Paulette Brown-Hinds

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT PAULETTE BROWN-HINDS

Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds is founder of Voice Media Ventures, publisher of Black Voice News, Democracy Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley, two-time JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, and founder of the IE Journalism Innovation Hub + Fund.As second generation publisher of Black Voice News (BVN), Paulette is transforming the half century old weekly print outlet into a solutions-oriented data journalism and justice-focused community news organization. She is leading the transformation to data reporting through the initiative Mapping Black California. Structured within a community mapping framework, Mapping Black California, encourages community collaboration around data and information by bringing together community media, community based organizations, and educational institutions. As past president of the California News Publishers Association and current board member of the California Press Foundation, she works to strengthen the state’s information ecosystem as an essential part of its civic and community infrastructure. In 2023 she produced the first community philanthropy summit in California dedicated to local journalism and published a guidebook for California-based community foundations, community media, and philanthropy to financially support local journalism. Since she has led Footsteps to Freedom, summer cultural tours retracing the steps of freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, the first successful interracial freedom movement in the US. She is currently working on a research project that maps secret societies of the Underground Railroad. Paulette has been awarded Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge funding, was a Knight Digital Media Fellow, Salzburg Seminar in American Studies Fellow, a 2022 JSK Community Impact Fellow, and a 2023 JSK Sr. Fellow at Stanford University. She is also a member of the Rebuild Local News, American Press Institute, and the James Irvine Foundation boards of directors. She has been identified as an Ecosystem Leader by Democracy Fund.In 2022 she was awarded the Cal Press Justus F. Craemer Newspaper Executive of the Year, the University of California, Riverside Alumni Service Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from California State University, San Bernardino. In 2023 she was selected the Athena of Riverside awardee for her civic and business accomplishments. In 2025 Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the California Transportation Commission.