2023 elections

Below are the candidates for SPJ Florida’s board. Members will receive an email on Friday, Sept. 15, with voting instructions.

For president

Michael Koretzky

Current chapter president and SPJ Region 3 coordinator, former SPJ national board member (2008-2010-2011-2019). Currently editor of Debt.com and formerly editor of a six-title magazine company, managing editor of the world’s largest jazz magazine, and reporter for the Sun Sentinel, Florida Times-Union, and Athens Daily News.

For executive vice president

Wesley Wright

Wesley Wright is the current SPJ Florida executive vice president, and his professional reporting experience includes stints at the Virginia Gazette, Chalkbeat, and the Sun Sentinel. Now, he serves as a student media administrator at his alma mater, Florida Atlantic University. Wesley runs the SPJ-supported ReNews Project, which seeks to restore and rejuvenate student media at HBCUs nationwide.

For treasurer

Savannah Peifer

Savannah Peifer is a freelance journalist and graduate of Florida Atlantic University. She ran the University Press and has plans on later going to law school since she has an interest both in freedom of speech and media literacy issues.

Alexandria Mansfield

Alexandria Mansfield joined the Florida Times-Union as the growth and development reporter in February 2022. She was a reporter in the Pittsburgh area before moving to Central Florida in 2019 to work in different beat reporting and editing roles. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and public relations from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2018 and her master’s in business journalism from Arizona State University in 2021. She is a proud member of the Times-Union News Guild.

For secretary

Gillian Manning

Gillian Manning is a freelance writer with a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism from Florida Atlantic University. Her work can be seen in Debt.com, The Palm Beach Post, South Florida Gay News, BestColleges, and others. In her time with SPJ, she’s been honored to help with educational events and fundraising efforts.

Grant Stern

Grant is a news journalist, author and podcaster with radio experience who is the Executive Director of Occupy Democrats, where he runs two national news websites, OccupyDemocrats.com and WashingtonPress.com. He also publishes a newsletter focused on original investigatory reporting as well as a Miami political news blog. Stern’s earlier writing is published in the Miami Herald and the Huffington Post. He has nineteen years experience as a mortgage finance professional. His first series of books, “Meet the Candidates 2020” is distributed by Simon and Schuster with Skyhorse Publishing of New York.

For director (vote for three)

Emily Bloch

Emily Bloch is an SPJ Florida past president and board member. She’s a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer where she covers national trending news. Before that, Bloch covered education for The Florida Times-Union out of Jacksonville, Fla. for four years. She started her career at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as a general news reporter. Bloch is also a national board member and has scaled up SPJ Florida Pro initiatives — including the Fake News Game Show and Race & Gender Hotline — into organization-wide programs.

Kristin Campbell

From Miami, Florida, started reporting in 2000 during college – realizing what a privilege it was to tell someone’s story – and never looked back. In 2004, she started working at the American Welding Society (AWS) as the assistant editor for the Welding Journal, the monthly magazine for AWS members, and Inspection Trends, the quarterly magazine for Certified Welding Inspectors. Presently, she serves as the managing editor and also contributes to Welding Digest, the online hub, and the SPRAYTIME magazine for International Thermal Spray Association members. Learn more about these publications and her experience.

Andrew Fraieli

Andrew Fraieli is a freelance investigative journalist, Editor-in-Chief of the Florida-based Homeless Voice street newspaper and current SPJ Florida board member. He’s been running the Homeless Voice and reporting on homelessness issues across Florida, New York and Colorado since 2018. Recently he’s also been working on a long-term investigative project on police misconduct across Colorado for the Colorado News Collaborative, in addition to covering protests, book-bannings, immigration and local news in the Denver-metro area. He’s written for South Florida Gay News, Colorado Newsline, Westword, the Denver Voice and more.

Linda Hamburger

A creative and persuasive Community Advocate Linda Hamburger provides an expert level of experience in press releases, media relations, all platforms of community outreach and marketing. Linda received an MA in Public Relations from Michigan State University and a Master of Public Administration from Florida Atlantic University with a minor in Urban and Regional Planning. Presently, she is working to raise awareness for the humanitarian crisis in Haiti. Her media background also includes a stint as a newswriter and reporter and toe in the water as a television reporter. She continues to adhere to the highest standards of journalism that she learned on the job.

Isabella Marie Garcia

Isabella Marie Garcia, or Isa, as she prefers to be called, is a writer and photographer living in her native swampland of Miami, Florida. For the past four years, Garcia has worked with local and national arts-based organizations such as Burnaway, Ten North Group (formerly Opa-locka Community Development Corporation), LnS Gallery, and UNTITLED, Art. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Burnaway, The Art Newspaper, The Miami New Times, and So To Speak: A feminist journal of language and art print publication. When not writing or working the ins and outs of the contemporary art world, she can be found over-spending on 35mm film and tending to her mini-garden. Garcia graduated summa cum laude with her Bachelor of Arts in English from Florida International University in 2019. More information on her work can be found at isamxrie.com and anywhere through @isamxrie.

Kendall Little

Kendall is watchdog reporter at the Naples Daily News and Fort Myers News-Press. Originally from Jacksonville, she was editor of the Florida Atlantic University student newspapers and has freelanced for The Palm Beach Post, South Florida Gay news, and other publications.

For student director

No candidates declared.