Finding it hard to keep track of all the cutting edge personalities who are transforming the news business these days?
Here are a few you definitely need to know.
Tim Sparapani
1 TIM SPARAPANI
Facebook’s Washington spokesman is an effective and unflappable advocate for the phenomenally successful social media website’s public policy concerns, including Internet security, censorship, and the threat of government regulation. His mission, he says, is to make sure Silicon Valley and Washington “speak the same language.”
Dan Froomkin
2 DAN FROOMKIN
Froomkin’s popular, no-holds-barred criticism of establishment media mandarins may have caused his ouster from The Washington Post last summer, but the episode didn’t prevent The Huffington Post taking him on before unemployment benefits kicked in. Now he supervises HuffPo’s local staff while contributing his own searing analysis, much of it on economic issues.
3 KATHARINE ZALESKI
Katherine Zaleski
In a reverse switch, The Huffington Post’s senior news editor, Zaleski moved to The Washington Post from New York late last year to be executive producer and head of digital news products. Equally young, blonde, attractive, and dynamic, she’s already making strides in improving the product roadmap and user experience.
She drove website traffic way up after the election of Sen. Scott Brown by betting that nobody could spell the word “Massachusetts.”
Manuela Hoelterhoff
4 MANUELA HOELTERHOFF
As executive editor of “Muse,” Bloomberg News’ arts and culture section, Hoelterhoff helps produce features and reviews from around the world on everything from art and books to food, wine, and cars. The stories are part of the news and analytics sent to Bloomberg’s 300,000 clients in the financial community but can also be found on the web at bloomberg.com/muse. Hoelterhoff spent most of her career at The Wall Street Journal where she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for criticism. Although based mostly in New York, she plans to increase coverage of the Washington scene.
5 ERIK WEMPLE
From 2002 until March of this year, Wemple cut a wide swath as editor of the Washington City Paper, where he was known for trenchant coverage of local politics, gritty social issues, and insider media machinations that had many editors and scribes– especially at The Washington Post – dreading his calls. In March, he took over operations at local news website www.tbd.com that will incorporate staff reports with material produced by Politico and two local TV stations also owned by Allbritton Communications.
6 ERICA ANDERSON
AKA ‘ERICA AMERICA’
Erica Anderson
The twentysomething “citizen journalist” and competitive basketball player is an ambitious, well-connected blogger (www.ericaamerica.com) and freelance videographer who really knows how to work a room. Her savvy digital strategy has earned impressive credits with MTV, MSNBC, and CNN.
