Karen Brophy joins Missouri School of Journalism as Reynolds Chair in Journalism Strategy and Business Operations
COLUMBIA, Mo. (Oct. 15, 2025) — The Missouri School of Journalism announced today that Karen Brophy, a news product management and digital strategy leader for over 20 years, is the new Reynolds Chair in Journalism Strategy and Business Operations.
In this role, Brophy will serve as the Chief Digital Officer of the School of Journalism’s professional Missouri News Network newsrooms, which act as learning labs for students who produce fact-based community reporting for mid-Missouri. Brophy will work to enhance innovation and sustainability across the newsrooms while creating new opportunities for students to gain valuable experience with technology and product development.
“Karen has a strong track record of strategic leadership in the business of journalism,” said David Kurpius, dean of the School of Journalism. “I’m excited to see her further strengthen the School’s professional newsrooms as industry models for collaborative and sustainable digital news.”
Brophy isn’t just a veteran of news product development; at The New York Times in the late 1990s, she helped establish the discipline as one of the industry’s first product managers. More recently, as senior vice president of strategy and operations at Hearst — and then as president of Nexstar Media Group’s digital division — she led digital growth initiatives, driving major digital revenue boosts at both organizations.
“There is a lot of opportunity to experiment and to hear from a new generation that you don’t really hear from in the industry. It’s important to be able to listen and understand how things are changing for these students, because they are the new consumers.”
Karen Brophy
Nor is she new to the world of education. During her tenure at the Times, she designed The Learning Network, which remains an important source of free resources for teachers to promote learning and news literacy. Later, as director of technology at Columbia University, she built an online teacher-training program designed to help educators get through their first year of school in areas with high turnover.
As the daughter of a high school foreign language teacher, she is looking forward to uniting her passions for product development and education.
“There is a lot of opportunity to experiment and to hear from a new generation that you don’t really hear from in the industry,” said Brophy, who will also begin teaching next year. “It’s important to be able to listen and understand how things are changing for these students, because they are the new consumers.”
Another asset Brophy brings to the role is her versatility, a key component in successfully collaborating with the Missouri News Network’s NBC affiliate TV station, NPR-member radio station, community newspaper, culture magazine and business news outlet.
“We were looking for someone who had experience not just in media management but in working across as many of these platforms that we own as possible. That’s a hard thing to find — it’s a bit of a unicorn. And we found her.”
Damon Kiesow
“We were looking for someone who had experience not just in media management but in working across as many of these platforms that we own as possible,” said Damon Kiesow, who led the Reynolds Chair search committee and serves as the School’s Knight Chair in Journalism Innovation. “That’s a hard thing to find — it’s a bit of a unicorn. And we found her.”
In addition to driving adoption and education around new technologies — such as AI — and implementing strategies around the management of news products, Brophy will partner with the School’s Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) to experiment with those tools and strategies for the benefit of both the Missouri News Network and the wider industry.
At a time when community news organizations around the country face challenges with revenue, staffing and changing audience habits, this aspect of the role will leverage Brophy’s connections and insights to help the School lead industry conversations around adapting to these changes and growing audience engagement.
“Karen’s expertise and experience presents a great opportunity to build a bridge between the School and the critical needs of the industry,” said Randy Picht, executive director of RJI. “These newsrooms are learning labs for students, but they can also be learning labs for news organizations around the country as we test new approaches and business models and share the results.”
Brophy’s experience shows she is more than prepared for the responsibilities of the role, but it’s the School of Journalism — with its Missouri Method of learning by doing and its fusion of education and industry leadership — that excites her.
“I had hoped that my next role would be one where I had a good purpose and could give back, and I’m excited to do just that,” she said. “I’m really proud to be here, and I think it’s a great opportunity at this stage in my career to be part of something that is going to help folks in the future. I think it’s going to be a great adventure.”
About the Reynolds Chair in Journalism Strategy and Business Operations
Initially funded in 2008 with a $2 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the Reynolds Chair is an endowed position at the University of Missouri School of Journalism that serves as the School’s Chief Digital Officer, leading innovation and digital strategy across the Missouri News Network. Supported by the Reynolds Journalism Institute, the chair helps position the School as a national leader in local media innovation and sustainability.
Updated: October 15, 2025