Kristy Roschke, Managing Director

by | Mar 3, 2018 | Blog

Kristy RoschkeGood news for us! The News Co/Lab has named its first managing director, Kristy Roschke.

The details are in the press release, which you’ll find below. But I wanted to say a few words about why I’m so jazzed that she is joining us.

Kristy has all kinds of relevant skills and knowledge: education, project management, journalism, and more. Most recently she as been running a youth media initiative at KJZZ, public radio in Phoenix, working to help create a new generation of storytellers who have solid journalistic and ethical values. She’s been a high-school teacher. She has deep research skills. She’s on the verge of earning a PhD with a focus on media literacy. She’s fund-raised. She knows how to manage a team and get things done.

We know and admire Kristy as a colleague and person. She’s been involved with the Cronkite School for many years in various capacities, starting as a student and later teaching advanced journalism courses. She and I jointly teach an online course, “Digital Media Literacy”, and several years ago I worked with her on a MOOC, or massive open online course, that brought media/news literacy to a wider audience.

Kristy has a lot of ideas about how to make the lab move forward, and the skills to make that happen. We’re looking forward to working with her.

Now, here’s that press release:


Kristy Roschke Named News Co/Lab Managing Director

The News Co/Lab at Arizona State University, a collaborative lab aimed at helping people find new ways of understanding and engaging with news and information, has named Kristy Roschke as its first managing director.

Roschke joins the lab from KJZZ in Phoenix, where she is executive director of the public radio station’s SPOT 127 program. SPOT 127 empowers teens to find their voices and engage with their communities through storytelling.

“With her background in education, media literacy, journalism, and management, Kristy Roschke brings a wealth of experience,” said Dan Gillmor, ASU professor of practice and News Co/Lab co-founder.

At KJZZ’s SPOT 127, Roschke has been the executive editor for all student multimedia content creation. In collaboration with the KJZZ newsroom, students produce news and feature stories for radio and online.

During Roschke’s tenure, SPOT 127 journalism won numerous awards including five Rocky Mountain Emmy Student Production Awards. With a staff of full-time employees and student interns, she was instrumental in securing grant and private donor funding and oversaw the development of a youth digital media curriculum based on university undergraduate journalism programs.

At ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Roschke co-created a massive open online course (MOOC) in digital media literacy for thousands of participants. She is in the final stages of earning a PhD with a focus on media literacy and has taught a number of advanced courses in the journalism school. She also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cronkite School.

“We know Kristy and her work,” said Kristin Gilger, Cronkite School senior associate dean. “We’re very glad to have her back at the Cronkite School driving this important new initiative.”

Before returning to ASU for her advanced degrees, Roschke taught high school in the Phoenix area. At Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Arizona, she developed and implemented curriculum for journalism courses and advised award-winning student publications.

From 1999-2001 she was Public Relations Supervisor at Porter Novelli in San Francisco, where she developed and managed strategic communications plans for companies in the high-tech industry.

About the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication: The Cronkite School at Arizona State University is widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier professional journalism programs. The school’s 1,800 students regularly lead the country in national journalism competitions. They are guided by faculty comprised of award-winning professional journalists and world-class media scholars. Cronkite’s full-immersion professional programs give students opportunities to practice what they’ve learned in a real-world setting under the guidance of professionals.

About the News Co/Lab: The News Co/Lab, based at the Cronkite School, works to help people find new ways of understanding and engaging with news and information. It collaborates with journalists, teachers, librarians, technologists and others on experiments aimed at improving community information ecosystems. The lab’s newsroom project tests community engagement and news transparency ideas that hope to increase mutual understanding between the public and journalists. The lab’s initial grant funders are Facebook, the News Integrity Initiative, Democracy Fund and the Rita Allen Foundation.