Editor

Sara built her career in local rooms, not national ones

Before joining Read This Online, Sara was Deputy Editor at Riverstone Media Group, overseeing 22 alt-weekly titles across the Midwest. She restructured their story-assignment process to reduce duplication across sister publications, freeing reporters to cover more ground with the same headcount. She also spent five years at the Tri-County Gazette as a beat reporter and later as city desk editor, where she broke a series on municipal contract irregularities that prompted two city council members to resign.

Earlier in her career, Sara held editing roles at Southgate Independent and the Western States Press Cooperative. Both positions focused on audience development for underserved suburban communities — readers often ignored by metro dailies but with no shortage of news affecting their lives.

She has a specific approach to technology in the newsroom

Sara is skeptical of tools that promise to replace editorial judgment. The systems she has adopted at Read This Online handle mechanical tasks, routing, tagging, and source verification checks, so reporters can focus on work that those tools cannot do. She introduced a community-relevance scoring model in 2022 that reduced story-placement errors by 41% without increasing the editorial team’s size.

Current tools in use at Read This Online:

• Automated source credibility checks tied to local public records databases
• Real-time audience signal dashboards that flag coverage gaps by zip code
• A custom story-routing algorithm that matches breaking items to the reporter with the deepest beat knowledge
• Cross-outlet syndication tools with built-in attribution tracking

Her academic background shaped how she reads audiences

Sara holds a Master’s degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Media Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her graduate thesis examined how Spanish-language community newspapers in the Rio Grande Valley retained reader trust during the print-to-digital transition — a question she returns to regularly when evaluating new distribution strategies at Read This Online.

She serves on boards that hold the industry accountable

Sara currently sits on the advisory boards of:

• The Independent Community Press Alliance
• The Journalism Ethics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin
• Local News Watch, a nonprofit press accountability organization
• The Regional Press Sustainability Fund

Recognition reflects the work, not the ambition

Selected awards and recognition:

1. Independent Press Association Editor of the Year (2023)
2. Press Forward Fellowship for Local News Leadership (2021)
3. Online News Association Community Reporting Award (2019)
4. IRE (Investigative Reporters & Editors) Regional Award for Public Service Journalism (2014)

She writes and speaks about what she has actually done

Sara contributes regularly to Nieman Reports and the American Press Institute’s research blog. Her writing draws on case studies from Read This Online’s own data, not hypotheticals. She avoids broad pronouncements about the future of journalism and instead describes specific decisions, their outcomes, and what she would do differently.

Speaking topics she covers with authority

• Staffing and workflow design for multi-outlet local news networks
• Audience trust in hyperlocal digital news
• Editorial standards for AI-assisted reporting tools
• Revenue models that don’t compromise coverage independence
• Covering underrepresented communities without parachuting in

Speaking and media inquiries go through the editorial office

For speaking requests, interview inquiries, or professional connections, Sara can be reached through the editorial office at Read This Online. She responds to requests related to community journalism, newsroom management, and press sustainability.

Last modified: February 18, 2026