Poynter deepens its commitment to local news and AI with new faculty appointments

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ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Sept. 18, 2024) — The Poynter Institute is pleased to announce the promotion of two key leaders who will continue to enhance Poynter’s already robust efforts around local news and artificial intelligence.

Faculty member Kristen Hare has been promoted to Director of Craft and Local News, and MediaWise Director Alex Mahadevan joins the Poynter faculty.

Hare has worked at Poynter since 2013 as a journalist and faculty member. Mahadevan joined Poynter in 2019, first as senior multimedia reporter, then program manager and eventually director of MediaWise, Poynter’s digital media literacy project.

“These new roles reflect Poynter’s commitment to strengthening local news and democracy,” said Sitara Nieves, vice president/teaching and organizational strategy. “Kristen and Alex bring a combination of deep expertise, real-world experience, and fresh ideas to advance our teaching in craft and AI literacy and ethics.”

Craft has long been at the heart of Poynter’s teaching, and the focus of our signature programs on writing, editing, reporting and producing. Hare’s new role will provide dedicated leadership to deepen and evolve our teaching on craft, broadening our focus across platforms.

She created and runs the annual Level Up local reporting course, managed a fellowship for early career journalists, writes the Local Edition newsletter and is responsible for one of Poynter’s signature trainings, Work-Life Chemistry.

Before joining the faculty in 2021, Hare spent eight years covering the people and business of local news for Poynter. She previously worked as a projects reporter with the St. Louis Beacon and as a features writer with the St. Joseph (Missouri) News-Press. Hare served in the Peace Corps in Guyana, South America, after graduating from the University of Missouri.

Hare is the author of the book series “100 Things to Do in Tampa Bay Before You Die” and the new book “Hotels, Motels & Inns of Florida: Historic and Beloved Places to Stay in the Sunshine State.”

“I first discovered Poynter as a young journalist who wanted to tell powerful stories about the people in my community. I had the basics and a great editor, but Poynter was the lighthouse, showing powerful storytelling of all kinds and breaking down how it happened,” Hare said. “The landscape of our industry has changed dramatically since then, and I’m excited to shine a light on the new and enduring ways we practice the craft of journalism. Those practices are at the heart of what’s best about local news and they’re at the core of the most promising things happening in local news.”

As director of MediaWise, Mahadevan oversees program and curriculum development, research and editorial content for MediaWise, which has reached more than 80 million people in 12 countries. He has taught media literacy to thousands of middle and high schoolers, and has trained hundreds of international journalists in verification and digital investigative tools. He follows and writes about the use of generative AI models in journalism and their potential to spread misinformation, and co-wrote Poynter’s AI ethics guide.

The faculty distinction means Mahadevan will expand his public-facing leadership of AI initiatives, working even more closely with Poynter’s teaching team to provide additional thought leadership, reporting, training workshops and curricula around misinformation, verification, AI literacy and AI ethics.

Before becoming director at MediaWise, Mahadevan was MediaWise program manager, and oversaw the launch of programs for college students and older adults. Prior to joining the staff at Poynter, he worked as a data journalist at the personal finance startup The Penny Hoarder. Mahadevan also served as the news innovation editor at Observer Media Group.

“I truly love teaching, so I am thrilled for the opportunity to collaborate with faculty, reach new audiences and elevate Poynter’s work on generative AI, digital media literacy and misinformation,” Mahadevan said.

The Poynter Institute is a global nonprofit working to address society’s most pressing issues by teaching journalists and journalism, covering the media and the complexities facing the industry, convening and community building, improving the capacity and sustainability of news organizations and fostering trust and reliability of information. The Institute is the gold standard in journalistic excellence and dedicated to the preservation and advancement of press freedom in democracies worldwide. Through Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, businesses, big tech corporations and citizens convene to find solutions that promote trust and transparency in news and stoke meaningful public discourse. The world’s top journalists and emerging media leaders rely on the Institute to learn new skills, adopt best practices, better serve audiences, scale operations and improve the quality of the universally shared information ecosystem.

The Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), MediaWise and PolitiFact are all members of the Poynter organization. Support for Poynter and our entities upholds the integrity of the free press and the U.S. First Amendment and builds public confidence in journalism and media — an essential for healthy democracies. Learn more at poynter.org.

Media Contact:

Jennifer Orsi

Vice President, Publishing and Local News Initiatives

jorsi@poynter.org

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