INDY NEWS: Indy Co-Founder to Return
John Tarleton, one of The Indypendent’s founders, will return in February 2014 as Editor-in-Chief. He will be teaming up with Alina Mogilyanskaya, the paper’s other full-time staffer.
Tarleton served as a writer, editor and lead coordinator at The Indypendent from 2001-2009. Most recently, he has worked as the associate editor of Clarion, the newspaper of the Professional Staff Congress, a progressive union local that represents 25,000 faculty and professional staff at the City University of New York.
“It’s an exciting time to return,” Tarleton said. “Clearly there’s a deep hunger for real and fundamental change here in New York City and around the world. And the Indy is uniquely positioned to give voice to that.”
“John’s energy is infectious and seemingly limitless,” said Ellen Davidson, a member of the paper’s board of directors who held several top positions at the (U.S.) Guardian radical newsweekly from 1979 to 1990. “With his return and our new location at the Brooklyn Commons where we will be situated among a thriving and creative activist community, I believe the Indy is poised to break through to a new level.”
Tarleton has won numerous community and labor journalism awards over the past decade. During his previous stint at The Indypendent, Tarleton trained hundreds of aspiring reporters and guided a volunteer staff that garnered more than 40 awards from the New York Community Media Alliance. Journalists that Tarleton helped mentor have gone on to work at a number of alternative and mainstream media outlets, from AlterNet, Mother Jones and Democracy Now! to AM New York, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
“I had my first published article in a real newspaper — and John is the reason why,” recalled Alex Kane, an assistant editor at Mondoweiss and world editor at AlterNet. “My first try at journalism was a mess, but John kept at it, edited the hell out of my piece and taught me how to write well.”
Tarleton has stayed involved with the The Indypendent since 2009 as a contributing editor and as a member of the newspaper’s board of directors. He and Mogilyanskaya are planning to expand the Indy’s new reporter training program and strengthen its on-the-ground coverage of New York while continuing the paper’s strong international coverage. Creating more opportunities for interaction between the paper’s readers and staff is another top priority.
“We don’t have any corporate backing,” he noted. “This paper exists to serve its readers. And it’s their interest and their support that will make it possible for us to do great work.”
RELATED INDY NEWS
Brooklyn, Here We Come, by John Tarleton
Pedal Power, by Alina Mogilyanskaya
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