Mary Jo Meisner

communications VP, The Boston Foundation

Mary Jo Meisner joined the Boston Foundation in November 2001 as Vice President for Communications, Community Relations and Public Affairs. In her current capacity, she is responsible for all of the Foundation's communications, media relations, public affairs, and civic leadership activities, including the Boston Indicators Project and helping shaping the Foundation's public policy initiatives. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Meisner spent 25 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, editor and news executive at newspapers throughout the United States. From April 1997 to February 2001, she was Editor and Vice Chairman of Community Newspaper Company, New England's largest newspaper publisher, with more than 1 million readers each week. The company was sold to the Boston Herald in February 2001. From June 1993 to January 1997, Ms. Meisner was the Editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where she oversaw the merger of the afternoon Milwaukee Journal and the morning Milwaukee Sentinel in April 1995. Prior to joining the Journal as Editor in 1993, Ms. Meisner was Managing Editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. From 1987 to 1991, Ms. Meisner was City Editor of the Washington Post, where she was responsible for the coverage of the city of Washington and oversaw the criminal investigations of then-Mayor Marian Barry. She also has served as Metropolitan Editor of the San Jose (CA) Mercury News and Metropolitan Editor of the Philadelphia Daily News. She started her career as a reporter for the Wilmington News-Journal in Wilmington, Delaware. Ms. Meisner is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the International Press Institute, of which she is still a member of the board. She also served for many years on the board of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association. She has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror three times and was chair of the 1996 ASNE Writing Awards. In addition, she has taught various writing, editing, journalism ethics and management courses at the Maynard Institute, The Poynter Institute for Media Affairs and the American Press Institute. Ms. Meisner serves on the board of several Boston area organizations, including the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay, the Greater Boston Food Bank, the ACCESS Scholarship Program and REACH Beyond Domestic Violence.