Jennifer Preston

Vice President/Journalism • John S. and James L. Knight Foundation • Miami, FL
Last edited December 14, 2020

Jennifer Preston, a former board member of the Online News Association is Vice President for Journalism at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. She joined Knight after nearly twenty years at the New York Times, where she worked as a reporter, senior editor and the newsroom’s first social media editor. At Knight, she works with a team, which includes LaSharah Bunting, Paul Cheung and Karen Rundlet that oversees investments aimed at filling critical gaps in local original reporting, news and information resulting from the collapse of the newspaper business. Much of the work is focused on helping news organizations build trust, audience and drive sustainable growth. The American Journalism Project, NewsMatch, Report for America, ProPublica’s Local Reporting Project, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Solutions Journalism Network, the Institute for Nonprofit News, the News Revenue Hub, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Reporters Committee, the Lenfest Institute, the American Press Institute and Poynter are among the hundreds of news outlets and journalism organizations supported by Knight to support a future for local journalism that is equitable, inclusive and committed to serving all communities. Preston previously worked at New York Newsday and taught journalism at Columbia University and the Craig Newmark school at CUNY. And she is proud that her very first grant at Knight Foundation seeded the creation of the ONA Women’s Leadership Accelerator.


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