Board

Craig has led Free Press and Free Press Action since 2011. For more than 15 years, he has been a leader in major campaigns at Free Press to safeguard Net Neutrality, stop media consolidation, oppose unchecked surveillance, defend public media and sustain quality journalism.

Victor is the C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, where he co-directs the Media, Inequality & Change (MIC) Center. He has written or edited six books, including America’s Battle for Media Democracy and Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society.

Heidi Beirich is an expert on far-right and extremist movements. She co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism to monitor and counter increasingly transnational hate movements. Beirich previously led the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. She has testified in Congress and written numerous academic publications. Government agencies and tech companies have sought her advice on how to combat hate speech, hate crimes and domestic terrorism.

Vanessa is an experienced leader, organizer, political strategist and policy expert on immigration, political disinformation, climate change, women’s political empowerment and Latino voters. Prior to becoming executive director of America’s Voice, Vanessa led a social-impact firm that specialized in government relations, advocacy and communications. She has also worked with some of the most innovative progressive organizations, including the Biden for President campaign, EMILY’s List, the Center for American Progress, LULAC, the World Wildlife Fund and others.

Brandi Collins-Dexter is associate director of research at the Technology and Social Change Project (TaSC) at Harvard. As former senior campaign director of media, culture and economic justice at Color Of Change, Brandi led a number of successful campaigns for corporate and government accountability. She has testified in front of Congress on issues related to surveillance, antitrust and media manipulation. Her book Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future uses a pop-culture lens to understand the history and trajectory of Black political, economic and social power.

Henry Fernandez is CEO of the African American Research Collaborative, a firm that completes quantitative and qualitative research on issues including health policy, civil rights, elections, criminal justice and civic engagement. He also serves as the executive director of LEAP, a nationally recognized child and leadership development program in New Haven, Connecticut. He formerly served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., where he focused on state and municipal policy.

Martha is on the faculty of the School of Public Policy and the Department of Communication at UMass Amherst, where she also directs the Engaged Research and Learning programs. Her research focuses on digital inequalities, media justice, internet governance, advocacy networks and media-policy literacy.

Michael is a former commissioner and acting chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, where he served from 2001–2011. Michael continues to be active in the fight for media democracy, ubiquitous broadband and an open internet as a special adviser to Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.

Holly earned her Ph.D. from Princeton University in Near Eastern Studies. She is on the faculty of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations at Boston University, where she has served as a research fellow since 2009. She is a trustee of the Woodcock Foundation and has chaired the board of the Ilex Foundation since 1999.

Robert W. McChesney (1952–2025) was a co-founder of Free Press. He was the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught for two decades. He also taught from 1988 to 1998 at the University of Wisconsin. Among many other honors, he received lifetime-achievement awards from the International Communication Association and the Union for Democratic Communications. McChesney was the author or editor of 27 books, including Rich Media, Poor Democracy; The Problem of the Media; and Digital Disconnect.

A co-founder of Free Press, John is the Nation’s Washington correspondent and editorial-page editor of the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. He is the author of 11 books.

Josh is the co-founder and former president and CEO of Free Press. He is the founder and executive chairman of Represent.Us, a national campaign to end the undue influence of money in U.S. politics through passage of comprehensive anti-corruption laws.