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avatar for Brian Steffens

Brian Steffens

Reynolds Journalism Institute
Communications Director
Columbia, MO
Brian Steffens is a veteran communicator with executive-level experience in newspapers, magazines, digital media, public relations and news association management. For more than four decades, he’s led change and innovation in photojournalism, color, typography, design, packaging and editing, information graphics, new media/digital initiatives, new product development and new business models.

As director of communications, Steffens oversees the conversations with and among the various constituents and audiences of RJI. These include RJI’s resource rich website, rjionline.org; content and conversations within and around events that serve industry professionals and the citizens they serve; the sharing of robust industry research and insights on how best to utilize the information; and connecting people, ideas and opportunities through his years of serial networking.

Steffens was previously executive director of the National Newspaper Association (NNA), an industry organization of 2,000 newspapers that he led for eight years. Earlier at the Missouri School of Journalism, Steffens was associate director of the New Directions for News (NDN), a leading industry think tank.

Steffens has worked with the American Press Institute, Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Society of Professional Journalists, Society of News Design, National Press Photographers Association, Freedom Forum and its First Amendment Center, Field Newspaper Syndicate and the Kettering Foundation.

He has judged the international Society for News Design competition and the national Sigma Delta Chi Awards as well as numerous specialty media contests.