To: The Staff

From: Debby, Debbie and Rich

What’s Going On

Please join us on Wednesday, February 2 at 4:00 p.m. at a reception in the auditorium to

welcome our new colleagues and celebrate some new assignments.

Mark La Monica will be joining the sports desk as Deputy Editor/Cross

Media. In this role Mark will work with the sports reporters and editors
to continue to develop content for print and online. For the past seven
years Mark has helped shape newsday.com and most recently
exploreLI.com. Mark joined the staff as a sports producer where he
helped build out the high school sports site before turning his attention
to pro sports and original content.

Long Island Desk

Janet Day, Long Island deputy editor, started her journalism career as a reporter in
Tennessee. She became the environment writer at the Rocky Mountain News and then
moved into editing as the deputy managing editor at The Denver Post. Janet was an editor
for the New York metro team at Bloomberg before leaving to start her own
communications company in Winter Park, Colorado. She holds a Master’s degree in
Journalism/Communication from Pennsylvania State University.

Aisha Al-Muslim began her career as an editor and reporter with El Correo de
Queens/The Queens Courier as an editor and reporter, where she wrote and translated
articles for this bi-weekly Spanish and weekly English newspaper. She is a graduate of
Lehman College in the Bronx with a degree in Multilingual Journalism, and holds a
Master’s Degree from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.
Aisha also interned at WABC-TV, CBS Evening News, WKBW-TV and NY1.

Emily Dooley was a reporter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch covering technology,

telecom and the legal industry before returning to Newsday, where she had been an
online producer for newsday.com before moving to Richmond. Early in her career, she
was an enterprise reporter and multimedia producer at the Cape Cod Times. Emily has
her degree in newspaper journalism and policy studies from Syracuse University.

Candice Ferrette, most recently a health and medical reporter at The Journal News in
Westchester and Rockland Counties, grew up in Forest Hills and is a graduate of Stony
Brook University. She interned at the East Hampton Star and the Daily Times-Call in
Longmont, Colorado, and was a freelancer for the Filipino Reporter before joining The
Journal News as a night police reporter. Candice has a Masters of Arts in Journalism
from the University of Colorado School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Veronica Garcia returns to Newsday as an assistant Long Island editor after a long-
sojourn on the left coast. A member of the METPRO/Editing class of 1990-1991, she
joined the Los Angeles Times as a copy editor and held a number of positions on the
news, metro, national and foreign copy desks, including Washington Edition news editor,
wire editor, production supervisor and online editor. After leaving the Times, Veronica
worked in public affairs for the Los Angeles Community College District. She holds a
Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from San Diego State University.

Keith Kohn joins us as an assistant Long Island editor. Keith has spent much of his
career in Florida, most recently at the Orlando Sentinel, where he held a number of
positions, including senior copy editor, southwest bureau chief, night and weekend local
editor and night content editor for breaking news. Earlier in his career, he worked for the
Tampa Tribune as a copy editor on the sports, news and state desks and served as Polk
County bureau chief. He was also a staff writer at The Miami News and Managing Editor
for the Sun Reporter Newspaper Group. This is Keith’s second trip up north, since he
once held the business editor’s post at the Albany Times Union. He is a graduate of the
University of South Florida.

Paul LaRocco, a Mt. Sinai native, comes to Newsday from The Press-Enterprise
(Riverside, CA), where he covered city government, schools and public safety. He started
his career as a town hall reporter at the Record-Journal (Meriden, CT) before moving on
to Riverside. Paul is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston.
Tania Lopez, a Queens native and a Newsday summer intern in 2001, is returning after
stints at the Belleville News-Democrat (Belleville, IL) as an education reporter and at
The Indianapolis Star, where she was the lead reporter of one of the zoned editions and a
general assignment reporter for the metro section. She holds a degree in Journalism from
New York University.

Bill Miller joins us as a deputy Long Island editor. Most recently, Bill was an assistant
metro editor at The Florida Times Union in Jacksonville. He started his career as a
reporter at The Record-Searchlight (Redding, CA) and later joined The Idaho Statesman.
Bill then moved to Washington State, first as investigations editor for The Spokesman-
Review in Spokane and later as assistant metro editor at Seattle Post-Intelligencer from
1999 until it closed last year. He has a journalism degree from San Francisco State
University.
Kery Murakami has joined the Long Island desk from his most recent position as
communications manager for The Washington State Budget & Policy Center, an
independent, non-partisan think tank. Kery previously worked as a reporter at the
Morning News Tribune (Tacoma, WA.) and the Seattle Times before joining the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a city hall reporter. At the Post-Intelligencer, he also
covered transportation and wrote a weekly column about life in Seattle. Kery
founded and ran SeattlePostGlobe.org, a local online news site. He attended the
University of Michigan and the Bronx High School of Science.

Jo Napolitano, a Newsday intern in summer in 1997, returns to us after covering

education, crime and poverty for the Chicago Tribune and serving as a media
specialist for Argonne National Laboratory. She started her career covering local
government for the Southampton Press and then moved to McAllen, TX as a reporter
for The Monitor covering education, government and poverty. She has a degree in
Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School.

Victor Ramos returns to Newsday from the Orlando Sentinel, where he was the Hispanic
Affairs and Immigration writer. He was a reporter with us from 1997 to 2004 and covered
a wide variety of stories, including town and local government, Albany, education and
the aftermath of 9/11. Victor has a degree in Mass Communication from Lehman College

Nick Spangler comes to us from the Miami Herald, where he was a staff writer. During
his time at the Herald, he spent nine weeks in Iraq, covered the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina in New Orleans and created a feature profiling notable South Floridians. Earlier
in his career, Nick was a sports writer at the Southampton Press. He has a Master’s
Degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a degree in English from Williams
College.

Explore LI
Lauren Harrison joins the Explore LI staff from the Chicago Tribune, where she
served as a two-year reporting intern. She previously freelanced for magazines and was
a web producer for the Trader Monthly web site. . A Columbus, OH native, Lauren
holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University.

News Desk
Goodwin Anim, a native of Accra, Ghana, joins our news desk as an assistant editor.
Goodwin started his journalism career as copy editor/page designer at the Dayton Daily
News and then moved to suburban New York’s Journal News as a copy editor, assistant
metro editor, weekend metro editor and, finally, as assistant community life editor.
Goodwin is a graduate of Central State University in Ohio and holds a Master’s degree in
Business Administration from Central Connecticut State University.

Bruce Dansker, a Newsday veteran, rejoins to the News Desk after a brief hiatus. He
worked on the night news desk and the features copy desk from 1988 through 2007,
where he handled just about every job.
Jennifer Martin, a Brooklyn native and a member of the METPRO/Editing class of
2005-2006 at Newsday, returns to us after working at the Los Angeles Times as a copy
editor. Prior to her METPRO experience, she was an associate editor for national and
foreign news at amNew York. Jennifer graduated from Long Island University with a
degree in Speech Communications.

Kevin Ueda, most recently a copy editor at the Daily Pilot, part of the Los Angeles
Times Media Group, has joined us as a copy editor. He is a graduate of the University of
Southern California, where he was the copy chief for the USC Daily Trojan newspaper.
Kevin interned as a reporter at the Santa Monica Daily Press.

Presentation Desk
Aubrey Fornwalt comes to us from the b-free daily, a web site operated by the
Baltimore Sun, where she was a graphic designer. Aubrey also interned at The Morning
Call in Allentown and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design from
Kutztown (PA) University.

Elysia Smith returns to the United States after almost three year as a features designer
at The National, an English-language publication in Abu Dhabi. Prior to her overseas
assignment, she was an art director and designer at The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA).
Elysia is a graduate of Michigan State University where she majored in journalism with
a specialization in environmental sciences and design.

Newsday .com
Bobby Bonett has been promoted to assistant news manager/sports. Bobby was
formerly our social media coordinator, where he instituted many of the best practices we
are using today. He will be working the evening sports shift as Anthony Castellano
moves to a morning slot.

Josh Stewart has joined our staff as community editor for Nassau County. In this role,
he will work with the LI desk to coordinate Nassau community news. Josh comes to
Newsday from patch.com, where he was the Syosset editor. He is also a former assistant
managing editor of the Long Island Press, where the Press Club of Long Island twice
recognized him for his reporting.

Peggy Bustamante joins newsday.com as editorial data news manager, working with
David Holland to create engaging databases that focus on hyperlocal coverage. Peggy
comes to Newsday from Harvard University, where she worked on the harvard.edu web
site and recently completed her Master of Arts Degree in Digital Media. She previously
worked at the Boston Herald.

Risa Dixon has been named newsday.com’s assistant news manager for entertainment.
She has a background in entertainment publishing and was most recently contributing
writer for Clutch Magazine online. She has also worked forgiantmag.com, people.com
and Vibe Magazine.
Matt Golub joins the multimedia team as a video editor. He previously served as a field
production manager for MSGVarsity and as a producer for mlb.com.

Erin Geismar joins us a community journalist focusing on Suffolk County. She was
previously a reporter for the East Hampton Press, where she also filed breaking news for
27east.com.

TC McCarthy has become a community journalist focusing on Nassau County for

newsday.com/towns. Many of you might remember TC from his stint as a newsday.com
intern in 2009. Before his return to Newsday, he was a producer for News12 Interactive
and also spent some time on the news desk at WPIX-TV in New York.

Herman Wong has joined the newsday.com staff as a social media coordinator. He was
previously a social media consultant at Access Communications, a public relations
agency, where his clients included Toshiba and other firms. Herman also worked as a
contributing writer for SF Weekly, East Bay Express and China Daily.

Rachael Senatore has joined our staff as a social media coordinator. Rachel was
previously a production assistant on WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer Show. She was also a
contributor to the New York Times' The Local blog.

Eileen Holliday is our new Towns/Suffolk community editor. In this

role, she will work with the LI desk to coordinate Suffolk community
news. Eileen was most recently assistant metro editor at the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and previously held jobs at the Gloucester
County Times, The Express-Times in Easton, Pa., and The Lansing
State Journal.