Al Maloney
Production Manager
Al Maloney is an editor living in Appalachia and serving as the Athens County Independent’s Production Manager.
Corinne Colbert
Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief
With a four-decade career spanning journalism, teaching, consulting, project management, and nonprofit communications and marketing, Corinne (she/her) brings deep experience to local news leadership. A passionate advocate for small and rural newsrooms, Corinne was elected to the Institute for Nonprofit News Board of Directors in 2024 and has presented at several national journalism conferences and workshops.
Corinne holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in film studies, both from Ohio University. A permanent resident of Athens County since 1996, she lives in Canaan Township with her husband, an Alexander High School graduate; their two college-student sons; and a miniature bull terrier named Grizzly.
Dani Kington
Co-Founder & Staff Writer
Dani Kington (she/her) is a journalist and fiction writer. Before co-founding the Athens County Independent, Dani served as the assistant editor of the Athens Messenger and worked in communications at the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio. She initially moved to Athens County to study creative writing at Ohio University.
Dani’s environmental reporting for the Independent is supported by a grant from the Sugar Bush Foundation.
Eric Boll
Environmental Reporter
Eric Boll (he/him) is a journalist from Mansfield, Ohio, with many family connections to Southeast Ohio. A third-generation Bobcat, he studied News and Information Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. As an undergrad, Eric worked for MileSplit Ohio as a reporter and editor covering cross country and track and field. Eric returned to Ohio University in 2022 to get his masters in Journalism with a focus on science and environmental communication. Outside of journalism Eric can be found working on stained glass art, cooking or riding his bike.
Eric’s work with the Independent is supported by a grant from the Sugar Bush Foundation.
Jen Bartlett
Creative Director
Jen Bartlett (she/her) graduated from Hocking College in 2010 with a degree in Interactive Multimedia. She went on to be a graphic designer for The Athens Messenger for 11 years designing advertisements, digital web ads, posters and other promotional work for the newspapers and their clients. Jen is a co-founder of the Athens County Independent, officially joining as Creative Director in September 2022.
Keri Johnson
Co-Founder & Reporter
Keri Johnson is a journalist and poet from Southeast Ohio. Before co-founding the Independent, Keri served as an AmeriCorps VISTA at Rural Action and worked as a general assignment reporter for The Logan Daily News. Keri is a first-generation graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, grateful to work in Appalachian Ohio and passionate about capturing its stories.
Emily Beveridge
Development Director
Emily Beveridge (she/her) has lived her entire adult life in Athens, first coming to the city to study painting at Ohio University in 2002. She is committed to public service: She served as an election judge consistently from 2002 to 2020 and as an AmeriCorps VISTA for Federal Valley Resource Center from 2006 to 2008. She also worked with Arts West, a municipal arts center run by the city of Athens, from 2015–2023.
Beveridge holds a BFA and an MFA in painting from Ohio University. She is a visual artist, curator, grant writer, graphic designer, gardener and professional DJ handler. She is currently creating a series of paintings which will focus on themes of the medieval, the apocalypse and women’s rights.
Emily previously served on Southeast Ohio Independent News’ Board of Directors and is excited to work as the Athens County Independent’s Development Director.
Southeast Ohio Independent News Board Members
Mark Turner
President
Mark Turner became an assistant professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in the fall of 2021 following a stint as a visiting professional. Turner is the former executive news editor at the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, where he worked in a number of editorial positions. Before joining the Pulitzer-awarded Beacon Journal, Turner had been a reporter and editor in his home state of Louisiana. Turner graduated from Louisiana Tech University (Go Dawgs!) with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and received a master’s degree in media management from Kent State University. Turner’s research in pursuit of his Ph.D. has focused on media effects as well as diversity in news media as it relates to evolving journalism education and practice.
Janice Collins
Vice President
Dr. Collins is a multinational and international award-winning professional journalist and media expert with more than 35 years of experience in the media industry. She is also an international and national award-winning professor, scholar, researcher of mixed methodology and creative with 21 years of experience on the university level.
Collins was selected as one of the nation’s Top 50 Journalism Professors in 2012 by Journalismdegree.org and has received national recognition for her teaching, research, creative endeavors, and service, including the Baskett Mosse National Award for Faculty Development AEJMC 2017. She won second place in “Best in Digital,” AEJMC 2017, for her website of Inclusion, Hearmyvoiceonline.com
In all that she does, she works to bring out the best in people and works to make the world more informed, more educated, kinder, and gentler to one another as a Global family. In proper fashion, she was selected as GAIA International Alliance 2023 Humanity Leader Top Picks. Collins is also a Kopenhaver Fellow.
She earned a B.A. in Speech Communications with a specializing in Communication/Rhetoric, a certificate in Women’s Studies and was a standout student-athlete and inductee in the ACC Legends Hall of Fame representing Women’s Basketball at Wake Forest University. She earned her M.S. in Journalism at E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and PH.D. in Mass Communications and Media Arts and Studies and Women and Gender Studies in the Scripps College of Communications. She specializes in broadcast and digital journalism and media storytelling, leadership development, de-marginalization, full inclusion pedagogical design.
Eli Flournoy
Treasurer
Social impact investor, environmentalist, and award-winning veteran journalist, Eli Flournoy teaches and consults on communications, non-extractive business models, and business ethics for nonprofit and for-profit organizations following a 24-year career at CNN.
As executive director of Sugarbush Valley Impact Investments, Eli supports social impact companies in the areas of renewable energy, zero waste, local foods, and rural broadband, as well as a 400-acre agricultural and environmental incubator on the farm where he grew up in Athens, Ohio. He is a founding member of the Impact Innovation Group council of advisors and serves on corporate boards for Ohio-based firms, including renewable energy fin-tech company New Resource Solutions, Shagbark Seed & Mill and an innovative shipping container logistics and transportation company called QuickLoadz. Eli’s sustainable economic development consulting includes work as an executive in residence for Ohio University’s Social Enterprise Ecosystem program. Eli also builds journalism business models as senior media industry consultant for Mather Economics in Atlanta.
As a founding director of the Sugar Bush Foundation, Eli facilitates collaboration between Ohio University and local communities through joint design innovation of sustainable environmental and socioeconomic development projects in Appalachian Ohio. Eli also serves on boards for Ohio University’s Department of Management and Social Media Analytics Research Team (SMART) Lab.
A social justice advocate, Eli serves on the Board of Inspiritus, a relief agency providing refugee, immigration, disaster relief, disability and child and family services in the Southeastern United States. Eli also serves on church council and the COVID Task Force for Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Atlanta.
Eli has an MBA from Ohio University and BA in political science from Indiana University.
Tom Hodson
Inside Courts
Hodson has had dual career paths throughout his professional career in law and journalism. He was a trial attorney for over 20 years and was a trial judge in both Municipal Court and Common Pleas Court in Ohio for seven years.
Hodson also served as a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States in the Administrative Office of the Chief Justice. He also has been a visiting judge on assignment by the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Throughout his legal career, Hodson pursued journalistic projects both in print and broadcast.
Hodson also has been active in producing public affairs programming for radio and is the host of WOUB’s weekly public affairs podcast, Spectrum. He is the executive producer of six other podcasts.
He has published and continues to write numerous articles and columns for newspapers, magazines, and trade journals.
He co-authored a book called Journalists’ Handbook to Ohio Courts.
He has written and been talent for numerous public television documentaries and public affairs programs.
Laura Harbert Allen
Laura Harbert Allen covers the intersection of religion, politics and culture for 100 Days in Appalachia, a nonprofit digital news organization. In 2025, she was one of three journalists selected for a Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Public Service Journalism by the SPJ Foundation. In her fellowship, Allen is exploring how AI, tech utopianism and Christian Nationalism are reshaping rural Appalachia.
Before joining 100 Days, she contributed to podcasts such as “Making Contact,” “Us & Them,” “Freakonomics Radio” and “Inside Appalachia.”
Allen earned her Ph.D. at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, where she taught media criticism and audio/podcasting. Her career in media — a total accident — began when she unknowingly walked into a public radio studio in New Bern, North Carolina. She has since been a public media host, reporter, producer and manager in New Bern, Richmond, Kentucky, and West Virginia, and for eight years she was the communications director for the West Virginia United Methodist Conference.
