Moderators

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  Jessica Clark

  Jessica Clark is the director of research and strategy for Media Impact Funders, and the founder and director of media production/strategy firm Dot Connector Studio. She is also currently a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center’s Media Impact Project. Previously, she served as the media strategist for AIR's groundbreaking Localore project, the director of the Future of Public Media project at American University's Center for Media and Social Impact, and a Knight Media Policy Fellow at DC-based think tank the New America Foundation. Over the past decade, she has led research and convenings with high-profile universities and national media networks, including NPR, PBS, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, MIT, and USC's Annenberg School for Communication. She is the co-author of "Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media" (The New Press, 2010), and a long-time independent journalist.

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  Jessica Clark, MIF

• 
  Nina Hoffmann

Participants

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  Bayete Ross Smith

  Panelist

  Bayeté Ross Smith is a photographer, multi-media artist, filmmaker, and educator living in New York City. He is represented by beta pictoris gallery/Maus Contemporary He began his career as a photojournalist with the Knight Ridder Newspaper Corporation. Bayeté has exhibited internationally with the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Brooklyn Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, TEDx MidAtlantic, Duetsche Bank, Rush Arts Gallery, the Utah MOCA, BRIC Arts Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the Missouri History Museum, Jack Shainman Gallery,the UnSeen Photo Festival (Amsterdam), the Goethe Institute (Ghana), and Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland), among others. His collaborative projects "Along The Way" and "Question Bridge: Black Males" have shown at the 2008 and 2012 Sundance Film Festival, respectively. His work has also been featured at the Sheffield Doc Fest in Sheffield England and the L.A. Film Festival. Bayeté’s accolades include an International Center of Photography Infinity Award for New Media, Harbers Storytelling Project tnp5 Fellowship, a FSP/Jerome Fellowship, as well as fellowships and residencies with the McColl Center for Art & Innovation, Charlotte, North Carolina, the Kala Institute, Berkeley, California, the Laundromat Project, New York, NY. and SoEx Mission Voices Program. He has also been involved in a variety of community and public art projects with organizations such as the Jerome Foundation, BRIC Arts Media, The Amistad Center, The Laundromat Project, the Flux Art Fair, the NYC Parks Department, Alternate Roots, the Hartford YMCA and the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency. His work has been published in numerous books and magazines, including Question Bridge: Black males in America (2015), Dis:Integration: The Splintering of Black America (2010), Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009), Black: A Celebration of A Culture (2005), The Spirit Of Family (2002); SPE Exposure: The Society of Photographic Education Journal, Black Enterprise Magazine, and Working Mother Magazine. In addition to his fine art practice Bayeté is currently the Associate Program Director for the Kings against Violence Initiative (KAVI), a hospital and school based violence prevention non-profit organization in New York that partners with Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. He has also taught at the International Center of Photography, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Parsons, the New School for Design, the California College of the Arts.

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  Elaine McMillion Sheldon

  Panelist

  Elaine McMillion Sheldon is a Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker and media artist who brings classic expertise to intimate and character-driven storytelling experiences. Her work explores the themes of identity, roots and survival, through a timeless lens. In 2013, she released HOLLOW an interactive documentary that examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of Appalachians. Hollow received a 2013 Peabody, 2014 Emmy nomination and 3rd Prize in the World Press Photo Multimedia Awards. She’s also the co-producer of "The Lower 9," a feature-length documentary about The Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She is the co-creator of She Does, a bi-weekly audio documentary series that documents creative women’s journeys. She Does won a 2016 Communicator Award of Excellence from The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts. In January 2016, Chicken & Egg Pictures awarded her with the inaugural "Breakthrough Filmmaker" award. Sheldon was a 2013 Future of Storytelling Fellow, and named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2013 by Filmmaker Magazine and one of "50 People Changing The South" in 2015 by Southern Living Magazine. Sheldon is available for producing and editing audio and video content, as well as non-linear productions including cross-platform consulting, storytelling workshops and training, content strategy and photography. She serves on the Looking at Appalachia video and advisory board and is currently in-production on several documentary projects supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures. She's a founding member of All Y'all Southern Documentary Collective

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  Jon Swaine

  Panelist

  Jon Swaine is a senior reporter for "The Guardian" based in New York. He previously covered the US for the Daily Telegraph.