Linda Austin hired as NewsTrain director

APME is pleased to announce a new project director for its popular regional New Train workshops. Veteran editor and educator Linda Austin will run NewsTrain, a 10-year-old national touring workshop serving journalists in their own cities. Programs are designed to provide training in the skills, knowledge and information newsroom leaders need in a rapidly changing media environment. 

This year's News Train workshops will be hosted in Vancouver, Canada; Columbus, Ohio; Las Vegas, Nev., and Austin, Texas.

"APME looks forward to delivering the high-quality, low-cost training to journalists that has been one of our core initiatives and is thrilled that Linda Austin will lead our efforts," said APME President Debra Adams Simmons.

Austin has been the executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and a professor of practice at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication for the past five years. Before that, she was the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky; executive editor of The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind.; and managing editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C.  She also held leadership positions at The Philadelphia Inquirer, including business editor, graphics editor, assistant managing editor/finance and editor/publisher of PhillyTech magazine. She was a fellow in the Punch Sulzberger Executive News Media Leadership Program at Columbia University’s Journalism School and earned a master’s degree in educational technology from Arizona State University.   

She will jump right in. The first News Train of 2014 is April 25-26 in Vancouver.

“I want to continue helping journalists to access high-quality, low-cost training after I leave the Reynolds Center in March,” Austin said. “As a former APME member and NewsTrain attendee, I know firsthand how essential this training program is. I’m honored to help continue its proud tradition in its second decade.”