Spartan Profiles: Jennifer Carroll

NEW MEDIA JOURNALISM

            In recent years new web-based devices like blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds have significantly impacted the field of journalism.  At the cutting edge is Jennifer Carroll, ’80, vice president of new media content for the Newspaper Division of Gannett Co., Inc., the nation’s largest newspaper chain.  She conceived and launched Gannett’s Information Center, a model transforming the way newsrooms gather and disseminate news and information across all media platforms, winning the 2007 Chairman’s Special Achievement Award.

            “These are the most invigorating and rewarding years in my professional career,” says Carroll, who had previously been executive editor of the The Burlington (VT), and managing editor of the Lansing State Journal and the Detroit News, both Gannett papers.  “We’re opening up conversations we never had in the past. Those who are 40 and under expect it.  You want them to be engaged in the process.” 

            One of Jennifer’s thrusts has been to encourage Gannett papers to engage the community more—doing such things as allowing readers to upload information, and easily provide news tips, and to participate in forums. 

            “This is very exciting,” says Jennifer, who resides in Silver Springs, MD.  “We are getting a great synergy from this.  The experts are out in the country as well.” 

            A native of Midland, Jennifer chose to attend MSU (following three older sisters) even though her parents met each other working on the Michigan Daily, the student paper of the University of Michigan.  “I stayed away from journalism,” she recalls.  “I was interested in becoming a lawyer and a consumer advocate. But as an undergrad I was very much into being an undergrad.”  She did take the late Walter Adams’ Econ 444—“extremely challenging”—and also got to know then vice president Jack Breslin and provost John Cantlon.  After graduation, she and her husband moved to Port Huron, where she worked on the Port Huron Times-Herald.  Later, upon moving to Lansing, she landed a job reporting for the Lansing State Journal.  Since then, her career in a field she tried to avoid has climbed meteorically.