#iwd2013: 50 female innovators in digital journalism

In celebration of International Women's Day we've compiled a list of female innovators in digital journalism and a Twitter list to follow them all.

From established editors to rising stars and social media gurus to techno trainers, these are fifty women changing the face of journalism in the 21st century, as nominated by our Twitter followers and editorial team.

Now, this list is by no means exhaustive, it's not in any particular order except in an attempt at categorisation and we don't claim to have everyone. It is neither definitive nor prescriptive so if you have any further suggestions then please leave them in the comments box. This a celebration! So crack out the champagne (it is Friday after all) and toast to the...

Founders/editors/producers

• Rachel Sklar

Not only is Rachel the co-founder of Change The Ratio, which seeks to increase visibility and opportunity for women in technology and new media, but she is the editor-at-large at Mediaite.com and founding editor at both Mediaite and the Huffington Post.

Find her on Twitter: @rachelsklar

• Janine Gibson

Charged with bringing the Guardian to an American audience, Janine is editor-in-chief of the web only Guardian US after formerly being editor at the UK site and media editor at the Guardian.

Find her on Twitter: @janinegibson

• Cory Haik

Cory Haik is well-regarded for her role in bringing new and exciting digital products to launch at the Washington Post, and she has a passion for mobile innovation and clever integration of social in particular. One recent example would be the launch of the Truth Teller prototype. According to her bio she has also worked in driving digital at the Seattle Times and the Times-Picayune website NOLA.com. During her time at both outlets the digital teams won a total of three Pulitzer prizes. Here is more on Cory from the ONA.

Find her on Twitter: @coryhaik

• Alison Gow

Alison has steered the digital side of a number of regional news outlets, including the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo and Media Wales and is now editor of the Daily Post in North Wales. She also contributes to the digital journalism conversation via her blog Headlines and Deadlines.

Find her on Twitter: @alisongow

• Anna Doble

Anna looks after the online side of Channel 4 News, including working on projects which harness the online community in the broadcaster's research and reporting. One recent example was its No Go Britain campaign which won the innovative news award at the Royal Television Society awards in February.

Find her on Twitter: @annadoble

• Jennifer Rigby

Also at Channel 4 News is a colleague of Doble's, online journalist Jennifer Rigby, who is also involved in the news channel's social media activity and special projects. She also worked on the No Go Britain campaign.

Find her on Twitter: @jriggers

• Kristine Lowe

Kristine is a journalist in Norway and writes about the 'changing media landscape' on her blog. She also helps contribute to the digital journalism community as founder of the Norwegian Online News Association.

Find her on Twitter: @kristinelowe

• Lyra McKee

Lyra is editor of mediagazer, a site which "presents the day's must-read media news on a single page". She also set up The Muckraker which describes itself as "a non-profit investigative news organisation". The outlet hopes to shine a light on governments and support investigative journalism itself by providing "tips, advice and information".

Find her on Twitter: @lyramckee

• Laura Amico

Laura set up Homicde Watch DC, which documents cases of homicide in the area, in 2010 and ran it with her husband Chris. The website recently secured more than $40,000 using Kickstarter to support the running of the site while Laura and Chris study at Harvard.

Find her on Twitter: @homicidewatch

• Malika Bilal

Malika produces and presents Al Jazeera's social media-driven TV show The Stream. The Stream launched in 2011, and its online community play a significant role in the programme. Malika, for example, has taken to Google+ Hangout to discuss possible future subjects to cover with the audience. In 2012 The Stream won a Webby Award.

Find her on Twitter: @mmbilal

• Lisa Williams

Lisa is the CEO and founder of Placeblogger.com, the world's largest searchable index of weblogs and a winner of the Knight 21st Century News Challenge as well as a fellow at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Civic Media and serves on the board of a number of journalistic organisations.

Find her on Twitter: @placeblogger

• Mallary Tenore

The website for the Poynter Institute offers a hive of content covering digital journalism best practice, advice and practical tips under the managing editorship of Mallary. Before joining Poynter she was a journalist for the Dallas Morning News.

Find her on Twitter: @mallarytenore

• Carla Buzasi

When Huffington Post UK launched in 2011 Carla was named editor-in-chief. Within the first year the site was reporting 3.5 million UK users a month compared to 1.3 million after the first month.

Find her on Twitter: @carlabuzasi

• Deborah Bonello

Deborah is a video journalist and runs mexicoreporter.com. The site features English-language reports covering Mexico-related news, and says it was "first launched as an experiment in digital journalism" in 2007.

Find her on Twitter: @mexicoreporter

• Ruth O'Reilly

Ruth is editor and one of the founders of the Detail, an investigative journalism site with a team based in Northern Ireland. The site was established in 2011 and has also produced data journalism-driven investigations, one of which was shortlisted in last year's data journalism awards by the Global Editor's Network.

Find her on Twitter: @ruth_thedetail

• Cathy Sharick

Cathy has been at Time.com for more than 10 years, from the role of producer to her current position as managing editor. Time.com has a huge social media following, which Cathy spoke to Journalism.co.uk about last year. Right now, Time.com has 4.2 million followers on Twitter and 2.5 million on Google+.

Find her on Twitter: @cathysharick

• Ramaa Sharma

Ramaa is now editor of the BBC's digital content in Delhi. Prior to this she worked in the BBC College of Journalism training BBC staff in key multimedia technology and skills.

Find her on Twitter: @ramaamultimedia

• Anna Holmes

Anna created Jezebel.com in 2007, a site that garners occasional controversy over its feminist stances but that was also praised as being at the forefront of  the 'online oestrogen revolution' upon its inception.

Find her on Twitter: @AnnaHolmes


Data/apps/interactive

• Claire Miller

A senior reporter at Media Wales, Claire is a self-confessed 'maths geek', using her love of data journalism to source and report on stories for the South Wales Echo, Western Mail, Wales on Sunday and WalesOnline.

Find her on Twitter: @clairemilleruk

• Chrys Wu

Chrys has more titles and projects than would fit on an A4 page, let alone a three line summary, but the founder of NYC Ruby Women and co-organiser of Hacks/HackersNYC moonlights as a consultant to the Knight foundation and has been part of a number of award-winning, traffic-driving projects. When she's not speaking on data journalism or coding she's a journalist and user engagement strategist. Phew.

Find her on Twitter: @macdiva

• Nicola Hughes

Nicola's first gig was at CNN as your ordinary staffer but was quickly promoted to digital media producer once her self-taught coding skills were spotted. Looking to go deeper, she left CNN for ScraperWiki and started up Datamineruk and is now a Knight-Mozilla Fellow at the Guardian and data journalist at the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

Find her on Twitter: @datamineruk

• Lauren Rabaino

Seattle Times' news applications editor Lauren Rabaino builds tools and platforms for digital storytelling and reader engagement. The news apps group within Seattle Times was praised by Pandodailys late last year for helping to revitalise the newspaper.

Find her on Twitter: @laurenrabaino

• Giannina Segnini

Producing the kind of work journalist students dream of, Giannina is the founder and co-ordinator of the investigative unit at La Nación in Costa Rica, working largely with data. Under her stewardship the unit uncovered corruption scandals which led to the arrest of two former presidents of Costa Rica.

Find her on Twitter: @gianninasegnini

• Angelica Peralta Ramos

Angelica founded the multi award-winning website for the Argentinian newspaper La Nación in 1995 and recently turned her attention to data, launching a data blog, open data catalog and data section for the website since leading a data journalism development project since 2011.

Find her on Twitter: @momiperalta

• Juliana Rotich

As co-founder of Ushahidi (Swahili for 'testimony') Juliana has developed web tools to report on crises or events on a real time basis, using crowdsourced data. The Ushahidi platform was first used in 2007 for the presidential elections in her native Kenya but has since been used in Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, Tanzania and Haiti.

Find her on Twitter: @afromusing

• Bella Hurrell

Bella is the specials editor with BBC News Online, creating graphics, interactives and visualisations for the BBC website by unpicking data sets and presenting them for readers.

Find her on Twitter: @BellaHurrell

• Federica Cocco

Originally the founder of Owni.eu, which twice won the Excellence in Journalism Award at the Online News Association, Federica now keeps the spin doctors on their toes as a writer and researcher at fact-checking website FullFact, as well as writing for a host of international titles.

Find her on Twitter: @federicacocco


Social/Community

• Erica Berger

As well as heading up the US office of social media "newsroom" Storyful, Erica co-founded volunTech, connecting New York techies to the local community, and contributes to the Economist and VentureBeat. She was also named in Forbes' '30-under-30' for media.

Find her on Twitter: @GoodBerger

• Sue Llewellyn

Sue spent 15 years at the BBC before developing a social media training programme that she has delivered to thousands of journalists, largely through her company Ultra Social, as well as working with NGOs and charities.

Find her on Twitter: @suellewellyn

• Liz Heron

One of New York's many social media wizards (witches, although more gender-specific, isn't the nicest word) Liz did the rounds in audience development and web strategy at ABC, the Washington Post and the New York Times before settling into her current role at the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, managing a team of journalists focused on social media and user engagement.

Find her on Twitter: @lheron

• Claire Wardle

Another addition from the Storyful team, where she is director of news services, Claire was an academic in an earlier life before moving to the BBC to develop their social media training and travelling the world to work with journalists and communications staff. She has been at Storyful for a year.

Find her on Twitter: @cward1e

• Joanna Geary

Joanna has been changing the way the Guardian interacts with its readers in various roles since migrating across London from the Times. Currently the Guardian's social and communities editor, she also founded Hacks/Hackers London.

Find her on Twitter: @GuardianJoanna

• Sarah Hartley

A dedicated hyperlocal enthusiast and award winning journalistic entrepreneur, Sarah is currently managing director at Talk About Local and has a wealth of projects on the go from media training, to community consultancy and developing the open journalism toolkit n0tice.org.

Find her on Twitter: @foodiesarah

• Laura Oliver

In her role as community manager for the Guardian, Laura fosters debate and discussion around the website and across the web. She is also the former editor of Journalism.co.uk.

Find her on Twitter: @LauraOliver

• Mary Hamilton

Another Guardian technophile, Mary is the deputy SEO editor at their website and spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about the zombie apocalypse. She announced last month that she will soon be starting a secondment in Sydney as the Guardian launches a digital outlet in Australia.

Find her on Twitter: @newsmary

• Blair Hickman

Blair is a social media producer at ProPublica, involved in engaging social media networks in the non-profit's investigative journalism. A recent example would be the way ProPublica's investigation into patient safety in the US health system was supported by an engaged Facebook group.

Find her on Twitter: @amandablair

• Amanda Zamora

Also at ProPublica is Amanda Zamora, senior engagement editor, who joined last year and was involved in the recent launch of the new Get Involved section on the site to drive community participation.

Find her on Twitter: @amzam

• Kate Day

Kate has been a forerunner in using digital media to tell stories in her work at the Daily Telegraph, where she is now social media and engagement editor.

Find her on Twitter: @kate_day

• Lexi Mainland

Social media editor at the New York Times, Lexi cut her teeth making documentaries at PBS and won the NYT an Emmy for her multimedia series One in 8 Million, about everyday New Yorkers.

Find her on Twitter: @lexinyt

• Lucia Adams

Lucia has made herself invaluable at the Times since joining in 2002, she recently left her post as digital development editor to become the head of news development and the deputy head of digital for both the Times and the Sunday Times.

Find her on Twitter: @lucia_adams

• Katie Rogers

Before joining the Guardian US as social news editor Katie was a local news blogger and social media manager for the Washington Post and journalist in her native Chicago.

Find her on Twitter: @katierogers

• Hannah Waldram

One of the Guardian.co.uk's community co-ordinators, Hannah has built a career out of engaging with communities both digitally and IRL, both in terms of hyperlocal sites and, more recently, co-founding the community manager group cmLDN.

Find her on Twitter: @hrwaldram

• Jo Kelly

Jo's work at Trinity Mirror plc was deemed so important that she had a new role created for her last year. Stepping up from social media and communities editor at the Liverpool Echo, she is now the company-wide communities editor, overseeing user generated content at all the companies regional titles.

Find her on Twitter: @jokelly

• Abigail Edge

Another rising star in the UK, she received the Guardian's Scott Trust bursary to study at City University London before working her way up to be the group online editor at Midland News Association. She recently wrote about MNA's responsive design for Journalism.co.uk.

Find her on Twitter: @abigailedge


Development

• Samantha Barry

A journalist and producer with BBC World News, Samantha is also a media trainer with BBC Media Action, training journalists and researchers in media skills around the world: from Burma and Nigeria to Pakistan and Papua New Guinea.

Find her on Twitter: @samanthabarry

• Gerry Jackson

Gerry founded SW Radio Africa in Zimbabwe in 2000 but, faced with being surrounded by paramilitaries, she fled to the UK. The station has been broadcasting news to Zimbabwe from London since 2001, despite attempts to block the signal, and is now supplementing its broadcasts with more than 25,000 SMS messages a day to the country.

Find her on Twitter: @JacksonGerry

• Libby Powell

Radar Media Development, the organisation Libby co-founded with fellow journalist and development campaigner Alice Klein (@alicerklein), trains citizen journalists in developing countries to set up networks and report on events, such as the 2012 elections in Sierra Leone and this year's Kenyan presidential elections.

Find her on Twitter: @OnOurRadar


Academia

• Emily Bell

Formerly director of digital content at Guardian news and media, Emily is now the director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and is an important contributor to the overall discourse of journalism in the 21st century.

Find her on Twitter: @emilybell

• Mindy McAdams

Mindy has been heralded as a pioneer in online journalism by the Knight Foundation for her work on the web since 1994. She is now a professor at the University of Florida, Knight chair in journalism technologies and the democratic process and an international educator in multimedia skills. Her website alone is considered a key resource for students of journalism everywhere.

Find her on Twitter: @macloo

• Miranda Mulligan

Miranda left her post as the design director for digital at The Boston Globe to become executive director of the Knight News Innovation Lab at Chicago's NorthWestern in June 2012, intending to "further [her] exploration of innovative storytelling and publishing techniques".

Find her on Twitter: @jmm


Thank you to everyone who made a nomination on Twitter, sorry we weren't able to use them all but feel free to add more suggestions in the comments box below.

Update: This article was updated to add that the digital team at the Seattle Times also won a Pulitzer prize, making it three in total during Cory Haik's time with the teams there and at NOLA.com. The spelling of Malika Bilal's surname was also corrected. Libby Powell's personal Twitter handle is @Libby__Powell, and tweets from @OnOurRadar

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).