Jennifer Preston Named Vice President for Journalism at the Knight Foundation

Jennifer Preston, an award-winning New York Times journalist and digital innovator, will join the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as vice president for journalism beginning Oct. 20, 2014.

Preston brings more than 30 years of newsroom and business-side experience to the position, including senior editorial and management roles at The Times. Since 2009, when she was named the newsroom’s first social media editor, she has helped pioneer the use of social media for reporting, storytelling, engagement and real-time publishing. Most recently, she helped launch a homepage news curation feature for nytimes.com called Watching. She has taught digital media at City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

“Jennifer is the ideal person to help newsrooms embrace innovation because she believes in the change and has helped make it happen,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation. “She understands the realities but she also has a vision of what’s possible and how to get there. She’ll lead Knight’s efforts to help newspaper, TV, radio and Internet newsrooms bring media innovation into their mainstream.”

Commenting on Knight’s role as a principal funder of journalism training in the United States, Ibargüen added, “Jennifer is a collaborative, natural-born teacher who will help journalism schools train a new generation of digital natives to report the news. In the process, they will help evolve the skills necessary to report the news and engage the public. We’re still in a time of creative disruption but Jennifer is unflappable.”

“I am thrilled about joining Knight Foundation,” Preston said. “It is an extraordinary opportunity to help drive digital innovation at news organizations, big and small, startups and traditional brands. I am also excited about joining Knight’s global community of digital journalism innovators whose ideas have been changing how we practice and produce quality journalism for years.”