How nonprofit journalism can thrive, even now

Monika Bauerlein

Monika Bauerlein is the CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and prior to that role she served as Mother Jones’ chief executive officer, and co-editor (with Clara Jeffery). Under her tenure, Mother Jones has grown its audience twentyfold, doubled the size of its staff, established bureaus in Washington and New York, won multiple awards, and launched a campaign to establish a new media business model centered on reader support for investigative and in-depth reporting. The Center for Investigative Reporting produces Mother Jones, Reveal, and More To The Story.

Katrice Hardy

Katrice Hardy is the CEO of The Marshall Project. Previously, she was the Vice President and Executive Editor of The Dallas Morning News and before that, Executive Editor of The Indianapolis Star and Midwest regional editor for USA TODAY Network. When Katrice joined the network in 2016, she was the Executive Editor of The Greenville News and then took on responsibilities as the South regional editor overseeing news organizations in South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Virginia. Previously, she had worked for 20 years at The Virginian-Pilot, where she started as an intern and left as managing editor. Her IndyStar newsroom and its reporting partners The Marshall Project, AL.com and Invisible Institute were awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for Mauled: When Police Dogs are Weapons, and the newsrooms where she has led have won multiple IRE, Editor & Publishers and a myriad of state honors as well. She chairs the National Poynter Advisory Board, is a former board member of The Marshall Project, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Dallas Assembly and the International Women’s Forum. Katrice believes strongly that a news organization’s role is to shine light on wonderful people and organizations making a difference in local communities and to uncover the problems, ills, misuses and abuses to help make positive change.

Ayanna Johnson Watkins

Emily Ramshaw

Emily Ramshaw is the president and CEO of The 19th, the nation’s first independent nonprofit newsroom at the intersection of gender, politics and policy. The 19th aims to elevate the voices of women left at the margins of American media with free-to-consume and free-to-republish daily journalism, newsletters and live events. Prior to The 19th, Ramshaw was editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, an award-winning local news startup and the largest statehouse news operation in the nation. She is the outgoing board chair of the Pulitzer Prize, where she served for nine years. In 2020, Ramshaw was named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list. Ramshaw started her career at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” at state institutions for people with disabilities. A native of Washington, D.C., Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history.

Robin Sparkman

Robin Sparkman became president of the nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica in 2021. ProPublica, the winner of eight Pulitzer Prizes, has 225 employees across the U.S. and a $60 million budget. Sparkman has responsibility for all of ProPublica’s non-journalism operations, including fundraising, communications, legal, finance and budgeting, and human resources. Prior to ProPublica, she was the founding CEO of nonprofit media organization StoryCorps (2014-2021). Previously, she spent more than two decades as a reporter and editor. She served as editor-in-chief of the American Lawyer from 2010-2014, and earlier as executive editor, as well as deputy editorial director of parent company American Lawyer Media. Previous work included stints at MSNBC.com and Newsweek. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Harvard Business School’s SPNM (Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management) program. Robin serves on the boards of the Columbia Journalism Review, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CUNY Foundation (as vice chair of the board), Union Settlement of East Harlem and F.Y. Eye.