was responsible for it for many years. Michael's current practice focuses on the financial management and structure of early stage companies and non-profit organizations. He continues his interest in the transition of media to new formats, serving as a key figure in the operation of Crosscut Public Media, a pioneer in the evolving area of non-profit, online, civic journalism.

Paul Curci is the publisher of Philadelphia City Paper and the chairperson of this year's convention. He is a member of the AAN Marketing Committee and serves as a board member at Philadelphia's University of the Arts, where he chairs the marketing committee. Paul is also a member of the Institute of Contemporary Art's Leadership Circle, and an advisory board member of the Philadelphia Film Society.

Rob Curley -- a self-described Internet nerd from Kansas -- is the president and executive editor of Greenspun Interactive, the new-media division of Greenspun Media Group, parent company of AAN-member Las Vegas Weekly. Prior to heading to Las Vegas, he was vice president of product development at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive for two years. He began his career as an education reporter and moved on to management positions in interactive operations and editorial departments. Rob gained national attention when he became one of the first online editors in the nation chosen to lead a news organization's entire print and broadcast news operations. His groundbreaking work has been documented in everything from college journalism textbooks to industry and mainstream magazines and white papers to National Public Radio. The New York Times referred to Rob's work at Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World as "the newspaper of the future," while an Editor & Publisher cover story noted that "the paper's Web innovations are far too numerous to list …."

Jeri Curry is Internews' senior vice-president for global communications and private development. Jeri is responsible for providing strategic vision for all communications, both internal and external, to ensure that traditional and new media outreach efforts directly support Internews’ myriad field programs as well as the organization’s private development, fundraising and policy goals. Jeri brings extensive marketing and communications experience from a wide-array of organizations. She has roots in the media and communications industry, having worked with the Washington Post, Discovery Communications and MCI Communications. She has also worked with the federal government, having worked with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Emergency Communications and within academia where she was the marketing and licensing manager for Vanderbilt University. Jeri joined Internews in late 2009, and was quickly immersed in the outreach efforts for Internews’ pioneering humanitarian media efforts following Haiti’s devastating earthquake. She supports numerous other Internews projects as wide-ranging as environmental reporting in Southeast Asia, community radio projects in Africa and innovative reporting and news delivery in Central Asia. In addition to her communications duties, Curry is responsible for forging new partnerships with philanthropic foundations, socially responsible companies and private donors. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and currently resides in Washington, DC. She spends her free time training for marathons and enjoys travelling for both business and pleasure.

Erik Cushman is publisher of Monterey County Weekly.

Rachael Daigle is the editor at Boise Weekly. She is a member of AAN's Diversity and Editorial committees, loves to yak about the value of multimedia in the alt weekly world, and is often spotted near the bar at AAN conventions. Follow her on Twitter at @rachaeldaigle.

Heidi Dangelmaier is a proven and patented innovator in everything from game technologies to cell phones to tampons. After being the only female robotics student in Princeton's doctorate program, she left robotics to pioneer girl-focused media and marketing. Heidi led Sega's first initiatives to make video games for girls, and her entrepreneurial drive has centered on making more profitable products and more effective advertising for the female audience. Three years ago, Dangelmaier launched 3iying, an all-girl innovation think tank, working with major brands to give them the creative concepts and strategies they need to succeed with future generations of females. She has contributed to four books, published 24 articles and been the subject of more than 30 press pieces and news shows on Bravo and CNN.

Jim DeFede joined Miami’s CBS4 News in January 2006, providing regular commentary on the evening news. He now serves as an investigative reporter and a member of the CBS4 News I-Team. In 1986, he landed his first job in journalism as a night cops reporter for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. In 1991, Jim accepted an offer to become a staff writer with the weekly newspaper Miami New Times, where he won numerous awards during his eleven year tenure with the paper. Between 2002 and 2005, he was a metro columnist for The Miami Herald. Jim was a regular contributing writer for Tina Brown's Talk magazine and his work has also appeared in Radar, The New Republic, Newsday, Mother Jones, The (London) Independent, Miami Monthly, Key West Magazine and Loft. His first book, "The Day The World Came To Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland," was published in 2002 by HarperCollins and was recognized with a 2003 Christopher Award for its ability to "affirm the highest values of the human spirit."

Steve Delgado is president and group publisher of Portico Publications, Ltd., a company that operates weekly newspapers, monthly and quarterly publications, as well as a number of new media based properties in three southeastern states. During his tenure at Portico, Steve has served as publisher of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine, one of the southeast's largest travel and adventure publications and as vice president of acquisitions and business development. Portico Publications newspapers and magazines have been widely recognized as industry leaders by state press associations, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and numerous advertising associations. Prior to joining Portico, Steve worked at HQ for a major retailer in merchandising and marketing where he oversaw $1 billion in transactions and was responsible for the development of a merchandising and marketing system that has been adopted by domestic and international retailers. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Steve received his MBA from The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He serves on the Board of Directors for a Charlottesville based contemporary art gallery and has consulted with numerous non-profit arts based organizations.

Laura Dell strengthens organizations and leaders. Her long-standing consulting practice, focused on developing leaders and expanding capacity, is informed by a startlingly long and varied history serving a wide array of businesses, including several AAN members. Laura holds an M.A. in Organization Development, and her expertise has evolved through 35 years of leading in and consulting to workplaces. She is currently the C.O.O. of a mid-size not-for-profit in the Chicago area where she enjoys ample opportunity to practice what she preaches.

Meegan Denenberg is currently an account manager at Little Giant Media. Prior to joining Little Giant, she built PhillyCarShare's first full marketing department and increased membership four-fold during her tenure. Before that she developed and executed programs for a Manhattan-based guerilla marketing firm, conducted public relations for a variety of clients, and also served as a press secretary and legislative aide for a city councilperson in New York.

Jamie DeRosa is chef/partner at Tongue & Cheek in South Beach. The chef attended Johnson & Wales University before embarking on a career that would have him work with some of the best names in the culinary world, including Wolfgang Puck. Jamie also served a three-month apprenticeship at The Fat Duck, which was named "Best Restaurant in the World" in 2005 by Britain's Restaurant magazine. In 2009, Jamie returned to south Florida to open Taste Gastropub in Delray Beach alongside Allen Susser. Most recently, he served as executive chef at Tudor House, owned by celebrity chef, Geoffrey Zakarian.

Ryan DeRose is the founder and president of Vibethink, a full service creative agency located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Ryan capitalized on his experiences in education consulting, web development, and online marketing to create a new kind of business designed to solve problems specific to the digital age. His roles at the company include business strategy, creative direction, UX/UI design, and front-end development.

John Dickerson has served as staff writer for Village Voice Media's Phoenix New Times and features editor of The Scottsdale Times. He recently won the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for "Prescription for Disaster," his series on medical regulations in Arizona. His reporting on human rights abuses in the Maricopa County jail has been honored in national awards. Dickerson now lives in the northern Arizona mountains with his wife, Melanie, who is pregnant with their first child. He is finishing a master's degree in theology and serving at a nondenominational church. He contributes to publications across the country and writes a syndicated column, Horsepower Auto Reviews.

Laine Doss is lead food and spirits reporter for Miami New Times and Broward/Palm Beach New Times, where she focuses on the stories behind the beautiful food and cocktails put out by south Florida's best chefs and bartenders. Laine has also written for USA Today, Livestrong, and Buzz magazine, and co-hosted a weekly radio show. Prior to refocusing on journalism, Laine was a public relations and marketing professional at several major radio stations and worked on the project to rebuild the television antenna that was lost atop the World Trade Center after 9/11.

Geoff Dougherty is the editor of the Daily News and CEO of PublicMedia, Inc. Prior to founding the Daily News, he was an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Before that, he served in similar roles at the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times. He has 16 years of journalism experience, has won numerous national awards for his work. While at the Miami Herald, he spearheaded the newspaper's effort to review, count and analyze discarded ballots from the 2000 presidential election.

Margaret Downing has been editor of the Houston Press since February 1998. A member of the AAN membership committee for several years, she was voted onto an at-large position on the AAN board in 2009. A writing editor, she has received a number of national and regional awards from organizations that include: AAN, the Education Writers of America, Missouri Lifestyle, Lincoln University in Missouri (Unity Award), National Mental Health Association, NABJ and the Fort Worth chapter of SPJ (First Amendment awards.) In 2007, her paper won the IRE award in the local circulation weeklies category; it was a finalist in 2009 and this year three of its stories (by two of its reporters) were again finalists in the IRE competition. She has four fulltime staff writers in her newsroom.

Frank Dubec

Jose D. Duran has been web editor of Miami New Times and New Times Broward-Palm Beach for the past five years. He's the voice and strategist behind the publication's eyebrow-raising Facebook and Twitter feeds. He also reports on Miami's music, entertainment, and cultural scenes. He graduated in 2005 from the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.

Jeffri-Lynn Dyer found her passion at age 15 with her first byline.  She moved from Maine to attend Oklahoma City University where she earned both a bachelor's degree in Mass Communication and an MBA, and uses all that she learned there working for the Oklahoma Gazette (since 1990!) and OKCBusiness newspapers in central Oklahoma.  Jeffri-Lynn also consults with newspapers nationwide, facilitating retreats and providing analysis and solution possibilities.  In her free time, she coaches soccer and tee ball for her childrens' teams, plays soccer and softball, is a tutor/mentor for Oklahoma City schools, is active in PTA and is past president and chair of Oklahoma City Advertising Club.

Chris Eddie

Don Eggert is creative director and associate publisher of Seven Days. Although he spends most of his time designing and project-managing web projects and marketing initiatives, Don still finds some time to oversee five designers and manage the office IT. When he's not working, he likes to build things and watch Bravo with his partner and pet dachshunds, Edna & Trixie.

Tim Elfrink is managing editor of Miami New Times. He joined New Times in 2008 as a staff writer, winning eight first-place Green Eyeshades Awards from the Society for Professional Journalists in four years for stories ranging from Marco Rubio's rise to Tea Party stardom to the young Miami hackers who pulled off the world's biggest credit card heist. In January, he broke the story of Biogenesis, the Coral Gables clinic linked to selling performance enhancing drugs to Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and other MLB stars. He's a St. Louis native, University of Missouri graduate and diehard Cardinals fan.

Justin Ellis is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab. He was previously a staff writer and columnist for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, where he covered areas like business, politics, culture and technology. In 2009 Ellis was part of the paper’s team to cover the inauguration of President Barack Obama. A former Knight Digital Media Center fellow and researcher at Investigative Reporters and Editors, Ellis is originally from Minnesota. Ask him about meats and cheeses.

Jon Elliston is managing editor of the Asheville, N.C., Mountain Xpress. He is a former researcher for the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. -- the nation's leading nongovernmental repository of declassified documents. He has written two books, "Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda" (Ocean Press, 1999), and (with Kent Priestley) "North Carolina Curiosities, 4th edition" (Globe Pequot Press, 2007), as well as the 2004 AAN-commissioned investigative report on FEMA, "Disaster in the Making."

Hiram Enriquez is an accomplished media professional: experienced journalist, talent, producer, and a leader in the digital media space, combining a solid expertise in editorial and audience products with a strong passion for technology, innovation and digital lifestyles. Hiram is currently the Director of Digital Media for Tr3s at MTV Networks. He previously worked as Digital Product Development leader for Univision Interactive Media, and is the former Programming Director for Yahoo! Hispanic Americas, where he oversaw the editorial operations of Yahoo! sites in Spanish. Hiram is very active in the Online News Association and National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Additionally, he contributes to the digital journalism program of the Knight Center in the University of Texas at Austin. He is also affiliated with Webbmedia Group, contributing in topics such as SEO, metrics, and audience engagement as well as the US Hispanic and Latin America markets.

Jessica Estepa is a storyteller and a self-described news junkie/social media butterfly based in Washington, D.C. She works as a reporter for E&E Publishing, covering fisheries, oceans, wildlife and other natural resources policy news on and off Capitol Hill. Previously, she wrote feature stories for and worked on the production side of Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper. A native Nevadan, she attended the University of Nevada's Reynolds School and worked at a number of places in the Silver State, including the Reno Gazette-Journal, before departing for the East Coast. For fun (really), she volunteers with the Online News Association and 826DC, sits on the board and sings with the Capitol Hill Chorale, and drinks lots of bourbon.

Sheriff Tony Estrada was born and raised in the border communities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora (Mexico). He retired from the Nogales, Ariz., Police Department after 25 years of service, before being elected sheriff of Santa Cruz County in 1992; he's now in his fifth term as sheriff. As a result of this experience, he knows the intricacies of border and immigration issues as well as anybody.

Don Farley is publisher of the Baltimore City Paper, and group publisher of the Times Shamrock alternative weekly division, which includes the City Paper as well as Metro Times (Detroit), Orlando Weekly and San Antonio Current.

Richard Farrell is president of Tangent Knowledge Systems, a Chicago sales training and development firm. He has been in sales for 25 years and sales training for 10 years. He has authored numerous articles in international and national publications about his unique nonselling sales process and has had many articles written about his company. He is the author of an upcoming book, "Selling has Nothing to do with Selling."

Sarah Fenske is the editor of the L.A. Weekly and a veteran of alt-weeklies in no less than five cities, which is surely some kind of record. Born and raised in Cleveland, she started her career at the Morning Journal in Lorain, Ohio, and is absurdly proud of being a two-time AAN Award winner for column writing. She also won the 2011 Livingston Award for local reporting.

Kelly Ferguson is the social and digital media director at The Arkansas Times. Her department currently manages the social media accounts of the newspaper and its affiliated publications. Kelly has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism with minors in both Speech Communication and Theatre Arts from Texas A&M University. She has worked as a reporter and as an editor for more than 15 years in daily newspapers. In 2008, she took on the role of web content coordinator in the marketing department at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas, and created the school’s first social media campaigns. In January 2011, The Arkansas Times recruited Kelly via Twitter to come to Little Rock and build the department there.

Chris Ferrell

Justin Ferrell

Dr. Michelle Ferrier is the associate dean for innovation, research/creative activity and graduate studies in the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. She is the founder and publisher of LocallyGrownNews.com, a hyperlocal, niche online community for local food advocates and a New Media Women Entrepreneur grant recipient. Ferrier is also one of the 2012 inaugural fellows for the Arizona State University Scripps Howard Journalism Entrepreneurship Institute. Ferrier is vice president of Journalism That Matters and is active in research around the changing media ecosystem and curriculum change. Her current research agenda includes media entrepreneurship and the media deserts project that examines places where fresh news and information are lacking. She is the chief instigator behind "Create or Die", the media entrepreneurship startup events hosted by Journalism That Matters in June 2010 and June 2011.

Herschel Fink is a senior partner at the Detroit law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP. His background includes ten years' experience as a daily newspaper reporter and editor. As an attorney, he has specialized in representing news organizations, media and entertainment companies in a broad range of issues, including libel, privacy and intellectual property. He has represented the Detroit Free Press, Michigan's largest daily newspaper for more than 25 years, as well as local television and radio stations, and national networks. For many years, he taught media law at Wayne State University in Detroit. He received his B.A. from Wayne State, where he was editor of the daily student newspaper, and went on to receive his law degree from Michigan State University. He is a frequent panelist and speaker at national media law conferences, and speaks regularly on media law topics to gatherings of judges and lawyers. He has been listed in every edition of America's Best Lawyers under First Amendment law. He is the co­author of the Michigan Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Act guidebooks published by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In 2005, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Michigan Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the only time a lawyer has been so honored, and the Society also awarded him its national 2010 First Amendment Award. Michigan Lamers Weekly recognized him as one of its 25 “Leaders in the Law” in 2009, and Crain’s Detroit Business named him a "Power Lawyer" in 2008. He has been recognized by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lagers for Business every year since 2007, calling him "a highly-regarded First Amendment litigator with superlative knowledge of free speech issues."

Carol Flagg is a managing partner in HITECH Answers and founder of Pivotal Solution Group. Before going out on her own in 2008, Carol was the advertising director for many years for The Austin Chronicle. She resides outside of Phoenix, Ariz.

Colin Fleming is a Solutions Engineer at Adobe Systems. Colin applies his knowledge of photography, 3D, design, print production, prepress, and software to provide appropriate workflow solutions for Adobe customers. His work involves speaking to and helping a variety of customers including cartographers, medical illustrators, many ad and design agencies, and publishing and print media outlets. Before joining Adobe, Colin was a freelance trainer specializing in workflow conversions to InDesign and Creative Suites. He has taught intense, high-level classes in design and production techniques since 1999 which covered many Adobe and former Macromedia applications. Colin helped write and review a number of Adobe Certified Expert exams, and then had to take them. He is an Adobe Certified Instructor in many Adobe Creative Suites applications, Adobe Acrobat, Lightroom, and a Suites Master Instructor. Colin has presented at events including the Association of Medical Illustrators, the North American Cartographic Information Society, ICON, HOW, and MacWorld.

Stuart Folb

Seth Forman is currently the Director of Business Development at Travelzoo, a publicly traded global media company and publisher of travel, entertainment, and local deals. With over 26 million subscribers, Travelzoo is the largest publisher of deals on the Internet. His main responsibilities include building strategic partnerships across the US, Canada, and Europe with global brands such as the New York Times, Hearst Media, and Cox Communications and spearheading new revenue opportunities across web, mobile, and newsletter platforms. Seth has over five years experience working in digital media and e-commerce including advisory roles with startup companies. In 2011, he co-organized the NYC Travel Massive community, a non-profit networking group consisting of over 900 online travel professionals made up of entrepreneurs, bloggers, and marketers in the New York City metro region. Seth was selected to the 2011 Phocuswright Travel Conference Young Leaders Program and the 2012 Travelzoo CEO Leadership Circle. He graduated from Syracuse University in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in Marketing and Business.

Louis Fortis has a very diverse background. For the past decade, Louis has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Shepherd Express and founder of the Milwaukee International Film Festival. He has a Ph.D. in Economics and has taught economics at Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Louis served three terms in the Wisconsin State Legislature and chaired four different committees. In addition to the Shepherd, he currently does some international consulting where he advises parliaments in developing countries on a variety of subjects from legislative/executive relations and oversight to budget issues and effective representation. He has worked is such countries as Uganda, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Mongolia, Bolivia, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Jeanne Foster is associate publisher of Gambit. A New Orleans native, Foster studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and began her publishing career as an intern at Time Out New York. Foster has been an employee of Gambit since 2001, serving in various capacities including advertising coordinator and assistant advertising director. Foster has served as project manager for many digital projects for Gambit, including client-designed mobile sites and multiple redesigns of Gambit's website, bestofneworleans.com. She also has headed development for online and print promotions and served as project manager for the company's special events, including the Gambit Food Revue.

Cassidy Frazier has been the classified director of The Austin Chronicle for the last seven years. Having started in the industry as an account executive during the classifieds boom and seen the rise of Craigslist and various other online competitors, she has since developed a chin as solid as legendary Toronto boxer George "The judges voted for Ali, but he had to be taken to the hospital afterwards while I went dancing with my wife." Chuvalo.

Sally Freeman is the publisher of Boise Weekly. New to the publishing business in 2001, she never planned to be a newspaper publisher. In fact, it was the furthest thing from her mind. Having grown up all over the world with her family, she always saw herself becoming an international executive like her father. But the 15 years spent on the corporate highway with Atlantic Richfield, E F Hutton, Shearson Lehman, Prudential Bache Securities, American Airlines, Chancellor Media Corp. and National Airlines was not all a waste. She has taken everything she has learned and applied it to help Boise Weekly prosper. She has her MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and is a CPA.

Andre Gaulin is a Toronto-based technologist with a focus on emerging technology. Currently, he is the director of agility solutions at Agility Inc. Andre is a graduate of the University of Toronto with a specialist degree in Geography and Geographic Information Systems. Early in his career, Andre transitioned into the world of web development and has never looked back. He has had the pleasure of delivering award-winning solutions for some of Canada's biggest media and entertainment companies including MuchMusic, CTV,  Cineplex Entertainment, and the NHLPA to name a few. Andre's focus on usability, information architecture, the mobile web, and rich broadband media have allowed him to transform high level concepts into successful and engaging online properties.

Doby Photography/NPR Marilyn Geewax is NPR's national economics correspondent and an editor of business news for the National Desk. In addition to assigning and editing business stories that are posted on NPR.org, Marilyn is regularly heard discussing economic issues on Tell Me More and Talk of the Nation and Weekend Edition. Her work contributed to NPR's 2011 Edward R. Murrow Award for Hard News for "The Foreclosure Nightmare." Marilyn worked with NPR reporter Chris Arnold on the foreclosure crisis was recognized with a 2009 Heywood Broun Award. Before to coming to NPR 2008, Marilyn was the national economics correspondent for Cox Newspapers' Washington Bureau for nearly a decade. Marilyn served for the Cox flagship paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, first as a business reporter and then as a columnist and editorial board member. She got her start as a reported for the Akron Beacon Journal. In 2010, she went to China with a group of journalists to study the economy. From 2001 to 2006, Marilyn taught a business journalism class as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. She was a 1995 Nieman Fellow and studied economics and international relations at Harvard. Marilyn earned a master's degree at Georgetown University, focusing on international economic affairs. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from The Ohio State University.

Anton Gelman is the CEO of Cont3nt.com -- a market for entrepreneurial media and video journalism that connects freelancers with media companies, media companies to each other and allows them to buy, sell, and trade breaking news. Formerly of the National Geographic where he launched online communities and collaboration systems, Anton has over a decade of technology experience that he brings to bear to develop the first free market for the free press. Always up for a coffee or a drink to chat about the future of media.

Brian Gentry has been working in the fields of software architecture and application development for 15 years. He has led development efforts to push computing to mobile handsets for clients in the transportation, insurance, financial, and medical industries, integrating legacy systems with modern mobile hardware. He currently is the president of Trestle Development Inc, a software consulting firm, and a founding partner of Chilly Primitive, LLC, a company developing innovative applications for the iPhone, iPad, and other mobile devices.

Dan Gibson is the editor of the Tucson Weekly. His work has appeared in the Phoenix New Times, in Phoenix Magazine, at Idolator.com, and elsewhere. He co-authored "Besides the Bible," a book currently available from Intervarsity Press. He also manages a currently-inactive amateur soccer team, Sparklemotion, and is the subject of a Facebook fan group with more than 40 members.

Al Giordano was a staff reporter at the Boston Phoenix (1993-1996) and the Valley Advocate (1989-1993) before he left the United States twelve years ago and, he thought, journalism with it. In 1997 he self-published "The Medium Is the Middleman: For a Revolution Against Media," and headed south of the border, where he lived and learned Spanish in the Zapatista rebel communities of Chiapas. In 1999, on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, he found that the Clinton-Zedillo "anti-drug summit" there was held at the hacienda of an alleged drug trafficker, owner of Mexico's largest bank. His 1999 report in the Phoenix, and subsequent reports via the online Narco News sparked an international press freedom battle when the National Bank of Mexico  (now part of Citigroup) sued him for defamation. In 2001, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the bankers' lawsuit and set a new precedent under U.S. law: that Internet journalists would now be protected under "Sullivan v. New York Times." Narco News has just entered its tenth year as a must-read source of investigative journalism throughout the American hemisphere. Through the School of Authentic Journalism (which Giordano founded with the collaboration of the late Gary Webb and other independent journalists) he has intensively trained more than 100 young reporters in how to practice the profession in conflict zones. In September 2007, again through the Phoenix, Giordano published an essay, "Damn You, Barack Obama," that predicted exactly how the then Senator would win the Democratic nomination for President. Through his U.S. politics blog, The Field, Giordano accurately projected the winner of 51 out of 54 primaries and caucuses. Vanity Fair, in its year-end "winners and losers" story declared Giordano "the prophet of the Obama paradigm shift."

Julia Goldberg is the editor of the award-winning Santa Fe Reporter, heralded by a blogger in 2009 as one of the country's most "fabulous" papers, notably for its coverage of domestic violence and wild animals (as separate topics). Julia also serves as the editorial chair for AAN's board of directors.

Kevin Goldberg is an attorney with Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth. His expertise is in First Amendment, Freedom of Information Act, and intellectual property issues, particularly copyright and trademark matters encountered by content creators and users. Kevin has a B.A. from James Madison University and a J.D. George Washington University.

Max Goldberg is the co-owner of Strategic Hospitality, a Nashville based hospitality group with 6 projects in its current portfolio and a handful of consulting projects. The company, with more than 300 employees, has a focus on restaurants, bars, and strategic consulting. Mr. Goldberg sits on the board of The Sports Fund, the Grace Eaton Center, and serves as a sponsor and coach of the Kipp Academy basketball team. He graduated from the University of Denver in 2005 with a BSBA in business management and served as the student body president during his senior year. In 2011 he was named as one of Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30.

Seija Goldstein is a nationally recognized expert on regional publishing. Her consulting firm, Seija Goldstein Associates, Inc. (SGA) designs and conducts comprehensive financial standards surveys for several regional publishers' associations, including the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and maintains an extensive database covering all aspects of regional print and online publishing. In addition, SGA provides a wide range of financial and operational consulting services to media companies and entrepreneurs in magazine, newsletter, newspaper and book publishing industries, as well as in internet and direct marketing. Prior to the founding of SGA in 1992, Ms. Goldstein had twenty years of experience in financial and operational management of media companies. Her past assignments include Director of Acquisitions and Development for CBS Magazines (now Hachette Filipacchi Magazines), General Manager of Home Mechanix and World Tennis magazines and Chief Financial Officer of Communications International, a privately held multi-title magazine and educational publisher. Ms. Goldstein holds a BBA degree from the Helsinki School of Economics and an MBA from Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York. She is an advisor to the University of Missouri School of Journalism on the development of magazine business plans as well as a frequent speaker at publishing conferences.

Sarah Goodyear Sarah Goodyear writes about cities and the people who live in them, mostly as a contributing writer at The Atlantic Cities and Next City. She also has alt-weekly roots, having served as the editor of the now defunct Casco Bay Weekly in Portland, Maine, for more than four years (she even served as publisher for a stint, too). She has worked at Rolling Stone, Time Out New York, and New York Woman, and her writing has appeared in the Village Voice, Ms., GOOD, and many other outlets. She is also the author of a novel, View from a Burning Bridge, published by Red Hen Press. She lives in her hometown of New York City with her family, and she owns way too many bicycles.

Adam Gordon is the chief revenue officer at WorldNow where he oversees all aspects of their national and regional sales efforts.  WorldNow is the premier platform for TV station web sites leveraging the power of local media brands with efficiency of deep national reach.  Previously Adam started the interactive sales division for Thomson Corporation and created their first-ever cross-vertical media organization.  He also built the national sales division for Internet Broadcasting Systems introducing that brand to the national marketplace.  Adam has also held positions at About.com, Women.com and the TV Food Network, where he developed many innovative sponsorship solutions, including cross media programs for advertisers such as P&G, Sara Lee, and Kellogg's.

Vince Graziano is vice president of operations for Beyond Private Label. Vince has been working directly with small business owners helping them gain an online presence and grow their businesses for over 12 years. He also conducts numerous trainings and webinars on a weekly basis for the sales teams for our partners at Beyond Private Label and he has been a driving force in developing the internal team for Beyond Private Label.

Lynn Grillo As a Senior Solutions Engineer with Adobe Systems, Lynn's work includes demonstrating and teaching Adobe's products for creative professionals. Based in the New York metro area, Lynn is an Adobe Certified Expert in numerous Adobe applications including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, GoLive and InCopy. Lynn proudly holds Adobe Print, Web and Creative Suite Master certifications. Lynn has workflow and technology experience in multiple verticals such as book, newspaper & magazine publishing, textile design, advertising and retail. To date, she has co-authored and tech edited a number of books on Adobe software, most recently acting as technical editor for A Designer's Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML. Lynn contributes regularly to Web sites and magazines for creative professionals and has recorded training for Total Training, Lynda.com and Terry White's Creative Suite Podcast.

Marty Griswold in a career spanning some 18+ years in the publishing world, has worked at The Rocket magazine, SF Weekly and currently serves as the sales & marketing director for Seattle's The Stranger and as regional sales director for Index Publishing. Marty's contributions to the business have been marked by great strides in increased revenue, high profile event planning, and the launch of innovative ideas that have garnered both fiscal and creative success within the industry. In recent years, his efforts have contributed to the unparalleled online achievements of The Stranger and sister publication, The Portland Mercury, that have set new standards within the alternative weekly digital world. Marty is also known to be somewhat of a whore when it comes to generating untapped revenues through non-traditional means, which means he is quite at home at The Stranger.

Josh Gross  is the new media czar at Boise Weekly, a job which involves wrangling multimedia reporting, managing social media accounts and coming up with your own job title. He enjoys basset hounds, ukuleles and drunkenly insisting that the robot apocalypse is bloody well nigh to any who will listen. Follow him online @TheJoshGross. In real life, please don’t follow him.

Jeff Guaracino is vice president of communications for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC), a position he assumed in 2006.  Guaracino manages national and regional communications, the visiting tourist program, content development and corporate communications.  He joined GPTMC in 2001 as director of communications and is part of a team at GPTMC that created the internationally recognized gay tourism campaign, Philadelphia - Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay.  Guaracino wrote the first book on gay tourism marketing called Gay and Lesbian Tourism: The Essential Guide for Marketers.  A Philadelphia region native, he was appointed by Mayor John F. Street to serve on the Mayor's Commission on Children and serves as vice president of the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus, an organization he co-founded in 2002.

Louis Gump is president and chief executive officer of LSN Mobile and a seasoned executive with deep experience in mobile media, technology, sales and business development. As CEO he leads the overall strategic direction of the company, as well as day-to-day operations, product realization and team development. He is also a member of the board of directors. Prior to joining LSN Mobile, Louis led industry-leading mobile teams at both CNN and The Weather Channel, setting benchmarks for excellence and market impact. Having also served in various industry associations, Louis is considered a driving force within the mobile media industry. He has received numerous awards including the 2011 Wireless Technology Forum's Mobile Media Person of the Year, the 2010 MMA Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2009 "Top Ten mobiThinkers" award. Louis holds an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University.

Mauricio Gutierrez , the features design director at the Detroit Free Press, has in his 20-year career designed and consulted for newspapers in North America, Europe and Asia and lectured on innovation and features design at SND workshops and at conferences and universities in several countries. His work has been recognized by the Society numerous times.

Alex Hamilton is a product manager with Enfocus Software, internationally recognized as a pioneer in PDF technology.

Stephanie Hamilton , an interactive, digital content expert is responsible for leading Local Corp.'s digital solutions for publishers. Hamilton has more than 15 years of experience in interactive including search engine optimization and social media. Her expertise is in helping publishers attract new visitors, increase traffic and generate new revenue through their online properties. She comes to Local Corp. from a strong digital marketing and advertising background and previously served as the product manager of local search and social media for Freedom Communications. Hamilton also spearheaded one of the first internal digital agencies at the Orange County Register (a Freedom publication), as well as spent time leading integrated online strategies for media companies like, Emmis Communications and Primedia. Hamilton is a graduate of Arizona State University and certified in mass media from UCLA.

Rebekah Hardin

Josh Harkinson is a reporter with Mother Jones. Born in Texas and based in San Francisco, Josh covers the economy, the national Occupy movement, and a wide range of political issues in California and the West. Follow Josh on Twitter.

Jay Harris

Joshua Hatch is the online content manager of Sunlight Live, which combines real-time reporting, contextual data displays, live video feeds and reader interactivity. Josh comes to Sunlight from USA TODAY where he was the Interactives Director. Josh is also a board member of the Online News Association and lives in Arlington, Va., with his wife, daughter and two spoiled Labrador retrievers.

John Heaston became seriously afflicted with the alternative media compulsion in 1992, starting a free, student-run monthly from late nights in a hijacked journalism lab. He was publishing editor of Sound News & Arts, editor of The Reader (Omaha), editor/publisher/salesman of the Omaha Weekly and publisher/editor of The Reader since 2002, the bilingual community weekly El Perico since 2004 and OmahaJobs.com since 2005. He just discovered that providing his advertising clients with digital services (websites, social media, SEO, video, content marketing, etc.) is like exchanging nickels for $5 bills mostly utilizing existing talent and relationships.

Jon Grabelle Herrmann is the executive director of Campus Philly, a non-profit organization fueling economic growth by encouraging college students to study, live and work in the Greater Philadelphia tri-state region. A New Jersey transplant, Jon has served as Campus Philly’s founding executive director since 2001, following a position as the marketing manager at philly2nite.com. As head of Campus Philly, Jon has been recognized by regional organizations for outstanding leadership: Philadelphia Business Journal’s 40 under 40 (2005), Leadership Philadelphia’s 101 Top Connectors (2006), and the Philadelphia Eagles' 75 Greatest Living Philadelphians (2007).

Jim Hightower

Nina Sachdev Hoffman is a Philadelphia journalist with more than nine years of editing, writing and management experience. She has worked at the Dallas Morning News, the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat and the Philadelphia Daily News in almost every capacity imaginable. She is just as comfortable editing a Pulitzer Prize-winning series on police corruption as she is writing those tabloid headlines that everyone loves to hate (or the other way around?). She started her career as a copy editor, so you know her grammar is tight. Now, as Philadelphia Weekly's senior editor, she's in charge of managing nonprofit partnerships, developing promotional strategies for Philly Weekly's events and editorial projects, and figuring out how to make people laugh and engage with her on Twitter and Facebook. (Follow @PhillyWeekly for a taste of her special #sass.) Most recently, Nina is the co-editor of the award-winning The Survivors Project: Telling the Truth About Life After Sexual Abuse, a book-length work of nonfiction that utilizes first-person storytelling to address the reality of healing from the effects of sexual abuse.

Darryl Holliday has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, GapersBlock, The Columbia Chronicle and currently works with the McCormick Foundation's journalism program. He's also writer/reporter of The Illustrated Press: Chicago, an upcoming collection of comics journalism short stories with illustrator Erik Nelson Rodriguez. In addition to his work with comics journalism, Darryl is interested in data journalism, including the use of GIS to illustrate stories, and the use of new media tools to broaden the reach of community reporting. Both Darryl and fellow panelist Erik Nelson Rodriguez can be found on Twitter @the_ill_press and on their website at IllusPress.com.

Rev. Robin Hoover is the founder of Humane Borders, an organization founded in 2000 which includes more than 6,000 volunteers in the United States and Mexico who deploy and maintain water stations and provide humanitarian assistance for migrants at risk of death from dehydration in Southern Arizona deserts. He is the pastor at the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Tucson. He earned his doctorate in political science from Texas Tech University and his master's degree in divinity from the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. He estimates that he's given more than 1,600 media interviews on border and immigration issues since May 2001.

Kevin Hoppes is VP of Sales and Marketing for AdStrix, a company that provides an automated full service digital agency to media companies seeking to profitably become the leader in their local market. Kevin started his career in newspapers 30 years ago at The Pottsville Republican when he developed the INFO-CONNECT AudioText system which he sold worldwide to newspapers. He launched a number of new print and online products while there, developed several proprietary electronic telephony devices, a BBS, an ISP and launched their first Web site. In 1997 Kevin helped to launch AdQuest Classifieds which later became PowerOne Media, a national aggregator of newspaper classified advertising. He then served as Corporate Internet Director for Times Shamrock Communications which owned several alternative newspapers. Later he helped to launch RealMatch & The Job Network, which today is a leading innovator of online recruiting. He also is a musician and 2 time finalist in an international song writing contest which supports VH1’s Save The Music.

Richard Huff is one of the most senior analysts in Microsoft's Advertising Solutions unit.  Prior to arriving at Microsoft, Richard was managing member at Geckowerx, LLC, a creative technologies services company in Seattle.  He also has been president and CEO/Director, Hosting Services at Media Access Internet Solutions, Inc./Peak Internet, Inc. and president and CEO/general manager at Pacific Rim Network, Inc./Verio, Inc.    He is a graduate of the University of Washington.

Penelope Huston-Baer is the Director of Advertising for Contemporary Media, Inc., the parent company of the Memphis Flyer. Penelope has worked in the industry in a number of roles, both in Memphis and at the Santa Barbara Independent (CA). In between gigs at alt-weeklies, she also worked in corporate relations and media at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Ben Ilfeld is the founder of AdGlue, a revolutionary platform that allows advertisers to "glue" ads next to content they love. Publishers of high quality content now have a way to engage advertisers and learn from their behavior. In addition, Ben owns The Sacramento Press, a local independent online news publication serving his home town. He also founded The Sacramento Local Online Advertising Network (SLOAN), the first independent network of its kind.

Ben Jenkins

Bill Jensen has a master's degree in religious studies from the University of Kansas, has written about unsolved crimes, punk rock and fisticuffs and played professional roller hockey (earning the first minor penalty in league history). He co-founded the nerd news and self-loathing blog Topless Robot and the Long Island Press newspaper and website (where he hired Amy Fisher as a crime columnist). In 2006, Bill took the digital helm at Village Voice Media to oversee all web and mobile content and platforms for 17 newspapers (including LA Weekly and Village Voice). During his tenure, digital media revenue grew more than 400%, and pageviews and uniques grew from 176 to more than 750 million. Bill also created several mobile apps which have been downloaded more than two million times. Itunes named the "Best Of" app one of the top five travel apps of 2011, and Wired included it in its collection of "400 Essential Apps." In November 2011, Bill moved to Los Angeles where he ran the music content platform for BuzzMEDIA, including Stereogum, Idolator, and SPIN magazine. He now consults newspaper and other media companies to implement new digital strategies and revenue streams. He recently had a development deal with Cartoon Network, and just launched Epic Playgrounds, a non-profit with the singular goal of building the coolest playgrounds in the world.

Rob Jiranek , chief operating officer, joined Southcomm in January 2012. Previously he served as vice president for EW Scripps Commercial Appeal where in 2008 he launched the niche publishing division. Before Scripps, Rob was partner and group publisher of Portico Publications in Charlottesville where he led the acquisition and/or startup of eight individual publishing lines. Rob and his wife, Pam, have three children and live in Charlottesville.

Elizabeth Jones is the art director of Nashville Scene. She's responsible for bringing a little Sparkle and TwAANg to the convention.

Jason Joyce is the digital media director for Isthmus, an AAN member paper based in Madison, Wis.

Jerry Kackley is co-founder and president of K Group and has 25 years of experience as a senior marketing and planning executive. Jerry worked for several premiere consumer-marketing and consulting firms prior to starting his own firm in 1989. After graduate school Kackley joined Booz Allen & Hamilton where he worked for a number of Fortune 500 clients. Jerry headed the strategic planning function for two PepsiCo divisions -- Frito-Lay and North American Van Lines -- and later headed marketing and business development for Marriott Corporation. As President of K Group, Kackley is actively involved in each of the firm’s major client assignments. He is a regular speaker at INFE, INMA and NAA conferences.

Jeremy Kagan has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School teaching Digital Marketing for almost a decade. He also runs digital advertising startup Pricing Engine, which helps smaller advertisers with Search Marketing and Digital Advertising across Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Foursquare, and Reddit. Kagan was a Vice President in Sony Music’s Global Digital Business running mobile accounts, and head of strategy for Publicis Modem, a leading digital ad agency. You can see him as an expert guest about digital marketing on Bloomberg TV, Fox Business News, and Forbes.

Janine Kahn is the web editor and a blogger for OC Weekly. Before joining the paper in May, 2007, she was an education blogger for the Los Angeles Times, where she helped build and customize the School Me! blog. While attending the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, she was a section editor and reporter for Annenberg's Online Journalism Review.

Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is the executive director of The Media Consortium. Passionate about mission-driven independent media, Jo Ellen has worked for a succession of independent magazines, including stints as Managing Editor and Associate Publisher of Tikkun, Publisher of LiP: Informed Revolt, and Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of Zeek. A leading figure in Jewish media, Jo Ellen is an expert on the Jewish social justice movement. She is the co-editor of Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Response to Justice (Jewish Lights) and co-led the Righteous Indignation Project. She has written about Jewish social justice for a number of publications, including The Jewish Daily Forward, Sojourners, Tikkun and Interfaithfamily.com.

Mike Kalyan is a production workflow and technology consultant who specializes in evaluating production/prepress processes and integrating automation and desktop publishing software. An expert in print contract negotiations and in obtaining vendor bids, he uses all of these skills as production manager for an education non-profit publisher, ASCD, in Alexandria, VA. He also served as the former production director for Washington City Paper.

Scott Karp is the co-founder and CEO of Publish2, a platform for native advertising and editorial optimization. Scott was previously the Director of Digital Strategy for Atlantic Media. Before joining Atlantic Media, he was a consultant with the D.C. strategic research firm, The Advisory Board.

Tim Keck is the publisher of The Stranger and the president of Index, which also owns the Portland Mercury. Keck and Weekly Alibi Publisher Emeritus Chris Johnson co-founded The Onion in 1988 while they were students at the University of Wisconsin; they sold it to colleagues the following year.

Matt Kettmann is the senior editor at The Santa Barbara Independent, and oversees the paper's website, Independent.com, which was named best weekly website by Editor & Publisher in 2008.

Erin Kilmer-Neel is passionate about supporting local independent businesses and artists as a powerful way to improve the economic health and quality of life of our communities. To that end, she founded Oakland Unwrapped! -- an e-commerce site for Oakland's independent businesses and artists -- and created the Oakland Indie Awards to celebrate and educate consumers about them. Erin now runs these programs through OneCalifornia Foundation where she is a Program Officer. She serves on the board of the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), and is an active member of BALLE, as a member of the board of directors and chair of the Marketing Committee of the Oakland BALLE network (The Oakland Merchant Leadership Forum). Erin is head over heels in love with Oakland, her work, and most of all, her kick-ass husband Beau.

Bob Kilpatrick is director of digital development for Seven Days in Burlington, Vt.

Alice Klein is co-founder and editor/CEO of Toronto's fiercely independent weekly, NOW Magazine and its daily multimedia website nowtoronto.com. Klein's passion for environmental transformation has helped shape NOW's editorial and business leadership in this important area. She also writes regularly about the Canadian and global economy and politics, often from an ecological perspective. She is also a documentary filmmaker (Call of the Hummingbird), on the board of the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI), one of the co-creators of VoteforEnvironment.ca, a founding member of Green Enterprise Ontario (GEO), and on the boards of the Toronto Arts Council (TAC) and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).

Kris Kluver is the founder of Social Media Contractors. His understanding of social media management and content creation was born out of a need; Kris first became interested in social media when he began hiring help for social media to fill the growing needs of some of his other companies. Today, Kris is driven by a desire to constantly learn more about the evolving trends and philosophies of the 'how' and 'why,' and the true ROI of social media. Kris is a serial entrepreneur who started his first company at age 19 in Omaha, Nebraska. He has since been directly involved with the creation, operation, growth, and occasional sale of more than 20 successful businesses, and has advised on countless others. Kris sits on the board for the HALO Institute at Creighton University and is a member of the Nebraska Diplomats. He has a BA from the University of Wyoming.

Paul Knight started at the Houston Press in 2007 and has written stories about, among other things, a culture of violence inside the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, the exploits of an East Texas superthief, and a high school basketball team from a crumbling Houston neighborhood. A story Knight wrote about the Toyota Prius was a finalist in the 2010 AAN competition. Before the Press, Knight worked in Alabama for the Mobile Press-Register as a general assignment reporter, covering two small towns on the Eastern Shore of the Mobile Bay.

Sarah Kotlova is an account director at Digitaria and a specialist in interactive marketing. She seeks to create a user-centric culture for her agency and clients, bringing the voice of the customer in impactful ways into each marketing and advertising initiative. Sarah's experience includes building brands and business online for clients such as BumbleBee Foods, WD-40, Webster Bank, Intel Classmate PC, Covad, OAG (Official Airline Guide), and Philosophy. Prior to joining Digitaria, Sarah was the Vice-President of Strategy and Account Services for Geary Interactive, and Account Director for Whittmanhart in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where her clients included Anheuser-Busch, Kellogg’s Special K, Johnson & Johnson (REMICADE (infliximab) and K-Y), Epson, Avery, Guidant and Kashi. When she can drag herself away from the computer, she also enjoys travel.

Wayne Kramer is a songwriter whose reputation writing music for film and television now risks supplanting his legend as one of the world’s stellar guitarists. Rolling Stone lists him as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time.   As teenaged leader of Detroit’s ultimate incendiary rock band The MC5, in the 1960s, Wayne formed the White Panther Party in solidarity with other organizations working for racial and economic equality during the Vietnam War. Wayne and manager John Sinclair’s resulting dubious position at the center of the target for the FBI's counter-intelligence (or "COINTELPRO") program between 1968 and 1971 is well documented. Following the break-up of The MC5, Wayne suffered from drug addiction, a problem that culminated in a bust and consequential federal prison sentence at Lexington Federal Correctional Institution. Following release, Wayne returned to his musical career and to even greater acclaim. He has subsequently released 10 solo albums and is considered a pioneer of both punk rock and heavy metal. Wayne's involvement in and commitment to social justice initiatives never wavered. Now a respected film and television composer, Wayne scored the comedy feature Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; the controversial HBO documentary Hacking Democracy (about the 2004 presidential voting machine scandal) and the PBS film The Narcotic Farm (about Lexington and America’s decades-long failed drug war), as well as all three seasons of the HBO series East Bound & Down. Wayne has lived a life of music and activism. His friendship with revolutionary British songwriter Billy Bragg inspired the two men to create Jail Guitar Doors USA, a Los Angeles based 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to help rehabilitate prison inmates. The musicians run charity provides musical instruments to inmates with which they are taught non-violent communication skills. Wayne recently joined forces with Tom Morello for the Axis of Justice music and activism tours and made a special appearance at an anti-war protest concert for 10,000 fans during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado with Rage Against the Machine. Wayne regularly writes with, and produces, upstart rock 'n' roll bands.

Ben Kubany

Donna Ladd is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press, Mississippi's only alternative newspaper. She has written for many magazines, websites and alternative newspapers, including The Village Voice. She is the Diversity Chair for AAN's board of directors.

Jeff Larson was the online director at The Nation where he coordinated the magazine's editorial and business activities on the web during the 2009 political season. Previously, he worked at W.W. Norton and as a film and video editor at an Emmy award-winning production company.

Jeff Lawrence is the founder and owner of the award-winning Weekly Dig, The Best Little Paper in Boston.

Tony Lee is the publisher of CareerCast.com and founder/former publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online Vertical Network.

Alan Leveritt is the publisher of the Arkansas Times.

Dale Levitski became a household name through Top Chef, where he was a runner up on the third season of Bravo’s national cooking competition show, but his culinary accolades reach beyond his time on television. Over the course of 15 years, Levitski has received numerous honors and accolades for his cooking, including being tied to three different best new restaurant awards by Chicago Magazine. He has received four Jean Banchet Award nomination, including rising star chef, celebrity chef, and twice for best neighborhood restaurant. He has cooked twice at the James Beard House by invitation. His first position as executive chef was to open the breakfast-focused Orange, followed by La Tache, which was named one of the “Best New Bistros in North America” by Food and Wine magazine. Following his success on Top Chef, Levitski took over Lincoln Park’s Sprout restaurant, during which time he was selected as a semifinalist for “Best Chef: Great Lakes Region” in 2011 by the James Beard Foundation. With Sprout owner Mike Causevic, Levitski opened Frog n Snail, a Midwestern bistro, in his own neighborhood. With his announcement last October to take a hiatus from the Chicago culinary scene, Levitski spent time as an ongoing guest chef at Montana’s The Resort at Paws Up. His experience in some of Chicago’s best kitchens were where he honed skills for brunch, bistro and fine dining settings, and where his inspiration for creative flavors will come into his new kitchen at Sinema in Nashville’s historic Melrose theater building.

Jeremy Littau has almost 10 years of experience in journalism after working at newspapers of different sizes, specializing in editing and writing both in print and online. He got his start at the Daily Democrat in Woodland, Calif., and did the typical "move up the ladder" part of his career, landing at the Los Angeles Daily News in 2000. He spent four years at the Daily News before returning to school at Missouri. He earned his M.A. in journalism from Missouri in 2007 and his PhD in journalism from Missouri in 2009. Jeremy has extensive experience researching new media trends in journalism and is the author of several publications on the subject, specializing in multiplatform storytelling that makes use of audience conversation in the news process.

Alden Loury is the editor & publisher of The Chicago Reporter. He joined the magazine in 1999 as a reporter and won local and national awards for his work examining the effectiveness of community policing and projects documenting racial disparities in drug sentencing, jury selection and jury verdicts. As senior editor from 2002 to 2007, Loury led more than 50 investigative projects examining the impact of race and poverty in lottery ticket sales, retail leakage in black neighborhoods, residential development surrounding the sites of demolished public housing and home mortgage lending, among others. He became editor and publisher of the magazine on Jan. 1, 2008. Prior to joining the Reporter, Loury covered government and social services for three years at The News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill. He also spent a year as a radio anchor and reporter for WDWS-AM in Champaign. Loury is a 1997 graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A Chicago native, Loury grew up in the LeClaire Courts public housing development and the South Side’s Auburn-Gresham neighborhood.

Alice Neff Lucan has been AAN's legal hotline attorney since 2000. Her Washington, D.C.-based solo practice is dedicated to the representation of newspapers and press associations, along with an occasional author or commercial database. She was in-house counsel at Gannett Co., Inc. for 10 years, then of counsel to the Denver firm of Davis, Graham & Stubbs. In addition to her law practice, Lucan teaches Legal Aspects of Communications to graduate students in the master's program at American University's School of Communications.

Kim Mac Leod is a seasoned media investment banker and consumer magazine publishing executive with over 30 years of publishing experience, including direct experience in M&A, editorial, advertising and circulation. Prior to launching Regional Media Advisors, an M&A advisory firm dedicated to the regional media sector, she was managing director for consumer magazines at DeSilva & Phillips, a New York-based investment bank. Before that she co-founded FamilyFun, which was acquired by the Walt Disney Company, and over the years has acquired, sold or launched 18 national magazines, two of which -- FamilyFun and Men's Health -- have grown to circulation levels of nearly two million. Ms. Mac Leod has served as vice president, magazine group development, domestic and international, and vice president, group publisher at The Walt Disney Company; publisher of Working Mother; publisher of Children; circulation manager of Spring; managing editor of Practical Homeowner; co-founder of House Plants & Gardens; and publisher and director of new ventures at Rodale. She has a BA with honors from Western New England College and serves as a Trustee of the College.

Joe MacLeod used to be a shoe clerk. He has enjoyed working at City Paper in Baltimore for 22 years, the last million of which he has served as art director. His favorite font is Wedgie. Buy Joe a drink and he will tell you all the Missile Launch Codes.

John Maines

Harlan Mandel is deputy managing director of Media Development Loan Fund, a mission-driven investment fund providing low-cost financing to independent news media in countries with a history of media oppression. MDLF has provided over $85 million in loans and equity financing to more than 70 print, broadcast and on-line news outlets in 25 countries, helping journalists in challenging environments build sustainable businesses around professional, responsible, quality journalism. More than 32 million people on four continents get their news from MDLF's current clients. Prior to joining MDLF in 1998, Mandel served as Deputy General Counsel of the Open Society Institute, after practicing law in the New York and Los Angeles offices of Morrison & Foerster.

Matt Mansfield is executive editor, digital content, at National Geographic. Previously, he was director and bureau chief for Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism's reporting program in Washington, D.C., as well as an associate professor. Prior to joining Medill, he was deputy managing editor of the San Jose Mercury News. He is a founding partner of MG Redesign, a custom design and training firm. In 2012, Matt was the design director for Bloomberg Insider, a daily glossy launched to showcase Bloomberg LP's reporting and analysis from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. He has served as president of the international Society for News Design and is one of the Washington-based organizers for the Online News Association. In his current role as executive editor, digital content, Matt will oversee National Geographic's editorial content across the web, mobile and non-magazine apps. He will be responsible for the editorial experience on digital platforms, shaping content initiatives that complement the Society’s membership acquisition strategies and supervising National Geographic's daily news team, short-form video production group and a team of producers creating online content for the Society's Mission Programs division, which manages the Society's field researchers and explorers.

Jennifer Marsh is the General Manager of Baltimore City Paper.

Andrew Martin is a senior associate with Borrell Associates. Based in Toronto, Andrew has worked for more than 25 years in the media sector. He managed the B2C and B2B online operations for CanWest Global, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada. Before that he ran the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency for seven years. His early career was with LexisNexis, where he was director of textbook publishing for the UK division, before moving to Canada in 1987 to head up their operations in Toronto. He was closely involved in developing CanWest's web strategies and the expansion of their online aggregation businesses. He also contributed to drafting the newspaper industry positions on copyright law reform in Canada. Andrew's current consulting work divides between business and strategic planning, licensing and copyright. Clients include media businesses, government departments, trade associations and libraries in Canada, the US and UK. Andrew has a law degree from the University of Cambridge, and qualified as an UK attorney.

Patricia Martin is an author and noted expert on commerce and culture. She is CEO and founder of LitLamp Communications, an award-winning marketing boutique acclaimed for using culture as a medium to connect brands with communities of consumers. Author of the book "Renaissance Generation: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What it Means to Your Business," she pioneered the point of view that the convergence of art, technology and entertainment is remaking the American consumer. A keynote speaker in demand, Patricia brings C-level executives to their feet when she casts the American consumer in a new light and sets the stage for marketing in the 21st Century. Before founding her firm in 1995, Patricia created the first-of-its-kind sponsorship marketing division for the American Library Association. While there, she partnered with some of the world's most recognized brands, including Microsoft, where she built the blueprint for what is now the Gates Library Foundation. Patricia has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, NPR, the Wall Street Reporter, Market Watch, Harvard Business Review, and Advertising Age. She is a frequent contributor to Advertising Age and Huffington Post and lives near Chicago with her daughter, Grace.

Melanie Mathewson is the vice president and chief sales officer of Intersect Media Solutions, the advertising services arm of the Florida Press Association. In this capacity, she oversees validating the value of newspaper advertising to clients and facilitating advertising placements in newspapers in Florida and nationwide. Melanie joined IMS in 2008. Florida Press Association and Intersect Media Solutions are committed to the success of newspaper companies as vital sources of news, advertising and information on which millions of readers depend on each day. Melanie is passionate about newspapers and the clients they serve. Her career spans 30 years, having served in revenue leadership roles at metro and community newspapers. Her career experience is equal in both size operations, enabling her and her team to present the unique attributes of each. Melanie holds a BA in Journalism from the University of South Carolina.

Regina McCombs is a faculty member of the Poynter Institute, teaching multimedia, mobile news, social media and programming. Previously, she was the senior producer for multimedia at StarTribune.com in Minneapolis-St. Paul. She arrived there after 13 years as a television producer and photographer at KARE-TV, the NPPA-winning powerhouse in the Twin Cities. Winner of numerous Best of Photojournalism and Pictures of the Year International awards for multimedia storytelling, as well as an Emmy for her video work, she has been a regular speaker around the country, talking about finding new ways to tell stories on the Web, especially with video. For StarTribune.com, she coordinated the multimedia team's coverage, shot and edited video stories, created audio slide shows, produced major projects and trained staff in creating multimedia. She also taught classes in online journalism and TV news at the University of Minnesota, where she received her master's degree.

Terrence McCoy is a staff writer at New Times Broward-Palm Beach. McCoy was a finalist for the 2012 Livingston Award for his Kindle Single, The Playground, which exposed how China's forceful investments have devastated Cambodia and other parts of Southeast Asia. He got a masters' at Columbia University and served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Cambodia between 2009 and 2011.

Richard Meeker has been publisher of Portland's Pulitzer Prize-winning Willamette Week since 1983. Along with co-owner Mark Zusman, his City of Roses Newspaper Company also owns and operates the Santa Fe Reporter and INDY Week.

Peter Meng is the founder and CEO of AdFreeeq. He was a 2011-2012 fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. Experienced entrepreneur and highly-regarded expert in Internet services and online marketing with over 26 years of technology and Internet experience including 7 years in education sales and marketing at Apple. Peter specializes in core idea development, system and technical design, Internet marketing, vision based leadership, and dogged persistence.

Mark Mensack is a first vice president/wealth management with Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC where he currently manages in excess of seventy million dollars. He provides financial planning and investment advisory to individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations. Before he began his professional financial services career in 1995, Mark was a Commissioned Officer in the US Army for eleven years, serving in both the U.S. and South Korea. While he spent most of his time as a helicopter pilot, his final assignment was as an instructor of Philosophy and Ethics at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point.  Mark finished his twenty-two year military career in the US Army Reserves. He has earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Master’s from the University of Pennsylvania, a commercial pilot’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Accredited Wealth Management Advisor (AWMA) designation from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mark is an adjunct faculty member with Camden County Community College where he teaches bio-medical ethics. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the USO of Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey and the Board of Trustees for the West Point Society of Philadelphia. Formerly he has served on the Board of Governors for the University of Scranton, as well as on the University’s National Planned Giving Council; and the Camden County College Foundation Board. Mark is an active member of the Tri-State Human Resources Management Association and chairman of their Sponsorship and Preferred Vendor Committee. Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, he lives in Cherry Hill with his wife Nancy, and three children, Kelsey, Joey and John.

Michael Meyer Naval nuclear engineer, pilot, historian, design artisan, business strategist, storyteller, and educator -- Michael Meyer, partner with Essential in San Francisco, leads executives and their organizations through the complex and challenging conversations of discovery that are critical to success during times of massive change. He draws on his frontline leadership experience to integrate and evolve a unique understanding that marries the business imperative with design awareness. Michael comes to Essential from Adaptive Path where he served as CEO and from frog design, where he led the company’s California studio as general manager, overseeing the firm’s physical and digital product design offering. Previously, he started and led the product strategy practice at IDEO’s Boston office. Michael’s led a wide range of projects: planning a new line of home electrical devices, crafting the vision and expressing the value proposition for a major pharmaceutical company’s internet presence, developing a next-generation electronic payment token, and leading the cockpit and cabin design of a new jet aircraft. His project teams have won two gold and two silver IDEA awards for their work. Meyer has a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley; an MBA from Harvard Business School, appointed as a Fellow of the Batten Institute, Darden GSBA, University of Virginia, where he has taught early-stage innovation and product development. He currently instructs at the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego.

Debbie Michaud is the Editor-in-Chief of Creative Loafing Atlanta. She interned at the Loaf while a student at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. A few years after graduation, she joined Creative Loafing's staff as listings editor in 2006 and worked her way up to arts & entertainment editor, senior editor, and finally editor-in-chief in 2012. She has written for Esquire.com, Fodor’s Travel, theGuardian.com, Wallpaper*, and Art Papers, among other publications. She also happened to leave UGA with a degree in French and spent some time in Perigueux, France, as a high school English teacher.

Scott Michaud is general manager of MindComet's Southeast Region and director of strategic accounts. He is responsible for business development, market & competitive analysis, customer acquisition strategies, consultative/solution selling and management of cross-functional teams for the Southeast Region. Scott uses his ten years of interactive experience to build strong client relations and creative initiatives for marquee clients such as FOX Television, Cunard Lines, APM Terminals and the Walt Disney Company. Previously he was senior strategic account manager and interactive media director with Hemisphere Creative. Scott has recently been named Web Chair for the inaugural year of the Charlotte Interactive Marketing Association.

Lindsey Millar is the editor of Arkansas Times.

Nick Miller is co-editor of the Sacramento News & Review. They let him into the building as a copy editor (and distribution driver) in 2004. Last year, he won a second-place AAN Award for his news reporting. His beats are city politics and the safety net. Follow his AAN Conference live Tweets at @NickMiller916.

Tyson Miller is founder and director of The Project for Improved Environmental Coverage (PIEC) – a nonprofit initiative dedicated to improving environmental news coverage in the mainstream media. He is a social entrepreneur and leader in the environmental movement who has been developing new organizations and initiatives for nearly 20 years. Over this timeframe, he has completed an award-winning documentary on environmental education and founded or cofounded five organizations and/or national initiatives including Green Press Initiative, PIEC, and Dream of a Nation. Tyson is currently the director of SEE Innovation and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife and two boys.

Jeremy Mims is the cofounder of OwnLocal, a technology company that turns legacy media companies into full-fledged digital ad agencies. OwnLocal works with nearly 500 publications and is backed by Y Combinator, Baseline Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Automattic, The Knight Foundation, 500 Startups, Digital First Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Joshua Schachter, and other great investors. He and his company have been featured by NPR, Current TV, Editor & Publisher, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, TechCrunch, and more. He currently advises three additional startups and lives in New York City.

Doug Mitchell is a nationally recognized media trainer, project strategist and career coach. His former students who are now working professionals send him wedding invitations (he shows up) and birth announcements. Doug is a former Knight International Press Fellow and William S. Fulbright Scholar to Chile and spent 21.5 years as a producer and director at NPR, where he still consults on diversity related projects. While at NPR he created and managed a professional development program called "next generation radio" and built NPR's "Intern Edition." Currently, he's co-director of a startup camp funded by the Ford Foundation to develop journalists of color as tomorrow's media CEOs and a consultant and project manager for NPR. He likes to create substantive, progressive media projects from scratch.

Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that challenges the wisdom and inevitability of economic consolidation and works to advance policies that support strong local economies and vibrant communities. Mitchell has served as an advisor to numerous small business groups, elected officials, and community organizations, and has helped dozens of cities and towns implement new land use and economic development policies that strengthen locally owned businesses. Her best-selling book, "Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses" (Beacon Press, 2006), was named one of the top ten business books of the year by Booklist. Mitchell also chairs the American Independent Business Alliance and is vice president of the Portland (Maine) Independent Business and Community Alliance.

Dave Morgan is executive vice president of global advertising strategy for AOL, where he focuses on advertising strategy and partnerships. Prior to joining AOL, Morgan served as CEO and chairman of TACODA, a company he founded in 2001 and AOL acquired in Sept. 2007. Morgan has been an online advertising pioneer. In 1995 he founded Real Media, Inc., one of the first online ad networks and a predecessor to 24/7 Real Media, serving as its chairman and CEO until 2001. Morgan also has served as general counsel and director of new media ventures for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, where he helped launch more than a dozen new media businesses in the early 1990s. Previously, he was an associate in the corporate department of the Philadelphia-based law firm of Duane Morris. Morgan is a frequent speaker, writer, and commentator on advertising issues and is active in public policy issues relating to advertising and privacy. He is involved in a number of industry trade groups and holds board positions with both the Internet Advertising Bureau and the digital marketing board of the Direct Marketing Association.

Giles Morris is the director of creative strategy and communications at Vibethink. Former editor-in-chief of AAN member paper C-VILLE Weekly, Giles spent a decade in daily and weekly newspapers as a freelancer, reporter, and editor. A finalist for this year’s AAN multimedia feature story award, Giles has spent the last five years thinking about how print media companies can best transition their business models to the digital marketplace.

Jerod Morris is the Director of Content for Copyblogger Media. He manages the day­to­day operations of Copyblogger.com ­­ one of the world's most influential marketing publications. He also hosts The Lede, Copyblogger’s weekly podcast about content marketing, copywriting, conversion optimization, and much more. Jerod was a featured presenter at Authority Intensive 2014 and speaks regularly about strategy and leadership as it relates to the creation and distribution of content on the open web. He has appeared on ESPN’s Outside the Lines and his work has been featured or mentioned in publications ranging from Deadspin to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Seana Mulcahy is founder of Brand Truth, a digital media and marketing consultancy. She has 18 years experience in advertising, public relations, and marketing communications with the past 14 primarily focused in the digital space. Prior, she was vice president, director of interactive media at Mullen and Carat Interactive. Mulcahy has been creating online brands since before the first banner was sold.  Her expertise includes online and traditional media planning and buying, strategy, branding, public relations, email marketing, mobile, viral marketing, tracking and analytics, promotions, social media, search engine marketing and sales/media/marketing training. She's built online media services divisions for three companies and has worked with clients spanning financial, telecom, tech, healthcare, government, publishers, media, travel and retail.  Clients include VW, McDonald's, Deutsche Bank, Lendingtree.com, Nextel, US Department of Defense, Symantec, The Four Seasons, British Airways, Sesame Street, Pfizer, Smith Kline Beecham, Genuity, Electronic Arts and Radio Shack.  She has taught, lectured and written about the industry for numerous trade associations, publications and blogs and currently has a weekly column on Mediapost's Online SPIN.  Mulcahy is on the boards of Dollars for Scholars and NetElixir, a search engine marketing firm. She formerly held board posts with the Boston Interactive Media Association (BIMA) and the Business Marketing Association.  She is a professor in Marketing Communications at Emerson College in Boston.  She has a degree in advertising, public relations and speech.  She works out of Boston.

Miranda Mulligan is the executive director, Northwestern University Knight Lab.

Colin Murray has been with Isthmus Publishing since 2003, currently holding the position of advertising manager. He began his media career at the Madison Times, a small, weekly, multi-cultural newspaper, where he concentrated on and grew classified advertising sales. He later worked at Erickson Publishing as a sales representative, contributing to such publications as Anew (now Brava) Magazine, Dane County Kids, Now Hiring and Badgerland Sports for Kids. Colin has an extensive business background in Madison. He is currently a member of American Advertising Federation - Madison Chapter, the Board of Directors for Dane Buy Local and the planning committee for Madison Business Alliance (a local LGBT business group).

Scott Murtaugh is the Vice President of Business Development at Infogroup.

Kenneth Neill is the CEO of Contemporary Media, Inc., and publisher of Memphis Flyer, Memphis Magazine, Memphis Parent, the Memphis Business Quarterly, and Midsouth Bride, among other publications. He graduated from Yale University in 1970 and from Trinity University, Dublin, in 1972. He served as president of AAN from 2005 to 2007.

Robert Newman was most recently the design director of Fortune magazine and the creative director of Real Simple. He has also been the design director of Entertainment Weekly, New York, Details, Vibe, Inside, The Village Voice and Guitar World. Newman and his teams have won numerous publication design awards and medals. On his own he has worked with a wide array of magazines and newspapers, consulting on issues ranging from staffing to cover design to overall art direction. He is past president of the Society of Publication Designers, has been a frequent guest lecturer at the Poynter Institute, and speaks regularly to groups and conferences about publication design and art direction.

Michael Newquist is the associate publisher at the Fort Worth Weekly.

Elizabeth Nitz is an Account Executive for The Austin Chronicle. She started with The Chronicle in 2001 as a part-time receptionist while in college, and eventually moved into the retail advertising department as an assistant. Her first sales position was a year-long stint in classifieds before being recruited by the advertising director to the retail sales department. Making the classic mistake of thinking the grass was greener elsewhere, she made the move agency-side for a short six-months before seeing the light, and very humbly asking to return to her retail sales position. Thankfully, The Chronicle welcomed her back, and she has been a part of the retail sales team since 2005.

Michael O'Connell is web editor at Federal News Radio and producer of the It's All Journalism podcast, a weekly podcast focusing on the changing state of media. Previously, he was a managing editor at the Connection Newspapers in Northern Virginia, where he oversaw four editions of the weekly community newspaper. In his 10 years at the Connection, he also worked as a community reporter, Fairfax County reporter, associate editor and community editor. He also spearheaded the Connection's online and social media strategy. Michael graduated from the Indiana University School of Journalism in 1983 with a journalism/English degree. In 2010, he entered American University's Interactive Journalism program on the way to earning an M.A.

Kate O'Neill , founder and principal of KO Insights, is a speaker, author, and consultant focused on meaningfulness in business and in life. She consults with select clients, often adding much-needed context for strategic growth opportunities in data-rich and customer-centric environments. Kate has been featured in CNN Money, TIME, Forbes, USA Today, and other national media. She is the author of an upcoming book on meaningfulness in marketing. In 2009, Kate launched and grew [meta]marketer, a digital strategy and analytics firm, over a five-year period and significantly shaped the marketing analytics landscape. Prior to [meta]marketer, Kate’s experience included creating the first content management role at Netflix, leading cutting-edge online optimization work at Magazines.com, developing Toshiba America’s first intranet, building the first website at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and holding leadership positions in a variety of digital content and technology start-ups. Kate is a vocal and visible advocate for women in technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership — she was featured by Google in their global campaign for women in entrepreneurship — as well as for Nashville as a growing tech center.

Christine Oreskovich

Tony Ortega became editor of the Village Voice in March, 2007. Previously, he was editor of New Times Broward-Palm Beach, managing editor of The Pitch in Kansas City, associate editor at Phoenix New Times, and a staff writer at New Times Los Angeles. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Fatimah.

Dan Oshinsky is the founder of Stry.us where he currently leads a team of reporters based in Springfield, Mo. Dan was a 2011-12 Donald W. Reynolds Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He is also a builder of many things, including BooksAround, a social literacy experiment; JStart, a wiki of resources for entrepreneurial journalists; and Very Quotatious, a site for inspiration, thought and other wisdom suitable for quotation. Dan is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. Find Dan at @danoshinsky or email him at dan@stry.us.

Jeff Ostiguy is vice president of g8wave. One of g8wave's first U.S. employees, he assumed the primary responsibility of overseeing the launch of g8wave's domestic operations in early 2004. Since then, he has overseen the launch of g8wave's mobile multimedia platform and has successfully developed strategic partnerships with other content providers, media agencies, and national brands. He has been with g8wave's parent organization, Phoenix Media Communications Group, since 1999. During this time, he has held various management positions within the organization, all working directly with media clients. Jeff is a recognized industry authority on mobile strategy development and an active member of numerous industry organizations, including the American Marketing Association and The CTIA, as well a regular contributor to various industry publications.

Liz Osting has been working as a graphic designer for The Austin Chronicle for the past five years. Prior to the Chronicle and post-completion of two arts degrees, she designed for a variety of advertising agencies and her freelance business, Herculiz.com. These experiences have taught her to come up with budget-conscious, inventive and effective solutions to please even the pickiest of commissioners.

Simon Owens is a 26-year-old social media consultant and online journalist. Over the years, Simon has secured hundreds of placements on top blogs and social news sites for clients. He has conducted digital PR for both major and small brands and has driven millions of page views for clients, getting them on the front pages of Technorati Top 100 blogs and major social news sites like Digg and Reddit. Simon has been interviewed by reporters from numerous newspapers, television and radio programs about his expertise in new media. His blog, Bloggasm, was launched in late 2005 and focuses on the intersection of new and old media. It often includes in-depth feature articles on a variety of media subjects. The site was named in 2008 as one of PC Magazine's favorite blogs. In that same year it was also nominated for a Weblog Award in the "best large blogs" category. Simon was named the second best Twitter user in DC in 2009 in Washington City Paper's "Best of" issue.

Susan Percy is the founder of Toronto-based MacGrercy Consultants, providing business-skills training and meeting facilitation. Susan helps teams and individuals to become more productive, creative and effective at work. When facilitating group sessions, Susan helps to create a fun atmosphere that encourages collaboration to quickly generate ideas and make plans.

Stephen Pia founded COACH MEdia in 1999. He works with media sales teams and individuals to strengthen their sales skills, develop an effective sales process, and enhance their communication and negotiation skills in support of Integrated Selling. In addition to scheduled training, coaching and assessment programs, Stephen provides customized on-demand coaching to reinforce the concepts he has taught and provide support in specific sales situations.  Companies like Time Inc.'s Business & Finance Network, Google, eBay, Gartner, CMP Media, CNET and IDG have utilized Stephen Pia to help them achieve their sales goals. Prior to founding COACH MEdia, Stephen spent 16 years in media sales as both a sales professional and a sales leader, including 10 years at Ziff-Davis Media in numerous positions including Senior Vice President of Sales.  Throughout his career, Stephen has excelled at selling, managing sales teams, creating sales organizations, and coaching sales professionals to higher levels of performance. In addition to his corporate sessions, Stephen is a frequent presenter at industry events and association meetings.  He has delivered presentations at events like IAEM's Expo! Expo! and several IAEM Chapter meetings, SISO, MAGS Southeast, Florida Magazine Association, Folio Show, and Folio Summit. He consistently receives high scores from attendees, as measured by the event organizers, on his delivery skills and session content.

Jerry Portwood is the managing editor at New York Press, where he also assigns and edits the arts and entertainment sections of the paper. Previously he worked as an editor at Creative Loafing in Atlanta, before chucking it all and moving to Barcelona, Spain, where he freelanced and wrote fiction. Several of his short stories have appeared in literary journals, and he is currently at work on a novel.

Chris Potter is editor of Pittsburgh City Paper.

Mark Potts calls himself a "recovering journalist" and blogs about new ways for an audience to receive, create and interact with news, information and advertising. After 15 years as a journalist for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and other major news organizations, Mark cofounded WashingtonPost.com, was on the founding team of the @Home Network and created and cofounded Backfence.com, the leading hyper-local user-generated citizens media company. He now provides strategic, product and business consulting services to leading media and Internet companies.

Carolyn Powers works on outreach and special initiatives at Internews, an international non-profit dedicated to empowering local media around the world. Bouncing around between DC, San Francisco and New Orleans, she most recently helped build Internews’ first media project in the US (based in New Orleans). Outside of Internews, Carolyn has led an intensive storytelling course with college students in Kigali, Rwanda, served as a community organizer on the outskirts of Boston, and traveled a bit around the world, though has many more countries that she would like to check off that list.

Lisa Rab is a staff writer with New Times Broward-Palm Beach.

Ron Reason     Chicago-based design consultant Ron Reason is advising Creative Loafing Media on rethinking editorial and advertising strategies in its various markets. He has worked with an odd array of daily and weekly newspapers and magazines in places like Dubai, London, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Nairobi, Orlando, New Delhi, Santa Fe, Sao Paulo, Reykjavik, Lisbon (Ohio), Venice (Fla.) and Walla Walla (Wash.) He is a visiting faculty member at The Poynter Institute, where he previously served as fulltime Director of Visual Journalism for five years. His email is ron@ronreason.com, and his websites are www.ronreason.com and www.artwithinreason.com

Tim Redmond is executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and AAN first amendment chair.

Leigh Anne Rehkopf is the Marketing & Promotions Director at Creative Loafing Atlanta. After graduating from New York University with a degree in music sociology and photography with dreams of becoming the photo editor at SPIN, life happened and she ended up in brand management and promotional marketing. After a brief stint selling air for Clear Channel radio, she landed this position at Creative Loafing in 2009. She's a native Atlantan, unlike 99% of Atlantans*, and enjoys playing tennis and dominating at bar trivia. *Statistic not entirely accurate.

Cathy Resmer is the associate publisher and web editor for Vermont's Seven Days.

Mike Rich is the art director at Redeye, a sib of the Trib and the official Jersey Shore/Dance Moms paper of record. Since joining the team in 2006 he has designed hundreds of covers, photographed hundreds of bands and been personally told off by Edward Norton. He's a huge fan of delicious sandwiches, biking and biking for delicious sandwiches.

Jim Ridley

Hanaa Rifaey is the founder of Press Forward, a boutique consulting shop specializing in nonprofit management, strategic planning, fundraising, and marketing. Previously, Hanaa served as the President and Publisher of The American Independent News Network. She has managed campaigns and programs in a variety of issue areas including civil rights, health care, and climate change. Hanaa received her undergraduate degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and her master's degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She lives in D.C. with her husband and their dog, two cats, and tiny human.

Katie Risch manages Centro's strategic, ongoing relationships with more than 6,000 local, regional and national publishers in the company's platform. Centro manages more than half of all national and regional advertising that reaches these local sites across the US. Katie is one of Centro's longest-tenured professionals, having worked as a media planner for automotive accounts and movie studios with Centro Parent Integrent. Like many working with digital newspapers today, Katie started in print as a sales account executive for the Cincinnati Enquirer. She holds a BA in English from Indiana University.

Jim Rizzi is publisher of Salt Lake City Weekly. Jim has nearly 30 years experience in the alternative weekly publishing business. The first 21 years of his career were with New Times (now Village Voice Media), and the last nine years with Salt Lake City Weekly. Jim serves as marketing chair for AAN and has done so since 2004.

Robby Robbins is the multimedia sales manager at the Santa Barbara Independent. With nearly 25 years in the newspaper industry, he brings his straightforward, no-nonsense, ever-changing approach to staff and product management. With time spent in the daily world and now at his second Independent, he has pretty much tried it all and kept what works. Robby served on the AAN board of directors from 2002 to 2009.

Colby Roberts , a native Vermonter, has been with Seven Days since 1999. He enjoys skiing with his wife and two daughters.

Chris Robino has more than 18 years of leadership experience building business and guiding leading organizations. An accomplished entrepreneur and corporate strategist, his vision and expertise in organizational performance have driven notable achievements in the corporate and technology sectors. His accomplishments have been featured in Business First, The Daily Reporter, and The Columbus Dispatch. Chris has built, run and sold 8 different businesses over the last 20 years. His latest venture SearchRankings.Net, is a full services Search Engine Optimization and Marketing firm, that helps clients optimize web based initiatives for better search engine exposure.

Erik Nelson Rodriguez is a graphic designer for The Columbia Chronicle and has directed the art in various city publications, including R_Wurd, a youth-journalism magazine based out of Columbia College Chicago. Erik has been drawing, literally, longer than he can remember. He's currently the illustrator for the The Illustrated Press: Chicago, an upcoming comics journalism book, with reporter Darryl Holliday. Both Darryl and Erik can be found on Twitter @the_ill_press and on their website at IllusPress.com.

Rick Rodriguez is the Cronkite School’s first Carnegie Professor specializing in Latino and transnational news coverage. The former executive editor of the Sacramento Bee in Sacramento, Calif., and the first Latino president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors came to the Cronkite School in 2008 to develop a new cross-disciplinary specialization in the coverage of issues related to Latinos and the U.S.-Mexico border. While he was at the Bee, the paper won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Rodriguez is known nationally as a champion of watchdog journalism and newsroom diversity.

Mikal Rohde is the Executive Vice President, Corporate Development for cXense. Rohde's move to Cxense followed a 20-year career in finance, marketing, and business development. He was most recently a Director and Vice President of Strategy and Business in the Norwegian media company Schibsted. and before this as the CEO of a Schibsted local search and directory subsidiary department. Before this, he served as Executive Vice President for marketing at NetCom GSM, and also served as an Executive Vice President for marketing and business development at the directory publishing firm Findexa (Eniro). Mikal holds a bachelor's degree in Marketing and Management from the Norwegian School of Management (BI)

Jandos Rothstein missed his old desk at Washington City Paper so much he came back as Creative Director after seven years away designing much duller publications. He is also a professor of graphic design at George Mason University in Virginia and author of Designing Magazines from Allworth Press.

Paula Routly has been working as a journalist in Vermont since 1983, when she graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in French and Italian. In January 1995 she created an arts paper--Vox--for Vermont Times with Pamela Polston. After learning that Vermont Times and Vox were for sale, the duo launched Seven Days -- in six head-spinning weeks. Although she was a writer and editor before Seven Days, and still serves in both capacities at the paper, Paula also runs the business side of the media company. She has shaped the development of the newspaper's numerous ancillary products, including the 7 Nights dining guide, the NOW e-newsletter, the What's Good student guide, Vermont 3.0: Creative Tech Career Jam and a local online car search called Auto Finder. She also oversees the company's finances, management and marketing efforts. For six years, she served on the board of directors of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

Tim Ruder is the chief revenue officer and general manager of audience development services at Perfect Market, Inc., a leading provider of traffic and content optimization solutions for online publishers. He started his career with the Washington Post Co. in 1989, moving to the online division in 1995. During his 17 years with the Washington Post, Tim pioneered the development, management and growth of interactive business lines, serving in various marketing, sales, business development and operational roles, rising to the post of VP of marketing. Before achieving that title, he served as the local vice president, responsible for the company's regional market strategy, initiatives and operations. Under his leadership, washingtonpost.com achieved the highest reach of any local site in its market and claimed multiple industry awards for excellence. His efforts were instrumental to the successful launch, growth and dominant market position achieved by WPNI properties (washingtonpost.com, Slate, Newsweek.com, BudgetTravel.com and Sprig) in local, national and international markets. He oversaw the rise of washingtonpost.com. Tim has consulted with businesses adapting to the changing media landscape, supporting the development of new competencies in search engine marketing and interactive advertising. As a consultant to the Los Angeles Times, Tim helped latimes.com double its audience in less than 12 months. Tim holds a B.A. in political science from Purdue University and an MBA from George Mason University.

Jeremy Rue is a lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He serves in a dual capacity for the school; as a multimedia instructor for the Knight Digital Media Center and as a co-instructor for a Carnegie-Knight funded program called News21. Before teaching, Jeremy previously worked as a multimedia journalist for the Oakland Tribune, where he helped produced Not Just a Number, an immersive interactive project that humanized the historically high 2006 homicide rate in Oakland. The project won Online News Association's Knight Award for Public Service in 2007. Jeremy has also worked as a photojournalist for a number of publications, including The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee and the Duluth News-Tribune in Minnesota. He also worked as a reporter for the Selma (Calif.) Enterprise, where he covered city government, courts and crime. Jeremy is the recipient of the 2007 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for his photo documentary work on migrant farm workers in the California Central Valley. He has experience with Adobe Flash/ActionScript, HTML/CSS, JavaScript/AJAX, Unix, PHP and a variety of other scripting languages.

Sondra Russell joined NPR in 2008, where she is a web metrics analyst. After working as a web developer for ten years in San Francisco, London, Paris, and Norman, Oklahoma, she got her Master of Business Administration at University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. She enjoys all aspects of web metrics analysis, from going "under the hood" to perfect collection methods, to writing customized dashboards using APIs, PHP, and MySQL, to writing a weekly newsletter for NPR staff analyzing recent trends in traffic across all of NPR's platforms. She is also a published short story writer.

Nicole Rycroft is the founder and executive director of Canopy, a North American non-profit that safeguards forests, species and the climate by harnessing the power of the marketplace and changing business practices. Best known for the greening of Harry Potter, Canopy brokers innovative solutions and works closely with the North American newspaper, print, book and magazine industries. Canopy was one of the lead organizations responsible for securing the world's largest conservation agreement alongide eight other environmental organizations and 21 forestry companies. Covering a massive 70 million hectares, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement was largely driven by green shifts in the marketplace created by the work of Canopy and its market allies with large corporate paper consumers. Nicole leads the strategic direction of Canopy. A firm believer that we could be doing things in a better way, Nicole is committed to ensuring that the power and influence the North American market leverages tangible eco-solutions and on the ground conservation gains for the world's forests, species and climate. Nicole is the recipient of an Ashoka Fellowship, a Canadian Environment Award Gold Medal and numerous print and publishing industry awards. Named one of Canada's 50 Most Influential People in Graphic Communication for the past four years, Nicole sits on numerous boards.

Mark Sableman litigates trademark, copyright, patent, advertising, libel, privacy, unfair competition, and trade secret cases, as well as technology and Internet-related claims. He advises clients with intellectual property, media, technology, and Internet issues. Mark has written one book, More Speech, Not Less: Communications Law in the Information Age, and more than a dozen law review articles and book chapters.

Mike Sager is a best-selling author and award-winning reporter. A former Washington Post staff writer under Watergate investigator Bob Woodward, he worked closely, during his years as a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Mike is the author of four collections of non-fiction, two novels, and one biography. He has served for more than fifteen years as a writer at large for Esquire. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine Editors' National Magazine Award for profile writing. He is the editor/publisher of The Sager Group, and a former intern at Atlanta's pioneering alt weekly, Creative Loafing. Many of his stories have inspired films. For more information, please see www.MikeSager.com.

Stewart Sallo is the founder, owner and publisher of Boulder Weekly, an award-winning alternative weekly in its 16th year of publication in the beautiful and progressive city of Boulder, Colorado. After receiving a B.A. degree in Sociology, cum laude, from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Sallo had a humble beginning in the newspaper business as an account executive for the now-defunct Santa Cruz Express, in 1981. The following year opportunity knocked and Sallo became the owner/publisher of Student Guide, a quarterly paper. In 1984, a second paper, Summer Santa Cruz, was founded by Sallo's growing company, Santa Cruz Advertising & Design, which was also building a clientele as a full-service advertising and design agency. In 1992, Sallo sold his business interests in Santa Cruz to relocate to Boulder and fulfill a 10-year dream of publishing an alternative weekly. On August 19, 1993 the first edition of Boulder Weekly was published, and the paper will celebrate its 16th anniversary this year. Sallo lives with his wife of ten years, Mari, and nine-year-old daughter Mia. His older daughter, Julia, will begin her junior year at the University of Colorado in Boulder this fall and works as his personal assistant at Boulder Weekly, carrying the title "Heiress."

Dan Savage is The Stranger's editorial director and syndicated sex columnist. He has written four books, including "Savage Love," a collection of his advice columns, "Skipping Towards Gomorrah," "The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family," and "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Get Pregnant," an award-winning memoir about adoption. Dan is also a media pundit who's appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher," "The Colbert Report," "20/20," MTV, VH1, and "Larry King Live" and "Anderson Cooper 360," among others.

Chip Scanlan writes and teaches writing at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fl.  He blogs about the writing life at "Chip on Your Shoulder." Before joining Poynter in 1994, he spent two decades reporting for The Providence Journal, St. Petersburg Times and Knight Ridder Newspapers. In 2004, he profiled "the best of the South's non-best-selling writers" for the Creative Loafing chain. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The American Scholar, The Washington Post Magazine and Salon.com. Two chapters from a memoir-in-progress about his grafting grandfather were finalists in the "Best American Essays" 2003 and 2004. He's revising his journalism textbook for Oxford University Press as fast as he can so he and his wife, Katharine Fair, can rewrite a script inspired by "The Holly Wreath Man," their serial novel published in more than 60 newspapers, hardcover and optioned for TV. Chip and Kathy live on St. Pete Beach, Florida with their three daughters. Sometimes, he even gets the clicker.

Anne Schindler  was hired as a staff writer at Folio Weekly in 1995, and took over as editor in 2003 following a bloodless coup. She previously worked as a contributing writer for the now-defunct Twin Cities Reader in Minneapolis. Anne has won several AltWeekly Awards, including in the Investigative Reporting category.

Alexa Schirtzinger recently completed a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, focusing on alternative business models for local journalism, and was previously the editor of the Santa Fe Reporter.

Dave Schmall is publisher of Creative Loafing Media in Atlanta.  Since 1991, he has held a variety of titles in sales, marketing and business development, and has served as publisher with several media companies. He began honing his media chops as advertising director at City Pages (Minneapolis). Before moving to Atlanta to head up Creative Loafing, he consulted for Knight Ridder Online, worked as publisher at Sacramento News & Review, helped his friends launch The Rake magazine in Minneapolis, and helped launch and operate Quick, a free commuter daily published by the Dallas Morning News. Over the past several years, his expertise has been launching new publications and emerging media platforms to reach 18-34 year-old adults. Dave is also the president and founder of a Schmall World, a loosely defined and dysfunctional movement of drunkards and madmen seeking world domination.

Rebecca Schoenkopf is publisher and editrix of the vulgar, hilarious, crass, liberal political site Wonkette.com. She started in alt weeklies in 1991, as intern then editorial assistant at the Santa Barbara Independent. After college, her first job was helping to launch OC Weekly as its founding copyeditor. She stayed for 12 years, as arts editor, senior editor, art critic and political columnist. She was editor in chief of LA CityBeat for about five minutes in 2008, then was unemployed forever. She has probably applied to and been rejected by every newspaper in this room.

Rick Schreiber is publisher of Orlando Weekly, which was voted by Time Shamrock's owners and other property managers in 2005 as the company's "flagship publication." He began his newspaper career in 1995 at Baltimore City Paper, starting as a classified line rep and working his way up to classified manager before being promoted to the City Paper's sister paper in central Florida in 2003. Before joining the City Paper, he worked at Walt Disney World and Frito Lay. Rick is a former high school badminton champion who also happens to hate paper cuts and country music. He guest starred on a few episodes of "Saved By The Bell" in the early 90's.

Josh Schuler has a passion for selling -- the right way. In his tenure as the Director of Sales & Marketing for NUVO in Indianapolis, the paper has enjoyed double-digit growth in readership (21%) and local display revenue (11%). He credits his team's ability to perform in a difficult environment to a passion for creating strong business and NFP partnerships that benefit the community en masse. Josh is also a member of the Ruxton Digital Media Network Publishers' Advisory Committee, member-at-large of the Board of Directors for the Indianapolis International Film Festival, volunteer educator for the Julian Center (United Way) and pitcher for the NUVO-sponsored champion kickball team, The Runs. Prior to joining NUVO in 2006, Josh won numerous awards for sales excellence, including ranking among the Top 25 representatives nationally for three different Fortune 500 companies.

Jason Schwartz is the founder of Robber Baron Music, a digital music label, where he ensures artists are provided with a forward thinking approach to online marketing and distribution. Jason is primarily interested in marketing through online social communities, alternative monetization strategies for the music industry, and developing industry shifting web applications. Formerly a consultant in the digital media and entertainment industry, Jason provided innovative approaches to the Internet's power to market, generate momentum for artists, and monetize content. Jason provided new solutions at Island Def Jam Records in media diversification and piracy. Additionally he assisted the launch of Viacom's BET Interactive mobile platform. Jason graduated from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

Henry Scott is an experienced journalist and media business executive who currently is vice president/chief marketing officer for Creative Loafing Inc. Before joining CL Media in January 2010, he was managing director of Gansevoort Media, a strategic planning and product development firm focused on the internet, magazines, and the newspaper industry; managing director of Metro New York and group publisher for Metro US; president of Out Publishing; and was with The New York Times Company in a number of positions. Henry, who lives in Atlanta, is a member of the International Newspaper Marketing Association, among other organizations. He is the founder of the North American Free Daily Newspaper Association.

Will Scott is CEO of Search Influence, provider of platform based solutions for resellers like newspapers, publishers and digital agencies. We give you the ability to offer your customers the new media advertising services they’re looking for like SEO, Social Media Marketing and PPC without development costs. Increase your customer base and help your customers grow their businesses with our targeted, scalable solutions.

Stephen H. Segal is a Hugo Award-winning editor, writer and publication designer, and is the current editor in chief of Philadelphia Weekly. Segal began his editorial career as a journalist at In Pittsburgh Weekly and WQED's Pittsburgh Magazine. In 2006, he joined the staff of the long-running fantasy magazine Weird Tales, and was named its editorial and creative director in early 2007 as part of an overall reorganization and revamp of the publication. His book GEEK WISDOM: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture was published by Quirk Books in 2011.

Chris Sexson is publisher of the San Antonio Current. Chris got his start in the alt-weekly business in 1995 when he began working for the Dayton Voice (now called the Dayton City Paper). In 2003, he joined Times Shamrock Communications as the advertising director at the San Antonio Current. He was named publisher of the Current in 2005.

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies and owning and producing the continent's largest annual tradeshow, the International CES. Shapiro authored CEA's New York Times bestseller "The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream" (Beaufort, 2011) and "Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses" (Harper Collins), which was released in January 2013 and immediately became a bestseller on multiple lists. Through these books and television appearances, and as a weekly Forbes.com columnist and regular contributor to the Huffington Post, Daily Caller and other publications, Shapiro has helped direct policymakers and business leaders on the importance of innovation in the U.S. economy.

Marc Shepard can't deal with the fact that he's been in the Alt Media business for over 18 years, so don't bring it up. He ran papers in Portland (ME) and Providence (RI) before landing at the Dig in Boston. All of his sports teams are better than yours, he still has the quaint belief that you won't go out of business if you don't spend more money than you make, and wishes the Boston Phoenix had listened to him on that. Hate him on twitter @MockShepid.

Becca Sickbert s a proud staffer at the Colorado Springs Independent, where she oversees the company's digital presence across all platforms as the Director of Digital Media. She began a professional life in digital media in 2002 as the education coordinator for a community technology center in K.C. MO, where sassy-ass students shaped her personal philosophy: technology should serve people, not the other way around. A social media professional/web designer with over 11 years experience in digital communications, Becca loves the challenges of keeping up with emerging technologies and figuring out how to use them for the forces of good.

Sam Sifton is the culture editor of The New York Times, responsible for the coverage of arts and culture in all areas of the newspaper and on nytimes.com. He has held a number of positions at the Times, including editor of the Dining section and deputy editor of the Culture Department. Formerly a reporter, critic, and editor of the AAN-member weekly New York Press, he was also a founding editor of Talk magazine, and the author of a satirical guide to internet culture, "Stalking the Dot-Com Geek." He lives in Brooklyn.

Amy Silverman is managing editor at Phoenix New Times, where she's worked for 16 years, covering everything from John McCain to a Phoenix artist who takes a daily photograph of her children -- naked. Amy has won several national awards and has twice been named Journalist of the Year by the Arizona Press Club. In her off hours, Amy blogs at www.girlinapartyhat.com; she's also an occasional commentator for KJZZ, the local National Public Radio affiliate, sharing stories of her life, particularly regarding her family, which includes her 6-year-old daughter Sophie, who has Down syndrome. Amy's work has appeared on the radio show This American Life, and in publications including the New York Times, Travel + Leisure and salon.com. A Phoenix native, Amy has a B.A. in American Studies from Scripps College in Claremont, California, and a masters degree from Columbia University's School of Journalism in New York City.

Hank Sims is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and has worked at the North Coast Journal for the last seven years, five as editor. He has written for more than 30 publications as a staff writer and freelancer, including the LA Times, the California Journal, the Anderson Valley Advertiser and the Arcata Eye.

Dora Sison is production and art director at Gambit Weekly in New Orleans.

Mike Smith has been a Nashville resident and enthusiast since 1994. Mike is currently the group publisher for Nashville Scene and Nfocus Magazine, two publications that play large roles in shaping the economic and social development of the city. His emphasis on branding and non-traditional marketing has opened doors and revenue steams for the Scene's parent company, SouthComm. Mike has led the company in local and national sponsorship sales and developed a consultative training program that has proven successful in the changing media landscape. Mike is also the co-founder of Nashville Fashion Week, a city-wide event that is in its 5th year. He launched the Fashion Forward Fund, a non-profit to support emerging designers in the Nashville market. He serves as president of the board for Nashville Cares and board VP of marketing for Tennessee Repertory Theatre, and is mentor at the Periscope program at the Arts & Business Council and Nashville Entrepreneur Center. He lives in East Nashville with his partner Kelly and in his spare time he dabbles in interior design, gardening, and drinking vodka.

Tayyib Smith is COO/co-founder of LittleGiant Media, Inc., a unique consultancy that connects young adults with brands interested in targeting the youth market.  He has worked with some of the world's leading trendsetters, including JazzyJeff, King Britt, ?uestlove, Mr. Lif, Jill Scott, The Roots and John Legend.  One of Tayyib's most recent successes includes the 2007 launch of two.one.five magazine, a quarterly lifestyle publication dedicated to Philadelphia's music, fashion and arts scenes.  Prior to that, he helped introduce the Scion brand to the Philadelphia market by producing a series of 25 clandestine marketing initiatives to create an overwhelmingly positive impression for Toyota's newest brand.

Eva Sollberger produces editorial and advertising video for the Seven Days website.  Her weekly Stuck in Vermont vlog profiles local artists and oddballs. Prior to joining Seven Days, she worked in the film industry for more than 10 years, producing visual effects on big-budget pictures, staffing the San Francisco International and Sundance film festivals, and projecting 35mm films at art houses.

Kevin Spidel - Digital social scientist/marketer. Recovering political hack turned community architect for media organizations. Formerly Gannett, now Voice Media Group. Past life: Managing Partner for a Public Relations and Marketing firm and Political Consultant including Amnesty International, ACLU, & DNC.

Nancy Spittle is the advertising director at the Boise Weekly.

Todd Stauffer is the publisher of the Jackson Free Press, as well as the author or co-author of over 35 books on computing, technology and the internet, including his latest, "How to Do Everything with Your Web 2.0 Blog" (McGraw-Hill/Osborne). He's been a television host and writer, radio host, magazine editor and trainer, mostly about techie crap, but sometimes about cars and travel.

Amie Stein is a 19-year veteran of the newspaper publishing industry. Amie is the director of training & development for Local Media Association where she develops and implements custom sales and digital training programs for media executives across the country. Since joining LMA in April of 2013, she has trained individuals from over 70 media companies. She has served in leadership positions with multiple media organizations including E.W. Scripps, Lee Enterprises, Pulitzer and Journal Register Company. She began her career in local and automotive sales and quickly assumed management roles. Amie has served as local advertising manager, regional ad director and senior associate publisher. She has led the advertising operations in virtually every revenue category including local, real estate, automotive, major/national and recruitment with both large community groups and a major metro daily. Additionally, Amie has been instrumental in talent acquisition and developing strategy for major structural reorganizations. She earned a Bachelor's of Journalism with a degree in advertising from the University of Missouri and is a graduate of various community and regional leadership programs. She has been active in many community organizations including serving on the boards of non-profits such as the United Way, YMCA and many others. She currently resides in Memphis, Tenn., with her husband and two daughters.

Sandy Stein is advertising director at the Gambit Weekly and is a member of AAN's Advertising Committee.

Pam Stephen joined host paper NOW Magazine in 2008 bringing her 20 years of advertising experience from The Globe and Mail and radio. Starting as a sales rep and working through all aspects of sales to round out her knowledge and understanding of what the sales role is all about, she feels fortunate to have an outstanding team that always goes the extra mile. Her expertise is finding the nuggets of revenue that are often overlooked in the marketplace and turning them into profit; of course while building the core business at a more profitable margin. NOW Magazine has enjoyed a 24% increase in readership over the past year which has allowed us to continue to be a strong competitor in a seven-paper city.

Neal Stewart is a marketer. His marketing career includes both agency and client side experience in a variety of industries including retail, non-profit and consumer package goods. From 2000-2006, Neal worked at Pabst Brewing Company as the Brand Manager and eventually, Marketing Director for the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand. At Pabst, Neal's marketing strategy focused on initiating word of mouth and loyalty with influential consumers by supporting grass-roots and subculture events, resulting in increased volume of 45% from 2002-2006. Neal also managed several other brands within the Pabst portfolio, including Rainier Beer which was recognized with several advertising and marketing industry awards for its RainierVision branded entertainment campaign. In 2006, Neal moved over to the Craft Beer side and is now the Director of Marketing for Flying Dog Brewery in Denver, CO. In just over a year, Flying Dog has been recognized within the beer industry as a brewer who has embraced Web 2.0 technology and leveraged it for increased exposure.

Jay Stinson    After 33 years in television and radio promotions, Jay joined host paper NOW Magazine in February 2010 as promotions manager, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge on how to make money through promotions -- something she's been doing since 1992. Taking promotions from a cost centre to a revenue generating department at various media outlets in Canada, Jay knows the challenges one faces along the way: grandfathered clients who have always received "added value" promotions or sales departments who have never sold promotions; but, it is her knowledge, professionalism and boundless creativity and energy that get people excited about the possibilities of having a standalone promotion front and centre in print! Since joining NOW, she has worked with various departments, including editorial, distribution and the publisher's office to ensure that the transition from added value to revenue generating has been a smooth process. In that time, she and the sales department have established a policy where all sponsorships and promotions have a dollar amount attached to them. Jay's vision is very simple: the pages of our publications are our business. Most other companies offer their valued customers discounts, better pricing, even rewards cards but, they do not give their services away so, why do we? Why indeed!

Lisa Stone is a journalist, blogger and originator of BlogHer --where she leads product development and works across the organization as CEO to advocate for bloggers and partners that fulfill their vision. Before BlogHer.com and BlogHerAds.com, Lisa helped launch three sponsored blogging networks: American Lawyer Media| Law.com's legal blog network (2004), Knight Ridder Digital's Thatsracin.com (2005), and Glam Media (2005). Previously, while executive producer and Editor in Chief/VP, Programming for Women.com (acquired by iVillage in 2001), Lisa launched an 18-channel network and helped grow it to a Top 30 site, overseeing all original content programming and newsletters, including a team of 25 and an annual budget of $3 MM. She launched successful online networks and interactive programming for many national brands, including Hearst and Rodale magazines, E! Television/Online, HBO's Sex and the City and Bloomberg. Her team's best-known work included Bachelors of Silicon Valley, The Women.com | Bloomberg Index, R U A 10? and Majority 2000, an election initiative with Good Housekeeping, Gallup and CBS Good Morning America. Lisa has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Oakland Tribune, Publisher's Weekly and Frommer's, among other publications. She is the first internet journalist awarded a Nieman Fellowship by Harvard University. Lisa's personal blog, Surfette, began as an extension of her 2004 convention blog for the Los Angeles Times. Lisa also blogs on BlogHer, often on politics and media.

Chuck Strouse is editor of Miami New Times and New Times Broward Palm Beach. An honors graduate of Brown University with a master's in Spanish-language journalism, he has worked for the Los Angeles Times, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, and the Miami Herald, where he was on a team that won a Pulitzer Prize. He has taken home numerous journalism prizes for his columns, including a bunch of AAN first places. He lectures at the University of Miami and speaks Spanish, Russian, and pig Latin.

Gwynedd Stuart is a 2009 AAN award winner for long-form news (circulation under 50,000). Now she disseminates information in 140 characters or less as the Chicago Reader’s Social Media Manager. As a staff writer at Folio Weekly from 2005 until 2010, she wrote predominantly about crime, courts, and the police department, although she remains particularly proud of an interview she conducted with a local psychic medium and contestant on the ABC reality program “Wife Swap.” In 2010, she relocated to Atlanta to cover crime, courts, cops, and neighborhoods for Creative Loafing, where she wrote about everything from out of control street gangs on the city’s south side to a man in the northern suburbs who blew himself up inside his home to avoid eviction. In addition to her social media duties, she writes about food and TV, and recaps the Bachelor franchise.

Thomas Sugrue -- A native of Detroit, Thomas J. Sugrue is David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches courses on race, civil rights, American cities, and twentieth-century American politics. His many books include "The Origins of the Urban Crisis," which won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History and several other awards; "Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North," which was a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Award; and "Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race." His essays, op-eds, and reviews have appeared in The Nation, London Review of Books, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal; and in the Motor City’s Metro Times and Detroit Free Press. Sugrue is an award-winning teacher who has given hundreds of lectures worldwide.

Andrew Sullivan is the president of eLine Communications, an internet solutions provider that blends e-commerce, community and rich content systems to create interactive transaction environments that improve operational efficiencies and the user experience. Examples include AT&T's HomeTown network, CBS's MarketWatch.com, IDG Books Worldwide (Dummies Series, Websters, Frommers Travel), the University of San Francisco, and Louis Vuitton's eLuxory.com.

Erin Sullivan has been spent the last 15 years working for alt-weeklies. She was rescued from an extremely dull job in business journalism when she was hired as a staff writer for Metroland in Albany, N.Y. in 1998, and from 2002 until 2010, she was news editor, then managing editor at City Paper in Baltimore. She took the reins as editor of Orlando Weekly in 2010, and has been avoiding going to Walt Disney World ever since. She's also the owner of two awesome pit bulls and one mutt named Tucker who's also known as OW's Assistant Editor Dog.

Will Sullivan is the director of mobile news for Lee Enterprises Inc. and was previously a 2010-2011 Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Fellow at the University of Missouri, where he studied mobile, tablet and emerging technologies. Before that, he was the interactive director of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch where he lead the organization's mobile, social and multimedia initiatives. Sullivan was recently selected by Editor and Publisher as one of 2012's "25 under 35" innovative young journalism leaders. Sullivan's work has won more than a dozen professional awards from organizations including the Online News Association, Society for News Design and National Press Photographer Association; projects he's worked on have twice been declared finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and twice been named to Editor and Publisher's annual list of "10 That Do It Right." His personal website, Journerdism.com, was also recognized by Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab as one of the 10 best "future-of-journalism" blogs. He's the secretary of the Online News Association's board of directors as well as a board member for the Society for News Design foundation and co-creator and co-director of the NPPA's Multimedia Immersion. Will also frequently offers strategic and technical consulting in emerging technologies, as well as hands-on training at organizations, universities, workshops and conferences around the world including the Knight Digital Media Center, South by Southwest Interactive and The Poynter Institute. He can be contacted at will [at] journerdism.com or on Twitter @Journerdism.

Steve Suskin is legal counsel for Voice Media Group, owner of alternative newsweeklies in 11 major markets in the United States, including Miami New Times, Village Voice and L.A. Weekly, and has daily experience in pre-publication legal review, libel, privacy and intellectual property litigation as well as representation of journalists in subpoena, access and public records matters.

Andy Sutcliffe is the General Manager of Salt Lake City Weekly. He has been a part of the alternative newsweekly community for over twenty years as a publisher, vendor, entrepreneur and consultant.

Claire Swinford is the associate director of the Colorado Springs Independent's Give! Campaign and has been a part of developing the program since 2010.

Matt Taibbi is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone. He's the author of five books, most recently "The Great Derangement" and "Griftopia," and a winner of the National Magazine Award for commentary. Follow Matt on Twitter here.

Paul Taylor is the executive vice president of special projects at the Pew Research Center, where he oversees demographic, social and generational research. Paul is the author of The Next America, a new book examining generations and the country's changing demographics. From 1996 through 2003, he served as president and board chairman of the Alliance for Better Campaigns. Before that, he was a newspaper reporter for 25 years, the last 14 at The Washington Post, where he covered national politics and served as a foreign correspondent. From 1992-1995, he was the Post's bureau chief in South Africa and reported on the historic transformation from apartheid to democracy. He also covered four U.S. presidential campaigns. Paul is also the author of See How They Run (Knopf, 1990) and co-author of The Old News Versus the New News (Twentieth Century Fund, 1992). He twice served as the visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, in 1989 and 1995. He graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's in American Studies from Yale University. Paul has lectured at numerous colleges and frequently discusses Pew Research studies in print and broadcast media.

Matt Thompson is an editorial product manager at NPR, where he's helping to coordinate the development of 12 niche, local websites in conjunction with NPR member stations. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the Poynter Institute, having completed a four-year term on the organization's National Advisory Board in 2010. He currently serves on the board of the Center for Public Integrity. Before coming to NPR, Matt served as an interim online community manager for the Knight Foundation. From 2008 to 2009, he was a Donald W. Reynolds Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute; his explorations in building context into news websites have been widely cited in discussions about online journalism's future. He came to RJI from his position as deputy web editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he led the creation of the Edgie-award-winning, socially networked arts-and-entertainment website vita.mn, as well as managing other technology and interactivity-related projects for StarTribune.com. Matt moved to the Star Tribune after serving as the first online reporter/producer for the Fresno Bee, winning first- and third-place Best of the West awards in 2004 for his multimedia projects. At the Bee, he led an internal advisory committee exploring the paper's strategies for acquiring new audiences. He worked at the Poynter Institute from 2003-04 as the Naughton Fellow for Online Reporting and Writing. While at Poynter, he and his colleague Robin Sloan produced the Flash movie EPIC 2014, a picture of the media past set 10 years in the future, which was written up in the New York Times, Financial Times, USA Today, the Guardian, on MSNBC, and elsewhere. Matt graduated with honors in English from Harvard College in 2002, after writing his senior thesis on the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Outside of work, he blogs at Snarkmarket.com, has completed one Twin Cities Marathon, and is itching to get ready for another.

Ashley Toland Trice is the editor and publisher of Mobile, Ala.’s alt-weekly, Lagniappe, which she co-founded with fellow publisher Rob Holbert in July 2002. Lagniappe has steadily grown from a 5,000 circulation biweekly “bar rag” into a 25,000 weekly newspaper over the last 12 years. Bucking national trends, the paper decided to actually increase its print frequency (Gasp!) in April 2014, not only in response to Mobile’s rapid growth but also because the city’s lone (Newhouse-owned) daily reduced its print schedule to three times a week, which, let’s just say didn’t go over too well with our citizenry, who kicked, screamed and almost demanded we fill this void for them. It’s been interesting living in a real-life journalism experiment, but the jump to weekly has been almost frighteningly successful so far. Though we can confirm, as many wise men and women have said before us, with greater print frequency comes greater “office beer” expense.

Jeff Tomlin is Co-Founder and VP Marketing at VendAsta Technologies, a software development company providing white-label reputation and social presence management solutions serving over 250 media companies that serve local businesses. Prior to co-founding VendAsta at the beginning of 2008, Jeff was the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Point2 Technologies where he developed strategic relationships with companies like Google, Yahoo, the New York Times, CanWest, Classified Ventures and IAC Interactive Corp. He hates to say that he’s been doing this a long time, but he has vivid memories of marketing on Altavista, Hotbot and Excite...

Mari Torres is the executive producer of "Al Punto con Jorge Ramos" at Univision.

Taylor Treese is the President and CEO of MediaTrax, LLC. MediaTrax provides digital marketing infrastructure and end-to-end solutions that enable the channel (digital agencies, newspapers, Yellow Pages and digital publishers) to be more efficient and profitable. Before MediaTrax Taylor was the head of Global Business Development for Ericsson Telecom AB, the Swedish cellular Telecom Giant. Taylor was responsible for Ericsson's 3G product development, marketing and sales on a world-wide basis.

Christopher Twarowski is senior reporter/editor and investigative reporter at the Long Island Press. In 2004, the Press Club of Long Island granted awarded him two first place prizes, for environmental reporting and for political coverage, based on his exposes into illegal dumping and suspicious land-lease agreements in local parks. Christopher's investigations also earned him five FOLIO Awards from the New York Fair Media Council last year. He was hired by the Press's precursor, the New Island Ear, in March 2002 and worked his way up to his current position. He edits the newspaper's electronics columnist and pens "The Fox Hunt," a column on local folklore, as well as a food column. He also writes short stories and poetry. He has a B.S. in English from Sacred Heart University and lives in Brooklyn.

Jan van der Hoop spent more than fifteen years in senior human resources positions with a number of leading corporations, including Hilton International Hotels, PepsiCo and Office Depot. Through his work, Jan developed a clear understanding of the issues and challenges people face in the corporate trenches, along with some insights into how he could help organizations work smarter. As a result in 1998, Jan founded The People Factor -- a training and coaching organization that worked with companies to build their organizational capacity, grow their people and improve their bottom line performance. In eight years, he built an impressive client roster across North America, including Nissan Canada, Procter & Gamble, State Farm and Sleep Country Canada. In 2006, Jan partnered with Tim Brennan to launch HiringSmart in response to a demand from his clients to improve their bottom line results by changing the way they hire.

Don Van Natta Jr. is a bestselling author and an investigative reporter for ESPN, which he joined in January 2012. He previously worked for 16 years as an investigative correspondent at The New York Times, where he was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams. Prior to joining the Times in July 1995, Van Natta worked for eight years at The Miami Herald, where he was a member of a team of reporters awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of Hurricane Andrew.

Thomas Vander Wal  is a popular speaker and consultant on tagging/folksonomy, social web, and web applications around well structured information. Often recognized as the person who coined the term 'folksonomy', he is principal and senior consultant at InfoCloud Solutions, a social web consulting firm. Thomas has been working professionally on the web since 1995 (with a professional IT background beginning in 1988) and has breadth and depth across many roles and disciplines around web design, social web development & research and general web development. He is a member of the Web Standards Project Steering Committee and helped found the Information Architecture Institute and Boxes & Arrows web magazine. In the blogosphere, you can find him at 'Off the Top' (vanderwal.net).

Wouter Vermeulen is Director of Platform Sales & Product Marketing for Opera Mediaworks, where he is responsible for ad network focused platform sales and product innovation, solution development across AdMarvel's portfolio of software and services. In addition, Wouter manages all Opera Mediaworks' marketing, industry relations and partnerships. AdMarvel (an Opera Mediaworks service offering), makes mobile advertising work by enabling mobile developers, publishers and carriers to easily source, provision, manage and track advertising from virtually any ad network or direct sourced advertising inventory. Prior to Opera Mediaworks, Wouter was leading all mobile content and sales strategy for Cox Media Group (CMG), responsible for building out and managing CMG's mobile content platform and scaling national and local mobile sales efforts across the various CMG subsidiaries. Wouter has his MBA from European University Brussels. He is a frequent speaker and panelist at industry events in the areas of mobile advertising, content, messaging, mobile commerce, and monetization strategies.

Daniel Victor is a social media staff editor at The New York Times, working primarily with the Metro and Sports desks. Other than a stint as Social Media Editor at ProPublica, he has otherwise worked in local news. He launched a hyperlocal site for Philly.com, the home of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, and was a community host for TBD.com, a now-defunct regional news site for Washington, D.C. He spent four years as a reporter at The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News after graduating from Penn State University.

Oliver Vidinovski is a strategic partner manager for Google based in New York City. He works across multiple channel verticals with key premier partners to leverage and implement Google advertising solutions across the SMB space. Prior to joining Google in May 2014, Oliver was the Head of Digital and Operations across Australia and New Zealand for Fairfax Media. In this role, Oliver spearheaded the concept of solution selling, partnering key international fulfillment companies and Google to drive SMB advertiser growth across the APAC region. Graduating from the University of Canberra (Australia) with a Bachelor of IT majoring in marketing, Oliver's background includes digital strategy development, product innovation, sales & marketing execution and delivery of large scale digital & social solutions within the media and e-commerce industries.

Matt Voigt is a 3x entrepreneur and currently serves as the CEO of saambaa, which makes award-winning mobile entertainment technology for publishers. The saambaa app platform increases engagement and revenue for media companies by providing a branded mobile experience designed to monetize suggested events & entertainment destinations. The platform has no startup costs for publishers -- the company only gets paid through revenue share agreements. Prior to saambaa, Matt founded a successful Chicago real estate development firm and a niche medical staffing company. Matt cut his teeth during Dot Com 1.0 and filed the first of two patents prior to graduating from Loyola University Chicago, which he attended on academic scholarship. Matt enjoys hiking, mountaineering, cooking, running (because he likes cooking), exploring other cultures, and being around anything with a motor, wheels or wings.

Stacy Volhein is the director of digital operations for Voice Media Group. At VMG, Stacy is in charge of all digital advertising operations across 11 of the top U.S. markets. Stacy's main focus is internal sales process and success reporting metrics, as well as product development, testing, rollout and marketing. Throughout her 10-year career at VMG, she has been a key member in growing the digital and local marketing elements of the business.

Mike Volpe is vice president of inbound marketing at HubSpot, an Internet marketing software startup, where he leads the company's lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing, including blogging, search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media. Since Mike joined HubSpot, the company has grown from about a dozen beta customers to over 1,200 customers, from five employees to 75 employees, and raised $17 million of venture capital in two rounds of financing. Mike is a cutting-edge B2B inbound marketer who ranks in the top 0.1% of all users on Twitter (@mvolpe) with over 7,500 followers. He also hosts a weekly live marketing video podcast HubSpot TV and blogs frequently. Before HubSpot, Mike worked as director, marketing operations at SolidWorks where he launched a number of inbound marketing initiatives such as SEO, PPC, blogging and podcasting. He is an MBA graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and received his B.A. in Economics and Government, summa cum laude, from Bowdoin College.

Andy Van De Voorde is the executive associate editor for Voice Media Group. He began with the company in 1983, working his way up as a calendar editor, music editor, staff writer and managing editor. For the past 15 years he has worked at the corporate level, recruiting and hiring writers and editors, overseeing various special projects, and racking up large bar tabs. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona.

Michael Wagner is the Vice President of Euclid Media Group, a multimedia company that publishes the San Antonio Current, Orlando Weekly, Detroit Metro Times, Cleveland Scene, Do210, and Out in SA. Previously, Michael served as Regional Publisher for Time-Shamrock; Publisher of the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, and as the Director of Digital Sales at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Michael has 15+ years of media sales and management experience. As a teen, he was arrested four times and stole a record-breaking 250 hood ornaments in a single summer. Michael graduated Cum Laude from Columbia College and is proud father to his pug, Myrtle.

David Walker currently manages SouthComm Digital, LLC as a standalone digital agency supporting SouthComm Communications, a suite of Alternative news weeklies and niche publications. Prior to SouthComm David held a similar role at Creative Loafing Media and has at his disposal relationships with multiple digital ad networks, Ad Exchanges and technology partners. From interest based displays to multiple retargeting tactics to video solutions SouthComm Digital supplies their markets ability to scale in the digital space. David understands the challenges and opportunities in the ALT world having been a long time employee of Washington City Paper where he held the position of Advertising Director up until 2010. He led WCP and then all 5 CL markets to achieve their digital sales objectives, including training and establishing best practices in digital sales. David lives in Washington DC with his wife and two young sons.

Patrick Walsh is vice president of marketing for Sneaker Villa, a Philadelphia-based retailer of urban-inspired apparel and footwear products. Sneaker Villa is considered the top urban fashion retailer in this highly competitive market because it provides the best of fashion in a high-energy environment and is guided by a mission to change and enhance the way business is done in inner cities.

Lori Collier Waran is the publisher of Style Weekly in Richmond, Va.

Mike Webb    Before joining ProPublica, Mike Webb was the deputy director of communications and strategy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Prior to that, Webb served as publicity and syndication director for The Nation magazine, and in various roles for a number of elected officials. Earlier in his career, Webb held marketing, sales and promotion jobs in the music industry. He is a graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Communication at Ohio University.

Jill Weigel manages the classified section at the Boise Weekly publication. After 10 years of delivering papers, selling classifieds and watching page counts wax and wane her knowledge of the industry and the Boise community is legendary! She expends much of her time envisioning new ways to utilize the classifieds. Jill works at developing new strategies to keep the original mainstay of alt-weeklies, the classifieds, a viable and profitable section of the Boise Weekly.

John Weiss is Publisher of the Colorado Springs Independent and Co-Chair of Indy Give!

Erik Wemple has been editor of Washington City Paper since January 2002. During that stretch, he has also written the paper's regular media column and has regularly covered media outlets' adjustment to the internet. In 2005, his paper launched a staff blog, City Desk, that tilts at life in the District of Columbia. As of this writing, the blog has won no awards or recognition.

Kris Wessel is chef/partner at Florida Cookery at the James Royal Palm Hotel in South Beach. The Florida native's culinary style draws inspiration from his family ties to Miami, using fresh, seasonal produce, local seafood, and strong Latin influences. In fact, the name of his restaurant is an homage to a cookbook dating back to 1943 that was a staple in his grandmother's kitchen. Prior to Florida Cookery, Kris was the chef/owner of Red Light, Little River, a small restaurant on the Miami River that received praises from both critics and foodies. Kris is a graduate of Florida International University in Miami, with a Bachelor's degree in Hotel Restaurant Management. He has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation, and competed on Food Network's Chopped -- where he won.

Jason White is a strategic partner manager for Facebook based in New York City. He works with news and publishing companies on their Facebook strategies, helping them leverage the world's largest social network to achieve business objectives. Prior to joining Facebook in June 2013, White was a senior news editor at NBC News Digital, where he helped lead coverage of major domestic stories. He also led the digital rollout and social media strategies for network documentaries such as Inside the Obama White House and Inside Congress. Previously, White worked on TV/Web integration for CNN and CNN.com. He was instrumental in launching CNN.com's first blog — the 360 Blog, for Anderson Cooper and his team — and in developing a commentary product for CNN.com. White has also worked as a producer for the PBS NewsHour and a reporter for Stateline.org.

Jason White has extensive experience in developing, building, operating, and selling digital businesses in consumer product and technology spaces. Prior to joining OpenX, he was at Adknowledge where he served as vice president of media operations. Previously, White was senior vice president of FOX Audience Network's (FAN's) MyAds. At FAN, White played a pivotal role driving the company's massive growth and its ranking, during his tenure, at Number 5 on the comScore Ad Network list.

John Williams is the founder and owner of Cygnus Consulting Group LLC, which provides digital imaging solutions for print production through consulting, training, and outsourcing. John has worked in the newspaper industry for the past 17 years specializing in digital workflow management and print quality. His career began at Gannett/USA Today working on quality control, presses, consumables, and print quality statistical analysis. After working at several Gannett daily newspapers including The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, The Indianapolis Star, and The Louisville Courier-Journal, John worked for a consumable supplier providing Photoshop and Quality training for newspapers throughout North America.

Molly Willmott is director of new media for The Memphis Flyer. She is the Electronic Publishing Chair on the AAN Board of Directors.

Robert Wilson is a full-time professional speaker and marketing consultant who has entertained audiences in 32 states and Canada. He works with companies which want to be more competitive and with people who want to be more creative. Over the past 20 years, he has assisted hundreds of businesses with their advertising efforts. He served as senior copywriter for Target Market Team, one of the nation's top direct response advertising agencies. His advertising efforts have earned eight SouthStar awards from the American Marketing Association. The many companies and advertising agencies Wilson has served include Federated Department Stores, Morrison's Cafeterias, Prudential, St. Joseph's Hospital and Wachovia Bank.

Mark Wolly is a senior ad serving consultant, working to help large publishers get started with Google Ad Manager. Prior to Google, he was the director of business operations and of production/sales engineering for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. In his spare time, Mark enjoys spending time with his 15-month old son, playing Ultimate frisbee, and exploring San Francisco.

Kaitlin Yarnall is the deputy creative director of National Geographic Magazine where she manages a diverse team of designers, graphic editors, artists, cartographers and interactive developers. She has been with National Geographic for seven years and has previously held the titles of senior research cartographic editor and deputy art director. Kaitlin is from Northern California and studied geography at Humboldt State University and George Washington University.

Gregg Zachary is a professor of practice at the Cronkite School. His four books include "The Diversity Advantage: Multicultural Identity in the New World Economy" (2003) and "Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century" (1997), which won the IEEE Literary Award and was described as "deeply informed" by the New York Times. From 1989 to 2002, Gregg was a senior writer for The Wall Street Journal. He was based first in San Francisco, where he covered Silicon Valley, and later in London, where he reported on globalization. From 2004 to 2006, Gregg was a senior editor at Time Inc.'s Business 2.0 magazine and from 2007 to 2008 he wrote the "Ping" column on innovation for The New York Times. He has taught journalism as a lecturer at Stanford University and at the University of California at Berkeley. He has received fellowships from the University of Michigan and the German Marshall Fund. His articles have appeared in many prominent magazines, including Foreign Policy, The New Republic, Wired, The Wilson Quarterly, Technology Review, Smart Money, Reason and Mother Jones. He has written and directed several television documentaries, including "Code Rush," about innovation in Silicon Valley, for PBS. He also is regularly interviewed on world affairs by the BBC, Voice of America, Marketplace and other radio outlets. Zachary currently writes the "Scientific Estate" column for Spectrum magazine and contributes perspectives on African politics to The Atlantic. Gregg also teaches courses on technology, policy and society as a professor of practice at ASU's Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes.

Raven Zachary is president of Small Society, working with big brands, established companies, investors, and startups on iPhone strategy and product development. Raven directed the Obama '08 for iPhone application for the Obama Campaign, and has worked with companies such as Whole Foods Market®, Zipcar℠, CLIF BAR®, and Air New Zealand℠ on iPhone application initiatives. He is the founder of iPhoneDevCamp, a not-for-profit iPhone developer conference. Raven is also a Contributing Analyst with The 451 Group, an IT industry analyst firm and works closely with O'Reilly® Media on iPhone and mobile technology related events and coverage. He is regularly quoted by the press about the iPhone market and is a frequent conference speaker on the topic.

Fran Zankowski

Molly Zanone is director of new media for Contemporary Media, Inc., publishers of Memphis magazine, The Memphis Flyer, and Memphis Parent, supervising all web products for the company. Molly has been with CMI for over 15 years, and has held several positions including (among others) delivery driver, receptionist, circulation manager for Memphis magazine, classifieds manager for the Flyer, and most recently marketing/promotions director for CMI.

Bradley Zeve founded Monterey County Weekly in 1988. He served on the board of AAN in the mid-1990s (Secretary) and rejoined as Free Speech Chair in 2012. He also served as the president of CAL-AAN. Zeve originally became a member of AAN in 1986 while working at Santa Cruz Sun newspaper. He launched the Monterey County Weekly Community Fund in 2000, which has raised and contributed over $2,850,000 from Weekly readers and local foundations, all to support local nonprofits in Monterey County.

Ethan Zuckerman is director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, and a principal research scientist at MIT's Media Lab. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists.With Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan co-founded international blogging community Global Voices. Global Voices showcases news and opinions from citizen media in over 150 nations and thirty languages, publishing editions in twenty languages. Through Global Voices and through the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where he served as a researcher and fellow for eight years, Ethan is active in efforts to promote freedom of expression and fight censorship in online spaces. In 2000, Ethan founded Geekcorps, a technology volunteer corps that sends IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa. Previously Ethan helped found Tripod.com, one of the web's first "personal publishing" sites. He blogs at http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog and lives in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, with his wife, son and a small, fluffy cat.

Mark Zusman