Category: 2000s

The Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC) has named Nekoro Gomes Vice President of Communications for the region’s leading business advocacy organization. Gomes, who will officially join GBC in mid-April, will lead the organization’s newly combined communications and events staff and will work with GBC’s board and leadership team to reposition the regional marketing and economic branding message. One of his first assignments will be to lead the new branding of GBC to more accurately reflect the organization following its merger with the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore (EAGB). Gomes brings over a decade of experience developing and executing integrated marketing campaigns and shaping the narrative around pressing public policy challenges. Most recently, he served as Marketing Strategy Director for the New York City Housing Authority. Prior to NYCHA, Gomes was a Creative Marketing Strategist with the New York City-based strategic communications and reputation management firm Rubenstein. The formative start of his career began at City Limits where Gomes progressed from Community Engagement Manager to Director of Marketing and Audience Development.

Joseph Bustos, Medill Class of 2006, was awarded the Jim Davenport Award for Excellence in Government Reporting for his work in 2022 at the annual South Carolina Press Association news contest on March 10, 2023.

Bustos’ reporting in 2022 ranged from the race for the governor’s office to the nitty gritty of state government, including efforts to address the state’s teacher shortage, the debate over state employee pay and leadership changes within the State House.

See his work here

Kristin Thorne (MSJ05) won an Emmy Award for her True-crime series, Missing, which airs on Hulu and across all ABC7NY platforms. Kristin is an investigative reporter with WABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News in New York.

James and the team behind FRONTLINE’s Un(re)solved won a 2022 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Best Interactive Media: Innovation. The multiplatform investigation also earned a National Edward R. Murrow Award and two Online Journalism Awards, including one for Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Limited Series. The project examines the U.S. government’s efforts to investigate dozens of cold case murders that date back to the civil rights era.

David Plazas leads The Tennessean’s Opinion and Engagement team, which won the Online News Association’s international award for Excellence in Newsletters Portfolio for the Black Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Plazas also curates the Latino TN Voices newsletter. According to the announcement on Sept. 23: “The judges were thrilled to see the winning organization launch newsletters to cover and engage with critical communities in the area.” This is part of an effort that began in 2020 to change the way The Tennessean covers communities of color from telling stories about them to telling stories for, with and by them. This has resulted in a substantial increase of guest opinion columns and podcast interviews as well as a closed Facebook group and live Storytellers events at noted venues, the National Museum of African American Music and Plaza Mariachi.

Matthew DeFour was named the 2020 Wisconsin Watchdog of the Year by Wisconsin Watch, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, the Wisconsin Newspapers Association, the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications. The award was in recognition of his in-depth investigative and watchdog enterprise reporting that prompted change at all levels of government, The award ceremony was delayed two years due to COVID.

After 17 years of practicing law, Kataryna Lyson DeLisle has joined Radio Free Asia (RFA) as it General Counsel. At RFA, DeLisle will manage overall legal affairs relating to the company’s governance, employment, global operations, and contracts, in addition to serving as Secretary to RFA’s Board of Directors.

Matt was recently named Chief Marketing Officer of Florida Citrus Sports. The Orlando-based nonprofit is best known for organizing college football’s annual Vrbo Citrus Bowl, which the Wildcat football team won at the end of the 2020 season.

Vanessa recently took a job with the Environmental Defense Fund as a staff writer. She looks forward to helping EDF tell stories about the most critical issue of our time: climate change.