InvestigateWest adds Seattle entrepreneurs to its board

Big news. Mark Briggs and Jill Avey are joining InvestigateWest's board of directors.

Mark and Jill bring diverse business experience and an entrepreneurial mindset to InvestigateWest, qualities essential to the future of free and independent media.

We're thrilled to have them. Click through to see the full announcement.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 19, 2012
Contact:
Jason Alcorn, jalcorn@invw.org

InvestigateWest adds Seattle entrepreneurs to its board

Mark Briggs and Jill Avey appointed as directors at Northwest nonprofit journalism studio

Seattle, Wash. – InvestigateWest announced today that it has appointed two Seattle entrepreneurs to its board of directors.

Mark Briggs, director of digital media at King 5 Television and author of two books on entrepreneurial journalism, and Jill Avey, a specialist in consumer product development at Propét Footwear who also runs her own business, have agreed to join the board for three-year terms.

Founded in 2009, InvestigateWest is a nonprofit journalism studio that reports on the environment, public health and government accountability in the Northwest. The organization’s reporting has led to three new state safety laws and important changes to public policy and practice.

“I am so excited to have Jill Avey and Mark Briggs join the board of directors for InvestigateWest,” said board president Brian Reich. “We work every day to address the issues that are of critical importance to people across the Pacific Northwest. The experience and understanding of how consumers think that these two board members bring is unmatched - and adds a new and exciting dimension to our efforts.”

In addition to his work at King 5 Television, Briggs is a frequent writer and speaker on the future of journalism, as well as a Ford Fellow in Entrepreneurial Journalism at The Poynter Institute. Briggs previously co-founded the Seattle-based technology company Serra Media. A revised and updated edition of his book, Journalism Next, will be published in October by CQPress.

“It’s exciting to be part of a entrepreneurial journalism project since that is something I'm so passionate about,” Briggs said.

This year InvestigateWest has moved to diversify its revenue after three years of startup grants from the Bullitt Foundation, the Brainerd Foundation, and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

Briggs and Avey bring an entrepreneurial mindset to organizational development, and see that as critical to maintaining a vibrant and independent media.

“As the face of media continues to transform, organizations such as InvestigateWest fill a vital need in the community as an unbiased, fact-based information source,” Avey said. “The type of investigative journalism that InvestigateWest is known for is not something that readers can get from a blog or a talk show host; it only comes from the time the team spends diving into relevant topics and gathering all the details and facts.”

Briggs and Avey join current directors Brant Houston, Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois; Beth Parke, executive director at the Society of Environmental Journalists, and Jennifer Sizemore, NBCNews.com general manager & editor-in-chief, as well as board president Reich, managing director at little m media.

InvestigateWest has a number of media partnerships underway in 2012, including a project launching this month in Washington, Oregon and Idaho called Clean Water: The Next Act, a series of investigative reports to mark the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. The project is a partnership with Ecotrope and public media’s EarthFix.

About InvestigateWest

Founded in 2009, InvestigateWest is a nonprofit journalism studio focused on the Pacific Northwest, producing original investigative and explanatory reporting.

For more information, visit www.invw.org.