Alexandra Close is an American journalist and the founder of Ethnic Media Services. She was the executive director of
Pacific News Service
Pacific News Service (PNS) was an American nonprofit alternative news media organization. PNS ceased operations in 2017.
The organization was located in Berkeley, California.
History
PNS was founded in 1969 by historian and sociologist Fr ...
from 1974 to 2017 and of
New America Media
New America Media (NAM) was a multimedia ethnic news agency and a coalition of ethnic media. Founded in 1996 by the nonprofit Pacific News Service, NAM was headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Washingto ...
from 1996 to 2017.
Early life and education
Close received her B.A from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1964.
Career
Close worked as the China editor in Hong Kong for the ''
Far Eastern Economic Review
The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (''FEER'') was an Asian business magazine published between 1946 and December 2009 in the English language. Based in Hong Kong, the news magazine published weekly until December 2004, when it converted to a m ...
'' in the mid-1960s. Upon her return to the U.S. she co-founded Oakland-based newspaper ''The Flatlands''.
She was also a weekly commentator for Morning Edition from 1984 to 1985.
In 1991, she founded ''Yo! Youth Outlook'', a monthly magazine of youth writing and art, and in 1996, she co-founded ''The Beat Within'', a weekly journal written by incarcerated youth.
She served as the executive director of Pacific News Service from 1974 to the publication's closing in 2017. In 1996, she founded New America Media, which involved up to 3,000 ethnic news organizations in California, and served as its executive director until its closure in 2017.
In 2018, Close founded Ethnic Media Services, a non-profit agency focused on developing cross-cultural journalism and marketing projects to promote inclusive public discourse.
Close was a co-producer for the film ''
Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien'', which won the
Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject)
This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are annou ...
in 1996.
Personal life
Close was married to the historian and Asian affairs scholar