Amy Kovac-Ashley

Amy Kovac-Ashley is vice president and senior director at the American Press Institute, where her portfolio encompasses accountability journalism and organizational transformation and culture change, which includes the Table Stakes program. She is the creator and nurturer of the Table Stakes Alumni Network and a co-founder of BetterNews.org. She designed and leads API’s adviser and community listening programs. She also advises and coaches news leaders on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, including mentorship programs, and was an adviser to the ONA Journalism Mentorship Collaborative in 2018. Amy is interested in finding new ways to support newsroom talent development and to facilitate peer learning. She is currently on the advisory board of the nonprofit news organization Open Campus. Prior to joining API, Amy worked as a journalism educator. She was the managing director of West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media Innovation Center and the assistant dean of Georgetown University’s master’s in journalism program. She has taught journalism ethics, media writing, media law and Capstone courses. She spent a dozen years as a professional journalist, with most of her time working in print or digital news. She reported on education and other local affairs at The Herald News and The Roanoke Times and was an editor at Foreign Policy magazine, Patch.com and The Washington Post, where she was the paper’s first social media editor. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children.