Evelyn Messinger (born in

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east ...

) is an American TV and print journalist, digital media pioneer, television producer, and media activist. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Education and early career

Ms Messinger received her bachelor's degree in Broadcasting from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

in 1980, and promptly produced her first documentary
The Windcatchers
and became a producer and editor at the San Francisco TV series VideoWest. She became a news editor and producer at the San Francisco bureaus of

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

, then worked in Europe producing pilots and programs for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

France2 France 2 () is a French free-to-air public television channel. The flagship channel of France Télévisions, it broadcasts generalist programming including news, entertainment (such as dramas, films, and game shows), factual programmes, and sp ...

and others.

Professional career

Messinger has, most recently, contributed to the creation of the media journalism project News Ambassadors. She is the producer of the TV and online video serie
This Planet
and was the originating producer o
The Goldziher Prize
for Excellence in Journalism covering Muslim Americans. She co-founded

Internews Internews Network, now Internews, is a 501(c)(3) organization incorporated in California, formed in 1982. It was founded by David M. Hoffman, Kim Spencer, and Evelyn Messinger. The president and CEO is Jeanne Bourgault. Internews Europe is a ...

, a global non-profit organization supporting independent media and access to quality information worldwide, with

Kim Spencer Kim Spencer (born 1948 in Geneva, Illinois) is an American television producer and executive. Education and early career Kim Spencer holds a B.A. in political science from Reed College and did graduate work in urban planning at Harvard Graduate ...

and

David M. Hoffman David Michael Hoffman (born January 18, 1945) is an American author, political commentator, television project director and media activist. He is the Founder and President Emeritus of Internews, a global non-profit organization supporting indep ...

in 1982. She was the American co-creator of the groundbreaking US-Soviet televised Spacebridges, which connected Soviet and American citizens, performers and lawmakers throughout the 1980s, and was the co-producer of many of these programs, some of which won an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

in 1989. She was also the founding director of the

Soros Foundation Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the st ...

's Electronic Media Program (1990-1993). Messinger is the founder of InterAct (Internews Interactive). She is currently the President Of Digital Citizen, a non-profit pioneer of digital media convergence that has specialized in citizen participation in media since 1998. In this role she worked with journalis
Shia Levitt
in 2023 on the creation o
News Ambassadors
which links student reporters with counterparts in politically or demographically dissimilar areas. She has served on the founding Board of Directors of

Link TV Link TV, originally WorldLink TV, was a non-commercial American satellite television network providing what it described as "diverse perspectives on world and national issues." It was carried nationally on DirecTV (ch. 375) until January 2023 a ...

, and has been instrumental in introducing new media formats to broadcast television and the Internet in projects with

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

, the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

, and many others.

Awards

Her awards include a

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

in 2009 for

series Global Pulse (2007-2010), a Cine Gold Eagle for the PBS documentary Thinking Twice (1982), and a first place in the San Francisco Video Festival for her documentary, Windcatchers, which ran nationally on the PBS network in 1980 as part of the

Bay Area Video Coalition BAVC Media, previously known as the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), is a nonprofit organization that works to connect independent producers and underrepresented communities to emerging media technologies. It was founded in 1976 in San Francisc ...

’s “Western Exposure” series.

Publications

Evelyn Messinger is an essayist and a published commentator on issues of media and democracy, the Internet, and digital citizenship. She has most recently writte
Puckleman's Way
(2023, December 14) for Drexel University's literary magazine The Smart Set. Earlier writing includes essays for

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

Whole Earth Review ''Whole Earth Review'' (''Whole Earth'' after 1997) was a magazine which was founded in January 1985 after the merger of the '' Whole Earth Software Review'' (a supplement to the '' Whole Earth Software Catalog'') and the '' CoEvolution Quarterl ...

, Qualcomm Spark, MediaShift, and

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

.HUFFINGTON POST (2009, May 5) Pakistani Women Protest Taliban But Support Islamic Law

References

External links

Internews Network

Link TV

Digital Citizen Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Messinger, Evelyn Living people People from Maryland San Francisco State University alumni American women journalists American reporters and correspondents Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women