Under Becerra’s stewardship, the DODS Learning Center will make digital training resources more accessible to publishers

Leah Becerra, formerly the senior digital editor at the Boston Globe, has joined the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) as the product director for the Digital on Demand Services (DODS) startup.

In this role, Becerra will oversee the creation of the initiative’s Learning Center, a resource for news organizations and publishers to find educational content on digital tools and strategies. It will mark Becerra’s return to her alma mater, the Missouri School of Journalism, where RJI is based.

“Leah is a valuable addition to RJI and DODS, and her industry experience will help the Learning Center meet the needs of newsrooms looking to improve their digital know-how,” said Randy Picht, executive director of RJI. “It’s crucial that community newsrooms keep up with the fast pace of change in the industry, and Leah is the perfect person to help us lead the way forward.”

“The impact we’re looking to have on the industry is on a specific area of journalism that I love, which is digital audience strategy. I’ve been in so many different newsroom settings that I have a unique point of view in terms of what small newsrooms, large newsrooms and digital startups are looking for.”

Leah Becerra

The Learning Center’s practical resources will augment DODS’s wide range of digital consulting services, provided in partnership with the Local Media Consortium and supported by a $2.5 million grant from the Knight Foundation. Becerra’s work will ensure news organizations of all sizes have expanded access to learning tools that aid in digital sustainability.

“The impact we’re looking to have on the industry is on a specific area of journalism that I love, which is digital audience strategy,” Becerra said. “I’ve been in so many different newsroom settings that I have a unique point of view in terms of what small newsrooms, large newsrooms and digital startups are looking for.”

At the Boston Globe, Becerra transformed the newspaper’s push alert strategy as app editor before being promoted to senior digital editor, where she supervised a 24/7 digital news desk and launched a refreshed app for the publication last year. And at organizations as various as the Omaha World-Herald, Newsy (now Scripps News) and the Kansas City Star, she has gained experience in reporting, editing and producing online content.  

Nor will this be her first time stepping outside the newsroom to support the broader industry. She previously held the position of digital and audience engagement editor at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, overseeing the foundation’s digital strategy and assisting its Nieman Reports and Nieman Storyboard publications.

“When you’re trying to look at helping newsrooms, it’s incredibly important to understand that the majority of newsrooms in the country tend to be smaller. They tend to be a tighter-knit group that’s focused on a hyperlocal audience, and they probably have fewer resources.”

Leah Becerra

This combination of experiences and locales — large and small organizations from the East Coast to the Midwest, where reading the Chicago Tribune as a child first drew her into the industry’s orbit — have given her a nuanced perspective on how to deliver resources that are relevant to a wide range of newsrooms.

“When you’re trying to look at helping newsrooms, it’s incredibly important to understand that the majority of newsrooms in the country tend to be smaller,” Becerra said. “They tend to be a tighter-knit group that’s focused on a hyperlocal audience, and they probably have fewer resources. So I’m thinking of guides that will be broadly approachable for newsrooms to quickly grasp information, but that can also get a little more specific if they need to be.”

Becerra also expects teaching to be part of her role, both as a mentor to students assisting with RJI projects and as an instructor at the School of Journalism.

“I’m really excited to lead DODS, but I’m also excited just to work with the students and have some positive impact on the next generation of journalists,” she added. “I would love to be able to give them information they might not hear about otherwise in journalism school. The kind of stuff that caught me by surprise early in my career or that I had to navigate before I had a support system in place.”

For updates on DODS and other RJI projects, subscribe to the free RJI Weekend Newsletter.

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Cite this article

Fitzgerald, Austin (2025, March 30). Leah Becerra joins RJI as product director for DODS initiative. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/leah-becerra-joins-rji-as-product-director-for-dods-initiative/