Michael Bolden
Media Executive and Nonprofit Leader in Arlington, Virginia
Michael Bolden
Media Executive and Nonprofit Leader in Arlington, Virginia
I'm Michael Bolden, the incoming Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. Y start there Aug. 1.
I am currently the CEO and executive director of the American Press Institute, a journalism nonprofit that supports local and community-based media through research, programs and products that foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations.
At API we focus on civic discourse and democracy; culture and inclusion; community engagement and trust; and revenue and resilience for journalism organizations without regard to platform or business model.
For more than 15 years, I have helped media leaders navigate the complexity of social and economic disruption to serve diverse democratic communities. I have accomplished my work at the intersection of media, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement in senior roles at The Washington Post (where I was transportation and development editor and helped merge the digital and print newsrooms), the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (where I was editorial director across all programs), Stanford University, The San Francisco Chronicle, and now at the American Press Institute.
I earned a Master of Liberal Arts from Stanford and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alabama. I was a Maynard Media Academy Fellow at Harvard University, and I have been certified in diversity, equity and inclusion by the University of South Florida Muma College of Business and the Hearst Corp., where I served on the Hearst Newspapers diversity committee.
My experience provides me with a unique view of how journalism can serve the information needs of our communities and equip change agents to meet them.
I believe journalism is a fundamental element of the American experiment, with a great deal of power and responsibility. For the health of our democracy, I believe the press should be at the center of American life. It has the power to connect and unify the American people. Let's meet the moment.
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Local Journalists Should Bring Love and Light to Their Communities