Editorial Leadership, Strategy & Engagement

When I work with a reporter, I want to understand what they have found and what they are still unsure about. A story can change considerably once you begin asking those questions. I have worked through them while leading international investigations, managing editors with teams of their own and deciding what a newsroom can deliver with the people and time available.

I bring that editorial experience into audience and communications work. Before choosing a platform or format, I want to understand whom we are trying to reach and what would make the work useful to them. That requires research and conversations with people outside the organization, as well as a willingness to reconsider what we have been doing.

Editorial leadership and research

openDemocracy
Leading international investigations

At openDemocracy’s 50.50 section, I commissioned and edited investigations and later took on managing-editor responsibilities, overseeing three editors leading their own teams alongside six reporters and fellows. I worked with reporters and legal counsel on sensitive allegations, examining what the evidence supported and what still needed corroboration.

The role also meant making decisions about capacity. With three investigations competing for resources and two fixed publication deadlines, I paused one project and reassigned staff to complete the other two. I coordinated translation and international co-publication so the reporting could reach readers across languages and countries.

IJSC
Investigations, research and organizational direction

At the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, I edit investigations and practical resources for journalists, including chapters and the introduction of The Feminist Investigative Journalism Handbook. I also scoped and co-authored Aiding Executions?, examining donor and UN support for drug enforcement in countries imposing the death penalty for drug offenses.

I led commissioned research for TGEU on trans people’s experiences of online hate, which TGEU subsequently used in a Council of Europe submission. Alongside this work, I advise the co-director on research priorities and designed a three-year strategy process connecting those priorities with staffing, partnerships and responsibility for delivery.

Audiences and participation

Coda Story
Newsletters and the uses of reporting

At Coda Story, I replaced a monthly update with two thematic newsletters, commissioning, reporting and editing original journalism on technology, authoritarianism and disinformation. The newsletters gave us space to connect developments across countries and return to subjects beyond a single news cycle.

As impact editor, I also built the newsroom’s first system for recording how its reporting was used. That meant distinguishing a reference to a story from evidence that it had helped change a decision. Both were worth recording; they did not tell us the same thing.

Limelight Foundation
Understanding whom we needed to reach

At Limelight, a foundation supporting independent journalism and technology accountability, many of our followers were grantees, while we wanted to reach potential funders. I combined interviews with funders and desk research to develop our LinkedIn strategy around the information they valued.

I also managed the rebranding process with Momkai, working with the director and operations manager on the proposed strategy and designs. Following the January rebrand, LinkedIn engagement rose from 7.0% in the previous quarter to 10.9% in Q1. Our following grew by 70% during my tenure.

The work included deciding how we described the journalism we supported. I created editorial standards and a style guide addressing publication risks, funding relationships and the attribution of impact, and trained colleagues to apply them.

Edgeryders and UNDP
Making room for participation

At Edgeryders, I interviewed contributors and developed discussions around technology, policy and people’s experiences of both. Inviting someone to write for an unfamiliar platform could be a considerable ask. Starting with a conversation about their work gave them a way into the community and a reason to take part.

With UNDP in Rustavi, Georgia, I helped young people develop community activities and worked with local authorities to secure space for a social café. The work involved understanding what people wanted to do together and helping make it possible.

Writing and communications

Kvinna till Kvinna
Documenting feminist organizing

I researched and co-authored No Time to Give Up: Building Feminist Futures in the South Caucasus, drawing on interviews with women’s rights defenders in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. My experience living and reporting in the region helped me place their accounts in context and explain the political and social conditions in which they worked.

Global Forest Watch
Explaining how evidence is used

For Global Forest Watch, I wrote reported profiles of people using forest-monitoring data in their work. One followed Vinicius Silgueiro and Instituto Centro de Vida in Brazil, where prosecutors were being trained to use monitoring tools to investigate illegal deforestation. The reporting connected the technology to the people using it and the decisions it could help them make.