New York, N.Y. – October 18, 2011 – ProPublica announced today that Daniel Victor will join its investigative newsroom as social media editor next month. Victor, who helped launch Philly.com’s hyperlocal site and currently guides the site’s aggregation strategy, will direct all of ProPublica’s expanding crowdsourcing and social media efforts. He will replace Amanda Michel, who is leaving for a new role at the Guardian in the U.S.
Before joining Philly.com, Victor was part of the community engagement team at TBD.com where he helped lead their crowdsourcing efforts and built a network of local blogs. Prior to that, he served as a reporter for the (Harrisburg) Patriot-News and the Centre Daily Times. Victor is a graduate of Penn State’s journalism program.
“We’re very pleased to have Daniel on board as our social media editor,” said ProPublica managing editor Stephen Engelberg. “His background makes him well-suited to continue to develop our social media presence to ensure that our investigations reach the right people and have impact. And he will be instrumental in connecting our work to audiences that care deeply about the stories we’re working on and getting them to get involved with our reporting.”
“ProPublica has been a leader in recognizing how journalists can use social concepts to strengthen their work, and I’ve admired their efforts from afar,” Victor said. “They’ve already demonstrated that readers can play a crucial part in investigations, and I’ll advocate the same while introducing some new ideas. Readers have a lot to offer when journalists think to ask.”
ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. In 2010, it was the first online news organization to win a Pulitzer Prize. In 2011, ProPublica won the first Pulitzer awarded to a body of work that did not appear in print. ProPublica is supported primarily by philanthropy and provides the articles it produces, free of charge, both through its own website and to leading news organizations selected with an eye toward maximizing the impact of each article. For more information, please visit www.ProPublica.org.
