Jean Hodges
Loyola University graduate Jean Hodges is passionate about news as a vehicle for sharing accurate information, and storytelling’s power to unite people around common values.
As the current senior director of news culture and communication at Gannett Co., Inc., Hodges brings those values to the forefront of her work each day. Her position at the largest publisher in the nation is focused on everything from content development to onboarding new talent to employee retention.
When coronavirus altered the newsroom operation forever, Hodges focused on leading initiatives that meet the challenges of the virtual newsroom with training geared to virtual leadership and coping with burnout.
Prior to the GateHouse Media and Gannett Co. merger in 2019, Hodges was the senior director of content for the News and Interactive division of GateHouse. In this role she developed content strategy for more than 300 community newsrooms across the country, and helped to launch GateHouse News Service as the national editor for shared content that was used across newspapers, both online and in print.
Hodges’s extensive experience with in-depth journalism and leading newsrooms makes her the ideal mentor for young journalists. Her commitment to mentoring the new cadre of leaders with Report for America, a national service program that places emerging journalists into local newsrooms, ensures that journalists across the country continue to build trust in the communities they cover. This work extends to her partnership with historically Black colleges and universities
and Hispanic-serving institutions of higher education to offer paid internships to those who have traditionally been underserved.
Before moving into the corporate world of news, Hodges spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor, leading groundbreaking projects in New Mexico, Texas, and Illinois.
Hodges holds a Bachelor of Art in English and Philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, where her studies directly informed her passion for using communication to right wrongs and to give a voice to the voiceless. She was also a Knight Digital Media Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, where she focused on different forms of storytelling beyond print, especially video and audio.
Loyola University graduate Jean Hodges is passionate about news as a vehicle for sharing accurate information, and storytelling’s power to unite people around common values.
As the current senior director of news culture and communication at Gannett Co., Inc., Hodges brings those values to the forefront of her work each day. Her position at the largest publisher in the nation is focused on everything from content development to onboarding new talent to employee retention.
When coronavirus altered the newsroom operation forever, Hodges focused on leading initiatives that meet the challenges of the virtual newsroom with training geared to virtual leadership and coping with burnout.
Prior to the GateHouse Media and Gannett Co. merger in 2019, Hodges was the senior director of content for the News and Interactive division of GateHouse. In this role she developed content strategy for more than 300 community newsrooms across the country, and helped to launch GateHouse News Service as the national editor for shared content that was used across newspapers, both online and in print.
Hodges’s extensive experience with in-depth journalism and leading newsrooms makes her the ideal mentor for young journalists. Her commitment to mentoring the new cadre of leaders with Report for America, a national service program that places emerging journalists into local newsrooms, ensures that journalists across the country continue to build trust in the communities they cover. This work extends to her partnership with historically Black colleges and universities
and Hispanic-serving institutions of higher education to offer paid internships to those who have traditionally been underserved.
Before moving into the corporate world of news, Hodges spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor, leading groundbreaking projects in New Mexico, Texas, and Illinois.
Hodges holds a Bachelor of Art in English and Philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, where her studies directly informed her passion for using communication to right wrongs and to give a voice to the voiceless. She was also a Knight Digital Media Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, where she focused on different forms of storytelling beyond print, especially video and audio.