Former Associated Press Editor Joins the Columbia Missourian as Visiting Knight Editor

Columbia, Mo. (Sept. 3, 2003) -- Mark Barnett, formerly of The Associated Press, is joining the Missouri School of Journalism as its Knight Editing Professional-in-Residence.

Barnett will take on an editing role at the Columbia Missourian for the next two semesters. His focus will be on coaching students developing narrative and feature projects. Published six mornings a week and distributed throughout Columbia and the surrounding region, the Columbia Missourian is the working newspaper lab for students in news-editorial, design, information graphics and photojournalism.

Barnett comes to the journalism school after two years serving as day supervising editor for the Kentucky AP in Louisville. In that role he wrote, edited and filed stories for the nearly two dozen daily and non-daily member newspapers in Kentucky.

Previous to his AP stint, Barnett worked as a copy editor and night news editor at The Wichita Eagle and as a copy editor, weekend editor and page designer for The Joplin Globe. While in Joplin, Barnett taught news writing seminars to high school students as part of The Globe's Newspapers in Education program.

"It's a privilege and an honor to have the opportunity to work with the faculty and students at the Missouri School of Journalism," Barnett said. "I'm especially thrilled with spending the next two semesters working with talented students to improve their writing craft."

In 1996, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with matching funds from the State of Missouri, endowed the Knight Chair in Editing and a Knight Center for Editing Excellence at the Missouri School of Journalism. Jacqui Banaszynski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor with several major metropolitan newspapers, was named the Missouri Knight chair. She facilitates outreach initiatives for editors at all levels from copy editors to editorial directors. Banaszynski works with faculty and industry professionals to develop editing curricular models, coordinates an applied research program on the changing roles of editors and develops methods to attract talented students to editing careers.