Stefanie Murray

After spending 15 years as a local journalist, I now spend my days helping local journalists become successful.

As the Director of the Center for Cooperative Media, I am focused on our mission to grow and strengthen local journalism for the benefit of New Jersey citizens. A free press is an essential component of democracy, and strong local journalism plays a key role in the strength of a free press. Local journalists are often one of the cornerstones of engaged and informed communities.

A little more about me: My journalism career has taken several twists and turns. I’ve been a reporter, a director of audience development, a digital news director and a top editor. But a few things have been consistent over time: I am passionate about digital innovation, overhauling our business models and connecting deeply with our audiences.

I’ve built my reputation on understanding the behaviors of people who consume news and coaching my teams to react, and cater to, their quickly changing needs.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I love change, experimentation and iteration. I have a track record of audience growth, a strong background in training and coaching teams across the country on using analytics in news decision-making, and extensive experience managing and working on a real-time desk focused on responding to audience and planning/optimizing content.

As a business reporter at The Ann Arbor News, I helped launch a daily video show and trained other staffers in multimedia. After that I was part of the AnnArbor.com experiment during my time working for Advance Publications. Being part of a startup conceived to change the conversation about journalism and build an entirely new business model was exhilarating. Joining the Detroit Free Press was a huge step in my career; I was hired there specifically to be a change agent and accelerate the newsroom’s transformation to a digital-focused operation.

My time as the top editor at The Tennessean had a similar theme: innovation with a focus on audience growth. I was part of a small group selected to serve on a Gannett-wide newsroom innovation team that built an extensive training program for journalists across the country. Shortly after, I was part of another team that devised a new organizational structure for our newsrooms.