J-Lab Staff
“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
Jan Schaffer is the Executive Director for J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, a center at American University’s School of Communication that helps newsrooms, educators and communities use innovative information technologies to develop new ways for people to learn about important public issues. She is a former Business Editor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for The Philadelphia Inquirer and one of the nation’s leading thinkers in the journalism reform movement. She left daily journalism in 1994 to lead pioneering journalism initiatives in the areas of civic journalism, interactive and participatory journalism and citizen media ventures. More…
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Andrew Pergam, a recovering broadcast journalist and managing editor, is the Editorial Director of J-Lab. In this role, he works with J-Lab grantees and oversees the creation of new learning tools for professional and citizen journalists. Most recently, he led the strategic growth and editorial operations of NBCConnecticut.com. Before that, he spent years as an intrepid television reporter, whose subjects ranged from high-profile federal corruption trials to tic-tac-toe-playing chickens. Andy earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and serves on the school’s alumni board. As an undergrad, he studied writing and political science at Johns Hopkins University. When not focusing on innovations in journalism, he works on his gourmet cooking skills. In accepting the J-Lab position, he officially abandoned his hopes of making it on the professional tennis circuit. Andy and his wife Jen are natives of the D.C. suburbs.
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Anna Tauzin is J-Lab’s Web and Social Media Editor. She is responsible for managing the center’s five Web sites, producing video and audio content for distribution and designing in Flash and for print publications. She has a passion for social media as well as First Amendment law and media ethics. Anna is concerned over the lack of independent investigative news organizations around the country but especially in smaller communities. In her spare time she freelances feature articles and Web design projects. She holds an MA in Journalism from American University and a BA in Mass Communication from Texas State University. Anna is unapologetically Texan and loves music and collections of short stories.
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Todd Van Doren is J-Lab’s Assistant Director of Operations. He graduated from American University with a dual-major Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and International Studies. With a growing appreciation for the role J-Lab plays in new media, Todd’s contribution to the team comes in the form of managing the accounting expertise, working with J-Lab’s affiliate American University’s School of Communication, and maintaining his unofficial office title of “numbers guy.” On his own, he is completing the necessary coursework and preparing to sit for the CPA exam. Todd is a native of Washington State, but has lived in the DC area for the past 5 years.
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