New Voices: J-Lab Staff

J-Lab Staff

Photo of Jan Schaffer Jan Schaffer is the Executive Director for J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, a center at the University of Maryland’s College of Journalism that helps newsrooms, educators and communities use innovative information technologies to develop new ways for people to learn about important public issues. More...
E-mail: jans AT j-lab DOT org

“Can you create opportunities for citizens to get informed and inform others about micro-news that falls under the radar of traditional news organizations? Can you seed participation in community issues? Can you create a sense of news entrepreneurship? Can you train a new, more diverse generation of journalists in new ways of doing news?”—Jan Schaffer

Photo of Julie Drizin Julie Drizin has been a news and talk producer in public radio since 1984, when she began hosting interview programs at WXPN-FM in Philadelphia. After a six-year, award-winning stint as the station’s News and Public Affairs Director, she moved to Washington, D.C., to lead Pacifica Radio‘s Washington Bureau. There, she produced a nightly newscast, reported from the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, anchored national programs and launched Democracy Now!, a ground-breaking daily program of citizen activist news. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named her a “Media Hero” of 1996 at its historic Media and Democracy Congress. In 1999, she helped create and went on to produce Justice Talking, an NPR program of live debates on constitutional issues, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. She was Managing Producer of The Intersection, a daily interactive regional news-talk program on WETA-FM. Most recently, she was a judge in the Public Radio Talent Quest, an online participatory contest to find a new generation of hosts for public radio. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
E-mail: julie AT j-lab DOT org

Kira Wisniewski joined J-Lab as the Project Coordinator in September 2007. She completed her undergraduate work in 2006 at the University of Miami double majoring in print journalism and political science.
E-mail: kira AT j-lab DOT org

Craig Stone has been the Web Editor at J-Lab since June 2005. He is a native of Laurel, Maryland, and earned a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism in 2005.
E-mail: craig AT j-lab DOT org