I'm director of a new Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. (Here's the official announcement.) We're working to help create a culture of innovation and risk-taking in journalism education, and in the wider media world. I'm also the school's Kauffman Professor of digital media entrepreneurship.
I'm also involved in several outside projects including Dopplr, an online travel application; have a number of media investments; and am on several boards and advisory boards. These include:
- Member, U.S. advisory board, FON, a collaborative Wi-Fi company.
- Member, advisory board, Global Voices Online, a nonprofit.
- Angel investor, Wikia, a consumer Wiki company (Jimmy Wales, founder, is a member of the Center for Citizen Media Board of Advisors).
- Angel investor, Seesmic, an online video site.
- Shareholder in McClatchy Co.; New York Times Co.; Gannett Co.
- Board member, California First Amendment Coalition.
My Citizen Media Center blog is here.
In 2005 I worked on citizen media through Grassroots Media Inc.; I count the failure of Bayosphere, a new-media startup, as one of my best learning experiences.
From 1994-2005 I was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper, and wrote a weblog for SiliconValley.com. The blog is believed to have been the first by a journalist for a traditional media company. I joined the Mercury News after six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, I was with the Kansas City Timesand several newspapers in Vermont.
During the 1986-87 academic year I was a journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where I studied history, political theory and economics.
Before becoming a journalist I played music for seven years.
