Bio
Madeline Bair is the founder of El Tímpano, an award-winning local news and civic engagement organization designed with and for the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrants. El Tímpano has been cited as an inspiration by news outlets across the country striving to better serve diverse communities. Bair’s work straddles the intersection of citizen journalism, human rights, and community organizing, with the goal of equipping community members to tell impactful stories about issues affecting them. As Senior Program Manager at WITNESS Media Lab, she collaborated with media activists around the world using technology in novel ways to document injustice. At Free Press, she strengthened the capacity of newsrooms to build trusting relationships with the communities they cover and serve. Bair’s stories have appeared in The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Orion, and Colorlines, and broadcast on The World and Independent Lens.