Bill Densmore

I'm a career journalist, publisher, entrepreneur and director of the the Media Giraffe Project, New England News Forum, and a a collaborator on Journalism That Matters. During the 2008-2009 academic year I'm working on The Information Valet Project at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Bill Densmore is director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the New England News Forum. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Densmore is serving as a Reynolds Fellow at the Univ. of Missouri working on The Information Valet Project. Media Giraffe, launched in March, 2005, is an effort to find and spotlight individuals making sustainable, innovative use of media (old and new) to foster participatory democracy and community. Holding a degree in environmental policy and communications, he is knowledgeable on Internet information technologies and business models. A career journalist, he has been an editor/writer for The Associated Press, for trade publications in business, law and insurance; and freelanced for general circulation dailies including the Boston Globe. He has written for ComputerWorld Magazine. In 1993, after nine years owning and publishing weeklies in Berkshire County, Mass., Densmore formed what became Clickshare Service Corp., which provides user registration, authentication and transaction-handling for Internet web content sites (more about the concept). Densmore has also served as advertising director for a small, group-owned daily; and as an interim director of the not-for-profit Hancock Shaker Village. He has taught and lectured in journalism at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, in North Adams, Mass., and was a director of the Action Coalition for Media Education. Densmore Associates develops partner and other business strategies for independent media and print publishers, including newspapers and NewsTrusta initiative to create a consumer news-recommendation service. At the start of his career, Densmore worked briefly in public radio in Worcester, Mass., and Amherst, Mass.

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