Stefanie Murray Named Director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University

Release Date: April 28, 2016

Stefanie Murray has been named director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. The Center is an organization that brings together over 150 news outlets throughout New Jersey in what is the nation’s only formally organized statewide network of media entities. The Center is based within Montclair State’s School of Communication and Media.

An award-winning journalist and editor, Murray was the recipient of an Associated Press News Writing Award in 2008 (public service) and 2010 (breaking news) during her time as a reporter in Michigan. She later was part of the original editorial team that launched AnnArbor.com for Advance Publications. Subsequently, Murray was assistant managing editor/digital media of the Detroit Free Press and also served as a member of a special assignment group tasked with retraining and reorganizing the Gannett Company’s 90-plus newsrooms nationwide. Most recently, Murray was the vice president/news and executive editor of The Tennessean and TN Media.

Murray has a Master of Science degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Science degree in broadcasting and journalism from Central Michigan University.

“We are thrilled to have Stefanie Murray join our organization,” said Merrill Brown, director of the School of Communication and Media. “She brings to the Center for Cooperative Media significant experience in the areas of local news reporting, information gathering, digital transformation, organizational development and business strategy. Over the course of the past three years, the Center has played a key leadership role in growing the New Jersey news and information ecosystems. We’re confident that Stefanie will now lead the Center in new and exciting directions as we continue to focus on how we and our partners can best serve the people of New Jersey, and we further explore how this innovative model might be successfully applied to other media markets.”

The Center for Cooperative Media’s mission is to expand the New Jersey news ecosystem, and its activities are funded in part by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Montclair State University.

The Center for Cooperative Media is home to the NJ News Commons, which encourages collaboration and content sharing among New Jersey media companies. Its partners include NJTV (WNET), NJPR (WNYC), New Jersey Monthly magazine, The Record, NJ.com and leading local news sites around the state. Since its launch in 2012, the Center has held dozens of training sessions, hosted two national conferences on local news and information and offered state-of-the-art facilities to news organizations across the state.

In addition to its various ongoing training, research and innovation initiatives, the Center for Cooperative Media is focused on statewide collaborative enterprise journalism projects. It recently partnered with various New Jersey news outlets to create “Dirty Little Secrets,” a reporting project highlighting the lingering impacts of New Jersey’s toxic legacy. The Center is currently developing “In the Shadow of Liberty,” a collaborative project dedicated to in-depth reporting on issues surrounding immigration.

“I’m pleased to welcome Stefanie Murray to Montclair State University and our School of Communication and Media, one of the fastest-growing academic areas of the College of the Arts,” said Daniel Gurskis, dean of the University’s College of the Arts. “Her contributions will help take the University’s commitment to our rapidly expanding journalism initiatives to new and higher levels, as we continue to expand our support of public affairs in New Jersey. Stefanie has tremendous talent, energy and creative drive, and we look forward to utilizing those skills across the University and across the state.”