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Shannon McDonald is a Philadelphia native who’s been using her journalism background to curate and produce local news with an emphasis on community engagement.

Shannon founded NEast Philly in 2008 – a hyperlocal news site focused on the under-reported neighborhoods in Northeast Philadelphia – for which she served as editor, community manager, events coordinator, salesperson and lead reporter. The site closed in 2013, and the archives are now available on PlanPhilly.com.

During that time, Shannon also worked for WHYY, serving as NewsWorks.org’s social media strategist, and leading a $1 million grant project to test mobile products and improve public media audience research and metrics analysis.

Shannon has a bachelor’s in journalism from Temple University, where she currently teaches Multimedia Storytelling to undergrads. She lives in Fishtown, but is just as likely to be found walking around someone else’s neighborhood.

Beth Davidz is the Product Director of Billy Penn. She's a media technologist with a background in journalism, design and dev. She has more than a decade of experience working at companies including AOL,...