LION Publishers welcomes Neil Chase, Mazin Sidahmed, and Dan Hu to Board of Directors

LION’s Board of Directors unanimously approved three new Board members, and is welcoming CalMatters CEO Neil Chase; DocumentedNY co-founder Mazin Sidahmed, and The Yappie Executive Director Dan Hu to the organization.

LION’s Board now numbers 14, and will meet in Austin, Texas later this month ahead of the Independent News Sustainability Summit, its first in-person gathering since November 2019.

“We welcome Neil, Mazin, and Dan to LION’s Board of Directors. These three continue our efforts to professionalize LION’s board of directors and move the organization forward as a leader in digital journalism entrepreneurship. They represent those at the forefront of non-profit news innovation and audience engagement,” said Tracie Powell, LION Publishers’ board chair and founder of The Pivot Fund. “We couldn’t ask for three better people to join in evangelizing our mission of serving independent community news organizations.”

Neil Chase is the chief executive officer at CalMatters, the nonprofit newsroom explaining California policy and politics. He was previously executive editor of The Mercury News and the East Bay Times in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he has been an editor at The San Francisco Examiner, The Arizona Republic, CBS MarketWatch and The New York Times. He also taught at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and has worked in advertising and marketing.

Mazin Sidahmed is co-executive director of Documented, a nonprofit news site that covers immigration in the New York area. Before founding Documented, he was a reporter at the Guardian US in New York on the national desk as well as with the award-winning Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab. He started his career covering the Syrian refugee crisis in Beirut, Lebanon for the local English language newspaper The Daily Star.

Dan Hu is the Executive Director of The Yappie, a nonprofit publication dedicated to covering Asian American and Pacific Islander political news. He also serves on the board of advisors at the Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group, and is a fellow at The Texas Tribune. His work has been published in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and he is wrapping up his senior year at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Last month, LION announced a tripling of its support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with $2.85 million over the next three years. In 2021, LION’s board of directors unanimously approved an ambitious strategic plan, as well as new vision and mission statements for the association. LION’s programs and efforts are supported by the Knight Foundation; the Democracy Fund; the Facebook Journalism Project; and the Google News Initiative.