About Us

Assistant Director

Yazmin Dominguez currently serves as the Assistant Director of the Local News Accelerator. Yazmin has been involved with supporting local news outlets in Chicago since 2019. She began her professional career at the Chicago Reader where she co-created the Chicago Independent Media Alliance alongside former Reader leadership. Since then, Yazmin has been involved as the Community Growth Assistant for Borderless Magazine where she supported the Development team with donor and audience recruitment strategies.

Coach, consultant, researcher and reporter

Eric Rynston-Lobel contributes to the Local News Initiative in a variety of roles, coaching newsrooms in the Local News Accelerator to grow their businesses, conducting and analyzing research and working with newsrooms on audience strategy. He’s also reported numerous stories on developments in the local news industry for the LNI’s website. He received his BSJ from Medill in 2022 and previously worked as a reporter covering sports and politics for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire.

Program Coordinator

Audrey Azzo is a program coordinator at Medill’s Local News Accelerator. An alumnus of the American University of Beirut and Medill, she pursues data-driven approaches to support building a robust and inclusive local news ecosystem in Chicago.

Program Manager/Photographer

Hannah Carroll is a program manager and photographer for the Medill Local News Accelerator and a researcher and reporter for the Medill Local News Initiative. A graduate of Medill, Hannah previously interned for The Kitsap Sun in Bremerton, Washington, as well as the State of Local Journalism Task Force, where she researched journalism public policies and contributed to the Task Force’s final recommendation report. Hannah also works as a freelance photographer specializing in portraits, newborn and event photography, with previous clients including Cisco Systems and M. Harris & Co. for the Division Street: Revisited podcast.

Director – State of Local News Project

Metzger leads the State of Local News Project at Medill, overseeing the data collection, analysis and reporting on the landscape of local news. He previously researched local news at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where he completed his PhD in 2024. Before joining the State of Local News Project, Metzger worked as a data analyst in the environmental industry.

Project Contributor

Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press public service initiative, which reports on the local journalism crisis and advocates for solutions. Dudley has been with the Times since 1998 and was a member of its editorial board for five years. He spent 14 years covering Microsoft and the technology industry, including nine years writing a tech column, and has won numerous regional and national journalism awards.

Research Associate, Data, communications & editorial

Bose is a Research Associate at the Local News Initiative, where she has worked across research, data, audience engagement and digital communications since 2023. She contributed to the Bright Spots project this year, as well as managing and analyzing the digital, creator, and ethnic media databases as well as digital outreach for LNI’s research, events and podcast. Bose is a Medill School of Journalism graduate with a degree in Media Innovation and Content Strategy. Before joining Medill, she worked as a corporate lawyer in India, specializing in FinTech, B2B, and retail mergers.

Research Associate, Database Manager

Volk is a data scientist, researcher and journalist who co-authors the annual State of Local News report. He serves as the Local News Initiative's database administrator and developer, leading the collection, analysis and maintenance of Medill's nationwide local news data across all media types. Before joining the project in 2024, he held journalism, research and communications roles with the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Local News Accelerator and Northwestern Athletics. He is a two-time Northwestern graduate.

Director – Medill Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub, Medill faculty member

Deborah Douglas is Director of the Medill Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub, the award-winning journalist is a founding co-editor in chief of The Emancipator, a digital platform that reimagines abolitionist newspapers, and author of U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement.

Director – Medill Illinois News Bureau

Bob Rowley teaches the Journalism in Practice class on Israel as part of Medill’s undergraduate program. He is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly and writes occasional op-eds for the Chicago Tribune. He was previously assistant vice president of media relations at Northwestern University. In addition, he teaches Content and Influencer Marketing in the MSC Program at the School of Communication. Rowley also lectures on education, public policy advocacy, communication and foreign reporting at Northwestern and other universities.

Director – Teach for Chicago Journalism Program

Michael Spikes credits himself as a practitioner-scholar who has spent more than 15 years in the fields of media literacy education (MLE), news media literacy (NML) and youth media. In practice, he most recently has been involved in implementation strategies for incorporating units of MLE into existing K-12 curricula for educators in Illinois in response to being the first state to implement a requirement of a unit of MLE for all high schools. In conjunction with this work, Spikes is the co-founder of the Illinois Media Literacy Coalition and the Illinois state chapter leader for Media Literacy Now.

Senior Program Coordinator, Teach for Chicago Journalism Program

Project Editor

Brewington is a contributing editor to the State of Local News report and oversaw Bright Spots in 2024 and 2025. A longtime editor at The Washington Post, she was editor of the paper’s op-ed page from 2007 to 2014 and also launched and wrote The Post’s royal newsletter. She has worked for The Wall Street Journal and the national security affairs website Lawfare and is an opinion editor for MS NOW.

Project Contributor

Liam Scott is a journalist who covers media and democracy. He is a contributing writer at the Columbia Journalism Review and a contributor at The Washington Post's Press Freedom Initiatives. Scott previously reported on press freedom at Voice of America, during which time he was named a Livingston Award finalist and won a National Press Club award.

Project Contributor

Farhi is the Washington Post's former media reporter. He left the paper at the end of 2023 after nearly 36 years as a staff writer, during which he also covered business, politics and general assignment features. He has also been a senior contributing editor to the American Journalism Review and now contributes to the Atlantic, the Athletic, the Daily Beast, and Columbia Journalism Review. He has been a frequent commentator on TV and radio about the media industry.

Project Contributor

Jackie Spinner is a professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago, where she is faculty advisor to the Columbia Chronicle. She was a staff writer for The Washington Post for 14 years and covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is the editor of Gateway Journalism Review and the director and producer of two documentary films, Don't Forget Me and Morocco, Morocco. Morocco, Morocco aired on PBS in Chicago in 2022.

Professor and Associate Dean of Research

Edgerly specializes in audience insight, conducting research into how features of new media alter the way people consume news and how new media affects political engagement. She is a Faculty Associate at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research.

Associate Dean of Journalism, Assistant Professor

Bennett is an award-winning producer and reporter with more than 15 years of experience in broadcast television news and video production. Before joining Northwestern’s full-time faculty in 2006, Bennett was an on-air reporter for television stations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wis., and Traverse City, Mich.

Research Assistant

Leah is a junior at Northwestern with experience in journalism and policy research. Before joining the State of Local News Project, she previously worked for the Institute for Policy Research and has written for The Daily Northwestern and several Chicago publications. With the State of Local News Project, she has been instrumental in tracking newspaper closures and transactions.

Research Assistant

Anavi is a sophomore at Northwestern studying journalism and social policy.  Along with the State of Local News Project, she conducts education research for the Institute for Youth in Policy and is an editor at The Daily Northwestern. For the State of Local News Project, her work focuses on the newspaper and digital sites database.

Research Assistant

Diya is a sophomore at Northwestern University studying Journalism and Computer Science. Outside of the Medill Local News Initiative, she is also an assistant editor at The Daily Northwestern.

Research Assistant

Research Assistant

Mary is a junior journalism major that joined the State of Local News team following her work on a bipartisan Illinois local news task force. She brings strong writing skills, data analysis knowledge, and a collaborative mindset to the project. In the past year, she has led a survey of major news organizations to analyze their content.

Research Assistant

Mitra Nourbakhsh graduated from Northwestern in June 2026 with majors in Journalism and International Studies and a minor in Data Science. In addition to her four years as a research assistant for the State of the Local News Project, Mitra has worked at the Pittsburgh Business Times and Injustice Watch and served as Print Managing Editor of North by Northwestern magazine. She is currently in the first year of a master's program in Sociology at Sciences Po in Paris.

Research Assistant

Chloe is a sophomore journalism student at Medill. She brings extensive research experience and a strong passion for local news to the team, and has worked diligently on a content analysis survey, digital sites analysis, and news deserts due diligence. Outside of her work at the State of Local News Project, Chloe has taken on several leadership roles across campus, and is deeply involved in campus life and student affairs.

Executive Director, Medill Spiegel Research Center

DeGaris works with Ed Malthouse and Spiegel's team of post-docs and affiliated faculty to run the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index and other local news related research projects. With a background in market research and brand partnerships, he helps local news organizations use research to make decisions about revenue models, business portfolios, audience development, and products and processes.

Research Director

Malthouse is the Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at Medill. He also has an appointment in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences. Malthouse is an expert in applied statistics, market research and media marketing.

Professor, Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy

Gilbert oversees the Knight Lab and focuses on experimental technologies/strategies for media companies, including AI for media. He founded the Data-Driven Reporting Project and the NextGenNews project. Previously, he was The Washington Post’s Director of Strategic Initiatives and National Geographic’s Deputy Editor, Digital.

Chief Nerd

Germuska runs Knight Lab’s technology, professional staff and extracurricular activity. Immediately before joining the lab, he was a founding member of the Chicago Tribune’s News Apps team. He is the founder and project lead of the Census Reporter project, a website designed to make Census data easy for journalists. He also serves on the board of City Bureau, a Chicago-based civic journalism lab. His technology background is balanced by his BA in African History and MS in Product Design and Development Management, both earned from Northwestern.

Adviser

Penelope Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Northwestern University, is a former senior executive at The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, who specializes in researching local journalism. She is the author of two books and five reports, including The State of Local News (Northwestern University: 2022).