Mother Jones Hires TreeHugger.com's Media Architect

For Immediate Release:
September 6, 2007
Contact:
Richard Reynolds
Mother Jones Magazine
415/321-1740
reynolds@motherjones.com

Mother Jones has hired Treehugger.com Media Architect Nick Aster to oversee motherjones.com, the media organization's groundbreaking website. Aster has the same title at Mother Jones, where he will be working closely with the editors, publisher, and web team to build the next incarnation of motherjones.com.

"Mother Jones was the first non-tech magazine in the country to establish a website, and motherjones.com has been a leader in the innovative journalistic use of web tools ever since," says Mother Jones publisher Jay Harris. "With Nick on board we look forward to building significantly on that tradition."

Aster helped build TreeHugger.com with Graham Hill, and they built it into the most popular environmental site on the Internet. TreeHugger.com sold the site to Discovery Communications in July. Before that, Aster designed and built much of the Gawker blog empire and worked in various other web-related positions. He holds an M.B.A. from the San Francisco-based Presidio School of Management, with a focus on sustainability.

"Online and offline, there are few media properties out there with readerships as critical and involved with the issues as that of Mother Jones," says Aster. "Our audience is ready for the next level of activation, and I think web-based technology is the key to making it happen. That's what really gets me excited. I can't wait to help guide this venerable publication to new frontiers."

Motherjones.com has won two Webby awards and been nominated for two others. In 2007 Mother Jones was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for interactive feature for "The Iraq War Timeline," published on the site in late 2006.

The hire comes at a time of rapid growth for the San Francisco-based nonprofit news organization. While many other media companies are closing news bureaus and cutting staff, Mother Jones is opening a seven-person bureau in Washington, D.C. The move is part of the organization’s evolution from a bimonthly magazine to an integrated print-and-online news operation. The new D.C. bureau, along with reporters in San Francisco and a network of expert freelancers, is bringing Mother Jones' brand of investigative reporting to the 24/7 news cycle through frequent reporting on motherjones.com.