About Us
NJ Spotlight is an online news service providing insight and information on issues critical to New Jersey, with the aim of informing and engaging the state’s communities and businesses. We are nonpartisan, independent, policy-centered and community-minded.
NJ Spotlight exists through the generous support of the Community Foundation of New Jersey, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the William Penn Foundation.
The Team
John Mooney
Founding Editor, education writer
John Mooney has covered education in New Jersey for 15 years as a
reporter for The Newark Star-Ledger and The Bergen Record and recently
as a contributing writer for The New York Times. He has won numerous state and national awards, including honors from the Education Writers
Association and the American Society of News Editors. John also has
spoken at conferences and other events regarding school issues facing
New Jersey and the role of education journalism. He lives in
Montclair, N.J.
jmooney@njspotlight.com
Tom Johnson
Co-founder, energy and environment writer
Tom Johnson is a journalist with 34 years of experience in reporting and editing at New Jersey newspapers. A veteran reporter for The Newark Star-Ledger, Johnson worked in the Statehouse and in Newark covering energy, environmental and telecommunications issues. Before that he served as editor of the Ridgewood Newspapers and a reporter and editor at the Herald-News. A recipient of many state and national journalism honors, including recognition by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for coverage of the environment, he was a member of the Star-Ledger’s nationally award-winning business section. After leaving the Ledger in early 2009, he served as press secretary to the Daggett Campaign for Governor. He lives in Plainfield, N.J.
tjohnson@njspotlight.com
Kevin Harold
Publisher
Kevin Harold has more than 30 years publishing experience with traditional and electronic media and has helped build and maintain global brand equity at multinational companies. As executive vice president operations for Rand McNally, Harold was responsible for a number of multimedia products, including vehicle-routing software and GPS-based services.
Harold also served as senior vice president of new media at
BusinessWeek and senior vice president of McGraw-Hill's high-tech
magazine group, which published Byte, Data Communications, and LAN
Times. He was founding publisher of tele.com, the magazine that
documented the rise of converged networks.
kharold@njspotlight.com
Lee Keough
Managing Editor
Lee Keough is an award-winning journalist and editor with more than 25 years experience. After starting her career as a reporter at N.J. daily The Herald-News, Keough began working at a variety of computer publications. She served as editor in chief of Techweb, a network of web sites for IT professionals. Under her guidance, Techweb was cited as one of the three most important B2B sites by Advertising Age. Keough led Data Communications, a McGraw-Hill Companies publication and web site to more than 40 national awards for editorial excellence while editor in chief. Keough also served as editorial director of Telecom ’97 and ’99, the world’s largest telecom trade show, which is sponsored by a division of the United Nations. There she oversaw television programming and a daily newspaper. She is cofounder and president of The Forsite Group, an editorial services company.
lee@njspotlight.com
Aaron Fischer
Director of Editorial Operations
Aaron Fischer is a partner at The Forsite Group, an editorial services company. He has been an online and in-print editor for three decades, including a 12-year stint at The McGraw-Hill Companies. He served as director of editorial operations for TechWeb, CMP’s award-winning Web portal for information technology professionals. Besides editorial, Fischer has been involved in search engine optimization and usability engineering. He is the recipient of numerous awards.
aaron@njspotlight.com
Jonathan Soo
Web Site design and development
Jonathan Soo founded New Agora—a firm that builds and maintains innovative Web sites and systems—while he was a graduate student at MIT. Since its inception in 1995, New Agora has created content and community management systems that make it easy for technical and nontechnical users worldwide to create, collaborate and publish all kinds of content on the World Wide Web. New Agora works with companies of all sizes, from one-person startups to the Fortune 500.
info+njs@agora.com
Emily Zimmermann
HTML coding
Emily Zimmermann is a project manager at New Agora. She is an expert HTML coder and troubleshooter. She works closely with clients, building out front and back ends on a variety of projects.
info+njs@agora.com
