My path into journalism (and how it led to coaching/advisory)

For anyone new to my work, I wanted to share more on my background and how it informs how I support local newsrooms as an advisor and partner.

I’ve spent the last 12 years working to support local news organizations as a tech partner, newsroom leader, and strategy coach, and am now thrilled to be stepping full-time into advisory work and other projects aimed at strengthening the local news ecosystem.

I love the challenges of building a sustainable local news business in this hugely-important-but-tricky industry—and I love that journalism offers its own window into understanding every other part of the world through editorial coverage. Local news is hugely important for keeping communities informed, connected, and accountable. It provides both basic and life-enhancing information, helps root out problems while articulating possible solutions, and overall builds stronger, more-engaged communities.  For someone who is fairly curious and loves to research, it’s been a dream home for a career.

My approach to advisory work starts with a simple idea: sustainable local journalism requires the coverage, revenue, and operational sides all working together to support each other. Excellent coverage without the right business model or a not-burned-out team doesn’t work, and vice versa.

I didn’t set out to become an advisor but my career has gradually pulled me towards that role. The past decade has involved launching a newswire company that scaled to $10M in annual revenue, building partnerships with thousands of local outlets, and finally working directly with dozens of founders and editors across the country as a strategic advisor. Each chapter taught me something foundational about how organizations grow, where they get stuck, and what kinds of support actually make a difference. That path and the lessons that came with it is what I want to share here for anyone interested in understanding how I think about advisory work.

Breaking into journalism

I feel very lucky to have stumbled into the journalism world. My entry point was a data startup called Graphiq where we built interactive visualizations that reporters could use in their stories. We were a young and scrappy startup but we had a wealth of data to build our product around and were relentless in finding ways to add value for our partners.

As I worked to better understand the needs of newsrooms, I was inspired by my early partners: the deeply committed journalists striving to inform their communities with increasingly lean organizations. The work surfaced numerous foundational questions: In a resource-strapped newsroom, how do reporters and editors choose what stories to cover? How did they balance long-term projects with the demands of daily reporting? What was best to do yourself versus partnering on with someone else? There were shared themes as well as more nuanced insights for each outlet, and I started to form ideas on how you could create more of a connection between mission-driven organizations driving towards similar goals.

Learning the ropes

When Graphiq opened our first NYC office in the summer 2016, I started on an unofficial education in the fundamentals of journalism and the biggest issues of the day. The presidential election was in full swing and there was some serious energy in the media scene. New York is an extremely forgiving place for an interloper, and I took advantage of it by immersing myself in the communities at places like the Columbia, NYU, and CUNY journalism schools as well as institutions like the New York Public Library, New York Historical Society, and the 92nd Street Y.

Every week, I sought out conversations that helped me understand journalism more deeply. I watched Mark Thompson and Campbell Brown brawl over Facebook’s algorithm; listened to Masha Gessen wrestle with objectivity; and heard Marty Baron reflect on leading the Washington Post. I spent a year exploring biographies and Henry Luce’s archives to study Time Magazine and their oft-debated “timespeak”-laden approach to synthesizing world events for new audiences, while considering how the digital models of today were further disrupting news creation and distribution models. Peppered throughout were workshops and training sessions to give me a better understanding of the wide-ranging-but-interconnected strategies that are necessary for running a news business.

Alongside this, I absorbed everything I could on product, revenue, and newsroom operations. Slowly, I started to see how these pieces fit together—and how easily they fall apart when they aren’t aligned.

Starting Stacker: a modern newswire for local newsrooms

When Amazon acquired Graphiq in 2017, it felt like the right moment to build something new. So I took what I’d learned about data storytelling and newsroom partnerships and co-founded Stacker, a newswire focused on serving high-quality journalism to local outlets.

Here was an exciting opportunity to understand the coverage gaps of local news organizations and aim to fill them. What elections-related service pieces could we produce to complement boots-on-the-ground reporting? How can you turn complicated data sets NOAA, BLS, and CDC into accessible local stories? Where could we leverage automation to tackle projects that would be impossible for a single reporter to pursue otherwise?

From writing the first stories alongside my three co-founders to building the 50-person team of today, I’ve watched Stacker evolve into a newswire that publishes roughly 400 stories a month and is used by over 3,000 local news outlets. Our model now includes our in-house newsroom as well as content partnerships with nonprofit publishers like The Marshall Project, Grist, and The 19th, and the editorial arms of places like J.P. Morgan, Brex, and Northwell Health.

Building Stacker from scratch has been the most rewarding (and challenging) experience of my career… and it opened the door to another passion.

Entering advisory and public service

A few years in, I found myself wanting to collaborate with more organizations than I could through Stacker alone. That led me into coaching and advisory work—first with SCORE as a small business mentor and then with LION Publishers as a revenue growth coach to dozens of local newsrooms around the country. Across these roles, I’ve helped founders and editors navigate everything from developing diversified revenue streams to designing membership tiers, shaping sponsorship strategies, setting up basic financial systems, and building the operational scaffolding that small teams often lack. 

Many of these organizations are led by brilliant journalists who’ve built deep community trust but are stretched thin across editorial, fundraising, and business responsibilities. My work with them often centers on bringing structure to the chaos: clarifying goals, tightening workflows, and turning good ideas into repeatable processes. It’s been a chance to see, up close, how much potential exists when mission-driven teams get the support, tools, and strategic focus they need.

I’ve always believed public service should be woven into one’s career, not compete with it. While I love the impact of working in local journalism, I’ve also volunteered over the years with organizations like SCORE, Robin Hood, and Meals on Wheels. I’m also the Board Chair for Shasta Scout, a nonprofit newsroom based in Northern California, and board member for the West Side YMCA and The Children’s Agenda. These experiences have deepened my understanding of mission-driven organizations, community needs, and the operational realities that often hold good work back.

2026 

If there’s a single, simple thread running through my career, it’s this: I like helping mission-driven achieve growth. Whether it’s a local newsroom, a nonprofit, or a small business, I’m drawn to the blend of strategy, operations, editorial thinking, and revenue design that helps teams do meaningful work more sustainably.

Nine years at Stacker gave me the experience of being an operator, builder, and leader inside a rapidly growing organization. I am energized by the problem-solving and strategic planning that goes into scaling a company. Moving into advisory work full time is a natural progression—it lets me step into the role where I can support many more mission-driven organizations, helping them build the systems, strategy, and resilience they need to thrive.

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to hear my story. Hope this gives an idea of how I got here and how I can help.