Michele McLellan is a writer, editor and consultant who works on projects that help strengthen the emerging local news ecosystem, whether it is online news start ups working to become sustainable or traditional news organizations that are trying to shape their new role in the digital world. In addition to being the senior programming consultant for Knight Digital Media Center, Michele is a Knight Community Information Challenge Circuit Rider who advises community foundations that are supporting news and information projects in their areas. She founded the Block by Block Community News Summit for independent online community publishers and she publishes Michele's List of promising local news start ups.

In 2011, she authored, “Emerging Economics of Community News,” for the Pew State of the News Media annual report, and co-authored “Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability,” a detailed look at the path to sustainability of nonprofit news sites developed by the Knight Foundation.

Previously, she directed Tomorrow’s Workforce, a $2.5 million Knight Foundation project that demonstrated the link between strategic newsroom training, newsroom culture and a news organization’s ability to adapt and innovate. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2001-02, she has taught journalism and journalism ethics nationally and internationally. She was co-author, with Tim Porter, “News, Improved: How America’s Newsrooms Are Learning to Change.”