Launched in March of 2019 by Google News Initiative in partnership with McClatchy, the Compass Experiment explores new and sustainable models for local news within the context of a “lab.”
The news publisher announced the appointment of Mandy Jenkins as General Manager of the Compass Experiment.
Prior to taking on this role, Jenkins was the EIC of Storyful and held leadership roles at Digital First Media’s Project Thunderdome. She has also held roles at Huffington Post Politics, TBD and the Cincinnati Enquirer. Prior to that, she was an online news producer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. At present, Mandy Jenkins is the President of the Board of Directors for the online news association and is completing a John S. Knight journalism fellowship at Stanford University, researching the disconnection between news consumers and mainstream news outlets with a focus on disinformation.
In this new role, Mandy Jenkins will lead the Compass Experiment as it builds and launches three digital-only news sites. She will also be in charge of hiring and managing a team of journalists, sales professionals, audience-growth experts, and product staff instrumental in supporting the sites. She will also collaborate with teams at McClatchy and Google, sharing lessons learned from the Experiment.
“Local news is where I started my career, and I feel it is the bedrock of our industry’s connection with the audience. Local news tells their stories, lives in their communities and earns their trust through the kind of accountability that comes when you might run into your area reporter at the grocery store. We cannot ensure local journalism will survive for the long-haul without a focus on sustainability, which is why I sought to be a part of this initiative in the first place,” Jenkins wrote in a blog post.
Mandy Jenkins will assume office on June 17 and report directly to Senior Director of Business Strategy and Operations, Angela Lunter.
