INN Standards Task Force

The Standards Task Force considers applications for membership that don’t neatly fit into INN’s membership standards. They also advise the INN board of directors on the evolution of journalism practices in the field in order to ensure INN’s standards remain relevant, inclusive, and reflective of the highest values of nonprofit, public service journalism.

Staff liaison: Devon Dunkle, membership manager; Bia Medious, member network engagement director; and Karen Rundlet, INN executive director

Laura Frank, executive director, Colorado News Collaborative
Laura pioneered collaborative journalism in Colorado as the founder of I-News, the nonprofit investigative news organization that merged with Rocky Mountain Public Media in 2013, the first such merger in the nation. She led the journalism team there for seven years, and now leads COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative, advancing civic journalism through collaboration, engagement and business innovation. She is a Denver native who spent 20 years reporting for newspapers, radio and public television around the country, specializing in investigative reporting and data analysis. She was a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News and now serves as its board chair. Her work has won awards in both broadcast and print, and led to changes in laws and lives.

Lorie Hearn, CEO, editor and founder, inewsource
Lorie is the chief executive officer and editor of inewsource, an investigative reporting nonprofit based in San Diego, CA. She is a lifelong news-aholic who started her reporting career writing her GirlScout troop’s newsletter at age 12. High school and college were filled with school newspaper work, and after graduation, she worked as a reporter for newspapers on both coasts. At The San Diego Union-Tribune, when she relinquished her front seat on the world as a reporter, she became an assistant editor, then Metro Editor and finally Senior Editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. Her staff was part of the newspaper’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She left the U-T in 2009 to start inewsource, which is recognized nationally and locally for quality and impact. Lorie was a Nieman Foundation Fellow at Harvard in 1994-95.

Brant Houston, Knight Chair professor of investigative reporting at the College of Media, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, INN board director emeritus
Brant holds the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois. Houston teaches investigative and advanced reporting in the Department of Journalism in the College of Media at Illinois. He also oversees the online newsroom at Illinois, CU-CitizenAccess.org, which serves as a lab for digital innovation and data journalism. Houston became the chair in 2007 after serving for more than a decade as the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a 5,000-member organization, and as a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Before joining IRE, he was an award-winning investigative reporter at daily newspapers for 17 years. He co-founded the Global Investigative Journalism Network in 2003 and serves as chair of its board of directors. He has taught and spoken about investigative and computer-assisted reporting at newsrooms and universities in 25 countries.

Carla Minet, executive director and editor, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI)
Carla Minet is the executive director and editor at the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI). She’s done investigative work mostly on political campaigns, corruption, environmental issues and government affairs. For the past 20 years, Minet has worked as a reporter, editor and producer for radio, TV, print and online in Puerto Rico. At CPI, she has led teams that have won the IRE Philip Meyer Award for Precision Journalism, the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism at Harvard, the Aronson Award at CUNY, and the Izzy Award for Conscience Journalism at Ithaca College, among others. She is a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and board member at the News Leaders Association (NLA).

Marcia Parker, vice president, philanthropic partnerships, The New York Times
Marcia Parker is vice president, philanthropic partnerships at the New York Times. Prior to joining the Times in 2022, she was chief operating officer of Calmatters, a nonprofit journalism organization covering California politics, policies and personalities. More previously, she was executive director of content and audience engagement for Penton’s Technology news portfolio. She also served as editorial programming and audience development director at State.com, a global opinion platform, and was West Coast editorial director of Patch.com, AOL’s venture into hyperlocal journalism.

Tasneem Raja, editor-in-chief, The Oaklandside
Tasneem is the editor-in-chief of The Oaklandside and a co-founder of its umbrella nonprofit, Cityside Journalism Initiative. A pioneer in data journalism and local nonprofit news startups, she co-founded The Tyler Loop, a nationally recognized community news platform in East Texas. She was a senior editor at NPR’s Code Switch and at Mother Jones, where the team she led helped build the first-ever database of mass shootings in America. She started her career as a features reporter at The Chicago Reader and The Philadelphia Weekly, and lives in Oakland with her husband, daughter, and two imperious terriers.

Norberto Santana, Jr, publisher, Voice of OC, INN board member
Norberto is an award-winning investigative reporter with nearly two decades reporting experience, most recently engaging Orange County government institutions and decision makers as the founding publisher of the nonprofit digital newsroom, Voice of OC. As publisher, Santana oversees all newsroom, engagement and fundraising operations and also writes a weekly Opinion column about Orange County government. Before founding Voice of OC in 2009, Santana was a lead investigative reporter for the Orange County Register from 2004-2009, focusing on county government. In addition to his experience as a journalist, the Southern California native has a master’s in Latin American Studies, has worked as an elections analyst on National Endowment for Democracy programs across Latin America and was one of the founders of CubaNet.org, a website featuring the work of dissident journalists inside Cuba that has operated since 1995.

Gabriel Schneider, assistant editor, CalMatters
Gabe is an assistant editor at the CalMatters College Journalism Network, as well as the lead editor at The Objective, a non-profit media reporting and criticism publication. His work has been published by outlets such as The Associated Press, MinnPost, Texas Tribune, and Los Angeles Magazine. He grew up in Los Angeles and attended UC San Diego, where he co-founded The Triton, a digital-first, independent, student-run newspaper.

Ron Smith, executive director, Milwaukee Neighborhood News
Ron is the executive director for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a division of Wisconsin Watch. The nonprofit newsroom provides evidenced-based journalism coverage of Milwaukee’s communities of color and is staffed by professionals, student-journalists and community residents. Additionally, Ron serves as an instructor of practice in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication. Before his current role, Ron served as the managing editor for news at USA TODAY and two terms as Secretary of the INN Board of Directors.