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Election ‘08: Covering Politics in CyberspaceAgenda | Speakers | Fellows | Resources | BlogSpeakersBill Allison is a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation. A veteran investigative journalist and editor for nonprofit media, Allison 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, Allison 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. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Email: John Amato is the creator of CrooksandLiars.com. He founded the Web log in 2004 in response to his belief that other media outlets were too accepting of the Bush administration's statements. Viewed as by and for liberals and progressives, C&L has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, USA Today, Washington Post, URB Magazine, AP and the Huffington Post. Apart from his political media involvement, Amato is a professional sax player and flutist who has played with or recorded for the Goo Goo Dolls, Ringo Starr, Duran Duran, the Knack, Eddie Money, John Taylor, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagen of Velvet Revolver, Ronnie Montrose, Glen Hughes of Deep Purple and Elliot Easton of The Cars. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Hunter College. Email: Ronald Campbell is a reporter for the Orange County (CA) Register. He worked at the (Fairfield, CA) Daily Republic and the Bakersfield Californian before joining the Register in 1987. Campbell started the Register's program in computer-assisted reporting and has participated in many investigations, including loan discrimination, charity and political finances, and a probe of the trade in human body parts. Campbell has shared analytical technics in IRE Journal articles. He has won the Gerald Loeb, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and National Education Writers awards. Campbell graduated from Santa Clara University with a Bachelor of Arts in history. Email: Michael Cornfield is a political scientist who studies and lectures on campaign politics, public discourse, and the Internet. He is the author of two books: "Politics Moves Online: Campaigning and the Internet" (The Century Foundation, 2004) and "The Civic Web: Online Politics and Democratic Values," co-edited with David M. Anderson (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). Cornfield writes a monthly column for Campaigns and Elections magazine. As adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) of the George Washington University, he has taught the core course on strategy and message development since 1994. At the GSPM, he helped found its Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet. Cornfield also was director of research for the Democracy Online Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. In January 2007, he joined ElectionMall Technologies, Inc., a nonpartisan provider of technology to political campaigns, as vice president of public affairs, with responsibilities for product development, sales and marketing activities. Cornfield received a Bachelor of Arts from Pomona College and Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University.
Robert Cox is the founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, the largest association of bloggers and citizen journalists in the world. Cox and thirty co-founders formed the Media Bloggers Association in 2004 which today has more than 1,000 members (and growing) and spans the six continents.The Media Bloggers Association is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting, protecting and educating its members, supporting the development of blogging or citizen journalism as a distinct form of media and helping to "extend the power of the press, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails, to every citizen." He often appears to discuss journalism and new media in the context of blogging and citizen journalism. Cox sits on a number of citizen media advisory boards including NewAssignment.net, Newstrust, Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation and others. Cox first began blogging in 2002. Cox received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. Email: Chuck DeFeo is vice president and general manager of Townhall.com and Salem News/Talk Online, and is currently working to integrate Salem's talk radio content with an interactive Web presence. Prior to joining Salem, DeFeo served as e-campaign manager for Bush-Cheney '04, where he developed the online strategy and managed Internet operations for President Bush's re-election campaign. He served in a similar capacity with the Republican National Committee for the 2002 Election. The campaign has been recognized for its pioneering grassroots activism tools such as Party for the President, organizing neighborhood walks online, and e-mailing maps and directions to the polls to millions of supporters. DeFeo spent much of his career as a legislative and technology aide to Senator and Attorney General John Ashcroft, from creating the first online petition for a member of Congress in 1996 to setting up the CIO's office for the Department of Justice. He has also helped many congressional, senate, state and presidential candidates with their online strategies. DeFeo is a contributing editor for Personal Democracy Forum and member of MeetUp.com's Politics and Governance Advisory Council. He has a degree in political science from University of Missouri at Kansas City. Email: Colin Delany is founder and chief editor of epolitics.com, a site that focuses on the tools and tactics of Internet politics and online political advocacy. His e-book, "Online Politics 101: The Tools and Tactics of Online Advocacy," can be downloaded from the site. He cut his political teeth in the early '90s in the Texas Capitol, where politics is considered a contact sport, and rode a couple of Internet-political startups into oblivion during the first Internet boom and bust. Since then, Delany has worked as a consultant to help dozens of advocacy campaigns promote themselves in the digital world, and is currently employed full-time as online communications manager at the National Environmental Trust. At the 2007 Politics Online Conference, epolitics.com was given a Golden Dot Award as "Best Blog - National Politics." Delany is a graduate of Rice University. Email: David Donald is the training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, coordinating and conducting workshops on investigative reporting and computer-assisted reporting for print and broadcast journalists. A veteran journalist, Donald oversaw the CAR and research programs at the Savannah Morning News after stints on the education beat and the projects team. His team won a James K. Batten Award from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism for "Aging Matters," a series of more than 40 stories examining impacts of the aging population. Donald was a lead organizer of IRE's regional conference in Savannah in 2002 and has spoken on panels at IRE and NICAR's annual conferences. He has taught at the high school and college levels, including five years as a part-time instructor at Savannah State University. Donald holds a master's in journalism from Kent State University. Email: Amy Gahran is a journalist, media consultant, and entrepreneur based in Boulder, CO. Mostly she helps news organizations and media pros wrap their brains around online media — how it really works, and how to use it well. She edits the Poynter Institute's group Web log E-Media Tidbits, is co-founder of the pro/community journalism project Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker, and blogs at Contentious.com. She covers ahead-of-the curve environmental issues and provides technology consulting for the Society of Environmental Journalists, helped develop the citizen media database for the Knight Citizen News Network, and continues to do freelance journalism on energy, environment, business, media, and technology issues. Email: Alfred Hermida is a multimedia journalism pioneer who now teaches at the University of British Columbia. He was a founding member of the award-winning BBCNews.com Web site in 1997 and was the daily news editor for four years, during which time the site was widely recognized as one of the best online news services in the world. Later, as technology editor for the Web site, he wrote extensively about trends in new media and helped launch a BBC technology news podcast. In the summer of 2006, he joined the graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia to set up a new course in multi-platform journalism, which focuses on innovative story-telling methods, looking at new styles of narrative that take advantage of the simultaneous use of text, hypertext, photos, audio, video and interactive elements. He has also launched a course in science journalism, which brings together journalism and science graduate students. The course takes a critical look at the reporting of science and the challenges in covering such a complex and rapidly evolving area. Hermida worked as a journalist for the BBC for a total of 16 years. Early on in his career, he spent four years as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East for BBC TV and radio, covering military coups, presidential assassinations and the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Hermida keeps a blog on trends in digital journalism at www.reportr.net. Email: James Joyner is a freelance writer and publisher of OTB Media (Outside the Beltway blog gateway), a collection of Web logs with more than two dozen contributors. He has published academic articles in “International Studies Quarterly” and “Strategic Insights,” as well as numerous book reviews, encyclopedia articles, conference papers and columns for publications including Tech Central Station, TCS Daily, Reason, Legal Affairs, Human Events, the New Individualist, and the Washington Examiner. Joyner was managing editor of Strategic Insights, the journal of the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School, from January 2004 to March 2005. He was a management analyst at defense contractor Lanmark Technology, Inc. as a consultant to the Defense Information Systems Agency. Previously, he was acquisitions editor for international affairs at Brassey's, Inc. (now, Potomac Books), and a political science professor at Troy State University (now Troy University), Bainbridge College, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A U.S. Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm, Joyner was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal. His degrees in political science include a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Alabama, and Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Jacksonville State University. Email: Daniel Lathrop joined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in July 2006 as a computer-assisted reporting member of the watchdog/investigative team. Earlier, Lathrop was database editor at the Center for Public Integrity. He worked on such award-winning projects as "Personal Politics," which won an Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors first place for in-depth reporting online, and Sigma Delta Chi public service award in online journalism; and "The Politics of Oil," which was honored as a finalist in online media by Investigative Reporters and Editors, and given the Society of Environmental Journalists national award for outstanding online reporting. The Center's PublicIntegrity.org also won the 2005 Edward R. Murrow award for excellence online, non-broadcast affiliated. Lathrop joined the Center in 2003 as a senior researcher, moving up the next year to assistant database editor with a focus on lobbying, state politics and the telecommunications industry. Previously, he was a reporter at the Daytona Beach (FL) News-Journal and the (Ames, IA) Tribune. Lathrop earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Haverford College. Bill Nichols is managing editor of Politico.com. and the Politico. He joined the new venture as deputy managing editor and editor for special projects, but moved up quickly to managing editor. A veteran political reporter, Nichols worked at USA Today for 23 years, covering the White House during the Clinton administration years of 1993 to 1999, and serving as State Department correspondent from 1999 to 2005. Stories Nichols covered included the Valdez oil spill in 1989, the trial of former Washington mayor Marion Barry in 1990, the trial of televangelist Jim Bakker in 1989 and the Senate and gubernatorial campaigns of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 1990 and 1991. He began his career at the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, and was on the staff when the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1983. He is a graduate of the Indian University. Email: Phil Noble is one of the top experts in the US and internationally on the use of the Internet in politics, governments and non-profits. Noble is the founder of PoliticsOnline and its affiliated company Phil Noble & Associates, an international public affairs consulting firm. PoliticsOnline is responsible for over a dozen major innovations and industry first including the Instant Online Fundraiser - the first Internet fundraising tool for politics and nonprofits; the Internet Campaign Manager - the first "how to" CD about using the net in politics and many others. Noble is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns and public affairs projects in 40 states and 30 countries and he has worked to elect the head of state in 15 countries. He and his companies have received numerous awards and recognitions for their work in the US and internationally. His is a graduate of the Tennessee Military Institute. He received his advanced education at Cambridge University in England, American University in Washington, DC and Birmingham Southern College (Bachelor of Arts). He also did graduate work at in 1975 at the University of Stockholm. Email:
Email: Nancy Scola is a Brooklyn-based non-fiction writer whose work aims to remap the modern social and political world, particularly where it intersects with new media and new technologies. As an aide to former Virginia Governor Mark Warner in the run-up to the 2008 presidential race, Scola served as a policy advisor helping to navigate the governor through the world of emerging technology. She spent 2001-2006 on Capitol Hill, filling a policy and communications role for Rep. Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Scola currently serves as weekend blogger on the political blog MyDD, sponsored writer with the AFL-CIO, and contributing editor at the Personal Democracy Forum. She is the author of the report "Avatar Politics: the Social Application of Second Life," released by the George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet. She is the author of an interview series called Hearing Progressive Voices and her work has appeared at iCommons, AlterNet, and elsewhere online. Scola received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and Africana studies from the George Washington University and a Master of Arts in anthropology from Boston University. Email: Micah Sifry is co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum (http://www.personaldemocracy.com), a website and annual conference that covers the ways technology is changing politics and TechPresident.com (http://www.techpresident.com), a new group blog on how the candidates are using the web and how the web is using them. In addition to organizing the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference with his partner Andrew Rasiej, he consults on how political organizations, campaigns, non-profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world. For the last 10 years, he has also worked closely with Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization focused on comprehensive campaign finance reform, as its senior analyst. Prior to that, Sifry was an editor and writer with The Nation magazine for 13 years. He is the author of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America (Routledge, 2002) and co-edited The Iraq War Reader (Touchstone, 2003) and The Gulf War Reader (Times Books, 1991). His latest book, co-authored with Nancy Watzman, on how money in politics affects people in their everyday lives, is titled Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). He is also an adjunct professor at the Political Science Department of the City University of New York/Graduate Center, where he teaches a course called "Writing Politics." Email: Michael Skoler is the founding executive director of the Center for Innovation in Journalism at American Public Media. In his previous role as managing director of news for Minnesota Public Radio, Skoler led a team that pioneered a new model for journalism called Public Insight Journalism(r) that systematically taps the insights and expertise of the public to strengthen news coverage. Before joining Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media, Skoler spent a decade as a science and foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and earned a Master in Business Administration as a Frank Batten Media Fellow at the University of Virginia . He then worked as a management consultant on his own and for McKinsey and Company serving mainly media and e-commerce companies. Skoler's earlier experience included writing a daily show for CBS Radio, television reporting for WGBH in Boston, and freelancing for magazines ranging from Glamour to American Health and Reader's Digest. A Harvard graduate, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 1992-93. Email: Maurice Tamman is a senior editor and writer at the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, charged with creating and developing interactive Web applications and investigative projects. Recent work included dissecting the disputed Florida District 13 congressional race with an analysis of every electronic ballot cast, and interactive mapping, including the award-winning hurricane risk assessment Web site, ibiseye.com. Previously, Tamman was database reporter on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's special projects team, and he worked for Florida Today in Melbourne, Fla., and the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J. Butch Ward is a distinguished fellow on the faculty of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, FL.. He was a journalist for 27 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Baltimore (MD) News-American, serving stints as managing editor at both newspapers. Before joining Poynter, Ward spent three years being covered by journalists as the spokesperson for Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia. At Poynter, Ward works with journalists on subjects that include newsroom leadership, newspapers' role in communities, coaching writers and detecting bias. He will be heading the Poynter seminars related to coverage of the 2008 elections. Ward graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in English. Email: Todd Ziegler is senior vice president of client services for the Bivings Group, and oversees all client work performed by the firm and plays a key role in all of TBG's business and product development initiatives. He has managed Web development efforts for the firm's biggest clients, including the American Petroleum Institute, Edison Electric Institute, Monsanto Company and Hewlett-Packard. In the political realm, Ziegler has developed Internet programs for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Republican National Committee as well as a variety of Republican candidates. He also heads the Bivings Group internal product development effort, managing the ongoing development of ImpactWatch, a product that provides organizations with real-time intelligence that helps them shape their communications strategy. Ziegler is quoted often in the media about Internet related topics and speaks frequently on how the Internet is changing media and politics. Before joining the Bivings Group, he worked for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Prior to that, Ziegler interned in the press office of former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. He holds a Bachelor of the Arts degree from Rhodes College. Email: |
Vikki Porter is director of the Knight Digital Media Center and supervises Professional Development Programs for New Media journalists at USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles. She was the founding director of the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. During her 30-year journalism career, Porter worked in five Western states, started a newspaper, served as top editor for three community newspapers, and shared a 1986 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal as part of a five-person team while city editor of The Denver Post. Most recently, she was executive editor of The Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs, CA. Porter was a Knight Professional-in-Residence at the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas in 1987-88 and a Knight Journalism Fellow in Studies of Law at Yale Law School in 1988-89, where she earned her Masters in Studies of Law. She is active in the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Press Managing Editors, and has been invited to participate in conferences hosted by the Pew Foundation for Public Journalism, the Freedom Forum, Harwood and Associates and the American Press Institute. 
Copyright 2006 Knight Digital Media Center
