Assistant Professor Holly Edgell Named Region 7 Director of the Society of Professional Journalists
Columbia, Mo. (Sept. 19, 2008) — Holly Edgell, an assistant professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and an Emmy Award-winning executive producer at KOMU-TV, has been named to the national board of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Edgell will serve as Region 7 director, representing the states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. SPJ is a grassroots organization that helps journalists with issues concerning Freedom of Information and First Amendment rights. It was founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi fraternity and is now headquartered in Indianapolis. The Missouri School of Journalism founded its chapter of Sigma Delta Chi in 1913, and the group continues to exist as a local SPJ chapter today.
Edgell brings experience in television news and academia to the SPJ board. She worked as a newscast producer in Youngstown, Ohio, at WFMJ-TV and in Pittsburgh at WTAE-TV. Edgell’s career later took her to Cleveland, where she worked as the medical news producer at duopoly WOIO-TV and WUAB-TV, and later to Detroit’s WDIV-TV, where she worked as the consumer news producer. Before joining the Missouri School of Journalism, Edgell spent more than four years as an assistant professor in Florida A&M University‘s journalism school.
Edgell is the adviser for the School’s student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. She is also a member of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. Edgell holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in journalism with a concentration in media management from Kent State University in Ohio.
KOMU, the NBC affiliate in mid-Missouri, is the only university-owned commercial television station in the United States that uses its newsroom as a working lab for students.
Updated: April 29, 2020