Vandana Sinha and Kevin Sweeney Named to Reynolds Center Posts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Reston, VA - The new Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at the American Press Institute has named its project manager and its Web managing editor.

Vandana Sinha, a former business reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and an associate editor and reporter for The Washington Post Co.'s technology magazines, is the Reynolds Center's project manager and associate Web editor.

Sinha will help direct workshops around the country and also write a column online. Coordinator for the District of Columbia chapter of the South Asian Journalists Association, she holds dual degrees in journalism and government/politics from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Kevin Sweeney, managing editor of Thomson Financial's BenefitNews.com Web site for the past three years, becomes Web managing editor at the Reynolds Center. He had been responsible for a significant revamping of BenefitNews.com, which deals with financial aspects of employee benefits.

Sweeney will direct the launch of a new Web site specifically designed for business journalists and oversee its daily content. He holds a degree in mass communication from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and was a former copy editor with The Roanoke (VA) Times.

"Vandana and Kevin bring talent and enthusiasm to the nationwide efforts of our new Center," said Andrew Leckey, director of the Reynolds Center. "Both are dedicated to helping improve the quality of American business journalism."

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism was created in 2003 with a $3 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Center will sponsor 60 free, daylong workshops in each of its first three years and initiate a Web site dedicated to journalists who wish to know more about business journalism. Its pilot workshops take place in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.; Minneapolis and San Jose, California during November.

For more information, contact Andrew Leckey at (703) 715-3329 or aleckey@americanpressinstitute.org

About the American Press Institute

The American Press Institute is an independent, not-for-profit 501c(3) educational center with headquarters in Reston, Virginia. Founded in 1946 as the leadership-development and skills-training arm of the news industry, the Institute offers about three dozen weeklong residential seminars annually for professionals in all newspaper departments. More than 35,000 women and men from all newspaper departments - from broadcast and new-media operations, and from magazines and schools of journalism - have attended these programs. The Institute also offers training online; operates an Extended Learning Center that develops intensive on-site educational programs for individual media companies, and conducts special Issues Forums concerning key operating problems and opportunities as they arise on the media landscape. In addition, API's Media Center is a worldwide leader in helping the news industry devise strategies and tactics for improving online content and revenues, and the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at API offers free one-day workshops to train journalists to cover business issues.

Media Contact:
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