The Beacon has been working hard to grow a newsroom full of passionate reporters covering the Kansas City metro, Missouri and Kansas. The newsroom is currently staffed with seven reporters and our interim editor-in-chief. After focusing on building a strong editorial team, we’re excited to share that Naomi O’Donnell and Willa Odefey have accepted contract roles as our product and audience engagement coordinator and CRM and development coordinator, respectively. Naomi will focus on improving the ways readers interact with our journalism, including new newsletters, website features and experiments that make our stories more accessible. Willa will concentrate on strengthening our connection with readers by keeping our newsletter and donor systems running smoothly and making it easier for people to support The Beacon.
You may already recognize Naomi. Naomi was formerly our director of audience. She left her full-time role at The Beacon in April to start her own company, CaraNaomi. Naomi excelled at growing our audience while director and will now be working closely with us again as the contract product and audience engagement coordinator.
“The Beacon’s work has always been relevant and meaningful, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the role of trustworthy local media is especially crucial to our democracy,” Naomi said. “I’m honored to be part of sharing the work of our dedicated reporters, who truly love our community. Their rigorously researched and fact-checked stories solve problems and celebrate achievements that make a difference right here at home.”
Willa Odefey is also a familiar face. She was with us this summer as The Beacon’s community engagement intern. Willa is currently finishing her master’s program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Willa took her summer internship to the next level, helping us launch new features on the website, reporting on harm reduction efforts and sorting through data for our rural health beat. We’re excited for her to use her strong attention to detail to dive into our customer relationship management systems and grow our loyal readers into members for the organization.
“Nonprofit journalism relies on financial support from readers who in turn lean on them as a reliable source for the truth,” Willa said. “I’m proud to be working with a truly mission-driven team to continue to bring uncompromised news and information to the residents of Kansas and Missouri.”
Adding these two contract positions is a really exciting moment for The Beacon. Our reporting is being read and shared by more readers than ever before, and we want to serve these readers to the best of our abilities.
“Our reporters are doing incredible work, and now we are adding support behind the scenes to make sure readers experience that journalism in the best possible way.” Stephanie Campbell, The Beacon’s CEO said. “Naomi will help us create new newsletters and features that make our stories easier to find and more engaging. Willa will make sure our systems run smoothly so that subscribing, donating and staying connected feels seamless. Together their work means readers will see more useful graphics, clearer data and new ways to engage with The Beacon’s reporting.”
Be on the lookout for new features on our website, new newsletters to subscribe to and other experiments. Have an idea for our website, newsletters or anything else? Feel free to email hilary@thebeacon.media. We’d love to hear more about how you want to experience the news in Kansas and Missouri.
