Courtney Sebesta

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT COURTNEY SEBESTA

Courtney Sebesta began her professional journalism career 24 years ago at the Austin American-Statesman working her way from Editorial Assistant to Senior Digital Editor to Managing Editor to Editor-in-Chief. Her teams have won prestigious national journalism prizes like the duPont-Columbia University Award, multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards and most recently was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Public Service. While she has been with the Statesman, her newsroom has been awarded countless other national, regional, state and local awards. Throughout her journalism journey, Courtney led digital efforts at the local level and then became part of the GateHouse Media corporate team as Senior Director for Audience Development. She created an audience team who wrote top of funnel trending content, developed social and newsletter strategy and was responsible for experimenting with the intersection of content and product innovation.While with the USA Today Network at Gannett, she joined the Eastern and Western Digital Optimization Teams as a manager guiding 72 small to mid-market newspaper sites in digital strategy. She led the Sunbelt region Digital Optimization Team overseeing digital operations for Gannett newspapers in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado. In 2022 she was promoted to Digital Director overseeing the Sunbelt and Midwest USA Today Network digital operations in Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois working with the IndyStar, Louisville Courier Journal, The Oklahoman and working closely with USA Today.