Editor’s note: In an ongoing series, INMA is profiling our most engaged members — our super fans — to give members a chance to learn more about each other. Today we profile Damon Kiesow, professor/Knight Chair in digital editing and producing for Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri, in the United States.

One of the news media industry’s greatest challenges is the need for reliable local information. That need has only increased in the past 10 years, but the business model for it has collapsed, leaving a gap between solutions. While we work through the challenge, it is communities that suffer most from this lack of coverage.

Damon Kiesow, professor/Knight Chair in digital editing and producing for Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri, said the challenge facing companies is determining where to best devote our attention and resources to minimise local harm. The world has changed dramatically in the past couple of years, showing us how complex and unpredictable it can be.

“We face a series of wicked problems comprised of dense networks of challenges with no clear boundaries or answers,” Kiesow said. “I have turned my focus to elevating product management as a discipline in news organisations and enabling students to see this as a career path that can help rebuild the infrastructure of news.”

INMA recently caught up with him to learn more.

INMA: If you had your career to do over again, what would you want to know in the beginning?

Kiesow: This is not easy-to-follow career advice, but I had the luxury to do so when changing jobs a few years ago: Figure out what you like most about your current job and spend more time doing that. It also works as life advice.

INMA: What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning

Kiesow: Students. I teach a first-year news writing course and a senior capstone in product management. I have learned as much about both writing and product management in the past four years working with students as I did in the previous 20.

INMA: What is the craziest job or project you’ve ever done in media — and what did you learn from it?

Kiesow: This is a tough question. I had to look through LinkedIn to even begin to narrow this down. An origin story is probably most relevant: I left AOL in 2005 and came back to the Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph as managing editor/online. While there, we experimented with almost any new digital trend.

We were one of the first newspapers on Twitter, had a reality TV cooking show, and did live broadcasts of all of our editorial board interviews with the New Hampshire primary presidential candidates from John McCain to Ron Paul to Barack Obama. Looking back, that was my first job in product management.

INMA: What success within your company are you most proud of right now?

Kiesow: My work allows me to be broadly collaborative. The things I am personally most proud of are the partnerships and projects we can pursue: I helped co-found the News Product Alliance and also sponsor an internship programme with the Institute for Nonprofit News. That programme places Mizzou students of colour in the audience and product/strategy roles in member newsrooms.

INMA: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your career?

Kiesow: If you commute to work, always live to the east. Driving into the sun is a horrible way to start and end each day. It is the little things.

INMA: What do you do to relax?

Kiesow: The pandemic has been an interesting time for this. I have been trying to learn to play guitar; it is a good counterpoint to writing. I got back into amateur radio and have been reading more novels.

INMA: If you hadn’t gone into news media, what was your backup plan?

Kiesow: I had (and have) literally no backup plan. My interests in school were photojournalism and technology, so I probably would have ended up in one or the other of those fields.

INMA: What is your favourite thing to read?

Kiesow: I am writing a textbook about news product management, so I have been reading non-fiction non-stop for two years. So, to read for enjoyment I have been listening to audiobooks whenever possible. I am through science fiction from Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, N.K. Jemisin, among others, to the tune of 133 books in the past 18 months.

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