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Kimberlygodwin

Kimberly Godwin

This week, The 19th* (to which this writer has donated), made an interesting change to its values statement. As reported by Poynter, the nonprofit newsroom dropped the word “nonpartisan” as an aspirational standard and replaced it with “independent.” “The aim was to say we think the term ‘nonpartisan,’ in many ways, has been co-opted to mean bothsidesism or equal time,” Co-Founder and CEO Emily Ramshaw told Poynter. The 19th* aims to:

Empower those we serve — particularly women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community — with the information, resources and community they need to be equal participants in our democracy.

Leadership Connect clients will be able to see an updated listing of The 19th* tomorrow. They’re doing some solid journalism, such as this analysis of voting rights in Arizona. As of March 24, The Brennan Center for Justice reported legislators have introduced 361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states.

On to the select Movers & Shakers from our larger pool of updates:

  • NBC News Senior Media Reporter Dylan Byers scoops that Kimberly Godwin, the executive vice president of CBS News, is reportedly in the final stages of negotiations with Disney to become president of ABC News. There should be a lot more big changes in news media leadership around the country. We’ll keep you informed.
  • Danielle C. Belton is the new editor-in-chief at HuffPost. She starts on April 12.
  • Danielle Kwateng-Clark started as executive editor at Teen Vogue. She penned a letter about the new gig.
  • Vox is bringing in Rebecca Leber as a senior climate change reporter.
  • Hannah Allam left NPR to cover extremism, domestic terrorism and national security
    at The Washington Post.
  • Katie Bo Williams moved from Defense One to CNN’ national desk to cover national security.
  • Three’s a trend! World and National Security Editor Yara Bayoumy just started at The New York Times.
  • Elizabeth Kennedy is also joining NYT as a White House editor.
  • Cristina Kim has left the producing ranks to become a racial justice and social equity reporter at KPBS.

While this intelligence briefing leans to politics and policy, it makes sense to address a Mover that’s taking on a beat in a sector that is absolutely on fire. So, note that Swapna Ramaswamy is now a national housing and economy reporter at USA Today.

There are also a lot of eyes on tech legislation. Look for new reporting from Emily Birnbaum, who just started at Politico to cover technology lobbying. From our own reporting ranks, News Media Analyst Megan Kashtan highlighted a recent opinion from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which could open more cases against Section 230. This came right after The Supreme Court ruled in Google’s favor on Monday, saying “it was kosher to copy someone else’s computer code in some cases,” as NYT Technology Columnist Shira Ovide puts it.

More News of Note:

  • Talking Points Memo Founder Josh Marshall attempts to tackle what happened to journalism over the past few decades, writing: To understand what went wrong with digital journalism, we need to go back to the fat years of newspaper journalism that preceded it.
  • Georgia remains on the national stage. While there are a lot of opinions creating noise, NYT did an analysis of what the voting law everyone is talking about actually does.
  • Wall Street Journal White House Reporter Alex Leary says top Biden administration officials will meet with senior executives of Ford, General Motors, Intel, Alphabet and others on Monday to address the global chip shortage that has hobbled auto manufacturing.
  • Dr. Fauci explains, in a 6 1/2-minute video, how we got vaccines so quickly.
  • And if you haven’t been following what’s been going on in Myanmar. Here is where to look.

Baz Hiralal

Managing Editor, Thought Leadership