Melissa Newman

Dr. Melissa Newman is Executive Director of Press Forward Blue Grass, bringing her decades of journalism experience, fundraising, and grant writing skills into this work.

 

Melissa previously served as the Associate Vice President for Place-Based Partnerships at Partners for Rural Impact and Executive Director of the Appalachian Cradle to Career Partnership. Her dual roles supported convening strategically aligned organizations in Kentucky’s Appalachia and guiding other rural places nationally in their cradle-to-career work, specifically around communication and policy, with a mission and vision to create cradle-to-career systems transformation in rural America.

 

Melissa has dedicated her career to elevating the status of Kentucky’s Appalachia through fundraising, grant writing, public and community relations, and research. Melissa is a former journalist, public relations practitioner, and published novelist. Her academic research focuses on how the news media has influenced sustained negative stereotypes in Appalachia. It has revealed that changing the region’s story can positively impact individuals, their communities, and the economy.

 

Dr. Newman’s more recent work includes a book chapter she co-authored, A History of Media Coverage of Poverty in the United States Since 1960, as part of a collective of work within “The Routledge Companion to Media and Poverty” that explores the complex, and often problematic, ways in which the news media shapes perceptions of poverty. Melissa also teaches in the Department of Communication at Eastern Kentucky University. She is also a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE).

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