The Bay Citizen Announces its Newsroom Staff

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bay Citizen, a new non-profit news organization, on Wednesday announced its staff reporter and online editor line-ups as it prepares for its May 26 launch.

The Bay Citizen's reporting team will focus on regional enterprise news coverage on six core civic beats.

Zusha Elinson, previously with The Recorder legal newspaper in San Francisco, will cover land use and environmental issues.

Katharine Mieszkowski, a veteran of Salon.com and Fast Company, will cover health and science.

Gerry Shih, a Stanford graduate and former reporter for The New York Times, will cover education and social issues.

Elizabeth Lesly Stevens, a recent transplant to San Francisco and formerly an editor and writer at Business Week and Talk magazines, will cover business and finance.

Shoshana Walter, recent winner of a national Sigma Delta Chi award for non-deadline reporting for her work at The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., will cover crime.

The Bay Citizen is continuing to consider candidates for the politics and government beat.

"We're very excited about the reporting team we have assembled," said Steve Fainaru, managing editor for news. "We looked for people who had both the experience and the sensibility to be creative and highly productive beat reporters. We had many great candidates and we were able to make some terrific hires."

The Bay Citizen's editing team will include two online news editors. Annette Fuentes joins the organization from New American Media, where she had been managing editor. Her previous experience includes stints at the Daily News and Newsday in New York, and Columbia University.  Zoe Corneli joins the team from KALW radio, where she was a producer and a key player in that organization's ambitious Web efforts.

"Annette and Zoe bring a breadth of skills to our operation," said Jeanne Carstensen, managing editor.  "They'll be key players in our newsroom and we're thrilled to have them. "

As announced previously, The Bay Citizen has also hired Queena Kim as Community Editor, Reyhan Harmanci as culture editor/writer, Tasneem Raja as Web producer, and Marie McIntosh as editorial assistant. Two University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism students, Kate McLean and Richard Parks, are working as paid interns this summer.

"We sincerely appreciate the interest from the many applicants over the last few months. It's been great to see the team come together," said Jonathan Weber, editor in chief of The Bay Citizen. The Web site, www.baycitizen.org, launches on May 26.

About The Bay Citizen

The Bay Citizen is a non-profit, nonpartisan news organization with the mission of enhancing civic and community news coverage in the Bay Area, stimulating innovation in journalism, and fostering civic engagement.  The organization plans to leverage broad collaborations and new digital technologies to provide Bay Area news that reflects the region's dynamic social and cultural diversity. The Bay Citizen is an independent 501(c)(3) organization.

For more information, please visit www.baycitizen.org

SOURCE The Bay Citizen