Joanna Brenner is a journalist who learned early on that the metadata, framing, and distillation of investigations and feature stories into two-to-three-sentence blurbs could impact public policy and change lives just as significantly as the stories themselves — and she’s been championing that practice for 15 years.
She has overseen editorial and audience strategies at major journalism and media organizations like ProPublica, NBCUniversal/Peacock, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and Popsugar. Most recently, she led audience development at SHE Media, where she developed the newsletter and social strategy for all owned and operated sites (SheKnows, Flow Space, StyleCaster, and Soaps), with a special focus on email. She is an email-newsletter fanatic, reading up to 20 per day and feeling uneasy about her weekend unless she aces the Friday weekly news quizzes in several of them.
Brenner started her career as a web producer at the Pew Research Center, where she leveled up her analysis-based decision-making and grew deeply respectful of mission-oriented journalism that relies on scientific information to examine the world and provide information for the people who live in it.
She holds a BA in print journalism from James Madison University and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, a couple of kids, and a dog. She writes newsletters and screenplays and teaches indoor cycling classes once a week at a gym in Park Slope, where she fuses her passions for fitness and talking. She dreams of one day winning a Pulitzer, an Oscar, or the Trader Joe’s Golden Ticket — whichever comes first.
Shedding Light on the Risks
& Benefits of Medications
