About Us
WeMakeTheMedia.org is the vision of this core team:
| Ron Buel | Ronald A. Buel is the founding editor and publisher of Willamette Week, and was a staff reporter and bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. He worked at Nike, where he was Director of Business and Strategic Planning. He is currently the CEO of Donavon Mobile Solutions. |
| Abraham Hyatt | Abraham Hyatt is a journalist and editor who has won national awards for his analytic and investigative reporting. He’s the creator of Digital Journalism Portland, which organizes conferences and events that highlight innovation in journalism. Previously he was the managing editor at Oregon Business magazine. |
| Barry Johnson | Barry Johnson is the arts columnist at The Oregonian, where he administers the Portland Arts Watch blog. He started in Seattle at the now-defunct alternative newspaper, the Seattle Sun, where he served as dance critic and publisher. Before joining The Oregonian, he worked with Ron Buel at Willamette Week for four years, during which time he learned the meaning of the phrases, "I give your thinking a B, maybe a B-minus" and "How 'bout them Ducks?". |
| Kate Marx | Kate Marx is founder of the Public Power Institute and the Southeastern Regional Resource Stewardship Council.. She served 5 years as Metro’s director of public affairs and government relations, working with regional and national media to effectively report on land use, public financing, and sustainable development in the Portland region’s 25 cities and 3 counties. |
| Morgan Holm | Morgan Holm is Vice President of News at Oregon Public Broadcasting. He has been a producer and editor working in radio, TV and online since joining OPB in 1990. |
| Jay Hutchins | Jay Hutchins is former executive editor of Sockeye Magazine, an independent, participatory non-partisan non-profit public affairs project. Sockeye acts as an arbiter of fact and an ombudsman of rhetoric and focuses on in depth and fact driven analysis of controversial, complex topics in collaboration with volunteers, universities, NGOs, private stakeholders, and other journalistic enterprises. The on-line version of Sockeye (formerly Oregon's Future) can be seen at sockeyemagazine.org. |
| Joe Smith | Joe Smith is a semi-retired trial lawyer with a long and varied background in government and communication. He's served as Administrative Assistant to a U.S. Congressman, Executive Assistant to the Speaker of the Oregon House, and Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Regional Commission, and for many years was a Senior Consultant for Franklin Covey Company, providing effectiveness training to public and private organizations throughout the United States and Canada. |
The team shares the perspective that historically, newspapers have been the breeding ground and backbone for journalism that protects our democracy. But the success of the Internet is challenging the traditional advertising-based scaffolding for reporting and journalism, while as yet there is no viable model for financially robust Internet journalism.
The team responded by creating WeMakeTheMedia.org and holding its first conference.
Co-Sponsors
Web Development Team
| Chris Bence | Web site developer |
| Sue Gemmell | Web site consultant |
| Abraham Hyatt | Journalist |
