Chris Peck, co-founder, Journalism that Matters and editor, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Excerpt from http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/columnist/0,1426,MCA_539_17173,00.html#bio

Chris Peck is a former president of both the Associated Press
Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors and is
now editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. He oversees all news
and opinion operations and directs a staff of approximately 180
reporters, editors and photographers. Peck came to Memphis in 2003
after serving for one year as the first Belo Distinguished Chair of
Journalism at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Before that, he
was editor of The Spokesman-Review, in Spokane, Wash. Under his
direction, The Spokesman-Review was cited by Columbia Journalism Review
as one of the 25 best papers in the United States.

Stephen Silha, co-founder, Journalism That Matters and past president, Washington News Council, Seattle, Wash.

Stephen Silha is a freelance writer, communications consultant,
facilitator and futurist. A co-facilitator of Journalism That Matters,
Stephen was a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and The
Minneapolis Star before becoming communications director for the
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

He co-convened the first symposium on The Media and Philanthropy at
the Chicago Tribune, and worked on the research project on community
communications called Good News/Good Deeds: Citizen Effectiveness in
the Age of Electronic Democracy (http://www.goodnewsgooddeeds.org].
Silha has worked with youth to get their voices in the media, and to
facilitate youth-adult dialogues on Vashon Island, near Seattle, where
he lives. He is immediate past president and a board member of the
Washington News Council.

   Peggy Holman, co-founder, Journalism that Matters and author, The Change Handbook and Engaging Emergence, Seattle, Wash.

Peggy Holman convenes and hosts conversations that
matter, inviting people and systems to gather around the issues most
important to them. By growing their capacity to step into the seemingly
chaotic by using generative processes that call forth the best of who
they are and can be, Peggy has been honored to witness organizations
and communities unleash the energy and wisdom to move dreams to action.
The vastly expanded second edition of her book, The Change Handbook
(Berrett-Koehler, 2007), co-edited with Tom Devane and Steven Cady, has
been warmly received as an aid to people wishing to increase
resilience, agility, collaboration, and aliveness in their
organizations and communities. Over the last seven years, Peggy has
worked with journalists in redefining journalism for the 21st century.
She has an MBA from Seattle University. Her current inquiry is into how
we take to scale the art and practice of engagement to shift our
collective capacity for living well together.

Bill Densmore, co-director, Journalism that Matters and director, The Media Giraffe Project at UMass, Amherst, Mass.

Bill Densmore is director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the New England News Forum.
The MGP, launched in March, 2005, is an effort to find and spotlight
individuals making sustainable, innovative use of media (old and new)
to foster participatory democracy and community. Holding a degree in
environmental policy and communications, he is knowledgeable on
Internet information technologies and business models. A career
journalist, he has been an editor/writer for The Associated Press, for
trade publications in business, law and insurance; and freelanced for
general circulation dailies including the Boston Globe. He has written
for ComputerWorld Magazine. In 1993, after nine years owning and
publishing weeklies in Berkshire County, Mass., Densmore formed what
became Clickshare Service Corp., which provides user registration, authentication and transaction-handling for Internet web content sites (more about the concept).
Densmore has also served as advertising director for a small,
group-owned daily; and as an interim director of the not-for-profit Hancock Shaker Village. He has taught and lectured in journalism at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, in North Adams, Mass., and is a director of the Action Coalition for Media Education.
Densmore Associates develops partner and other business strategies for
independent media and print publishers, including newspapers and NewsTrusta
initiative to create a consumer news-recommendation service. At the
start of his career, Densmore worked briefly in public radio in
Worcester, Mass., and Amherst, Mass.

Cole Campbell (deceased), former editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, former dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno

Cole Campbell was essential in shaping Journalism that Matters.
We honor his contribution to the field of journalism and miss his wit
and wisdom.

Excerpt from Peter Levine:

http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/2007/01/cole-campbell-1.html

Cole Campbell died in a car accident. Cole had been editor of The Virginian-Pilot and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
where he introduced and developed the concept of “public journalism.”
Cole and his reporters did not take for granted that there was a
“public” (in John Dewey’s sense) for their work. In other words, they
did not assume that there were people out there who showed interest in
public issues, who talked with one another, and who belonged to
effective groups. In fact, all such forms of political engagement were
in decline–just as newspaper readership was falling. In response, Cole
and other practitioners of public journalism created neutral forums for
public discussion. They stimulated interest in civic participation by
covering civil society (not just campaigns and politicians). They
changed daily practices in the newsroom. For example, instead of
automatically looking for controversies and problems, they would
sometimes celebrate consensus and civic assets. They also found new
sources: civic leaders who didn’t hold official titles. In short, Cole
and his reporters redefined “the news” and redesigned the newspaper to
promote civic life.