Tim Franklin, the founding director of the Medill Local News Initiative and the school’s senior associate dean, will step down from those roles in September as he begins a phased transition to retirement.
Franklin will continue to serve as the John M. Mutz Chair in Local News and will be intimately involved in Local News Initiative projects. He’ll continue to oversee Medill’s State of Local News Project through next spring, as well as edit LNI’s website, make public speaking appearances and help with fundraising.
Mackenzie Warren, the director of Medill’s Local News Accelerator, is named interim executive director of the Local News Initiative. Warren joined Medill more than two years ago after having served as a top news executive at Gannett, the nation’s largest local news publisher.
