Meet the Candidates for the 2025-2026 Board of Directors

Members of the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists will elect new chapter leadership, as well as five new board of directors this month in its annual election.

The Board of Directors selected in this cycle will serve two-year terms. The President-elect, Secretary and Treasurer candidates on the ballot will serve a one-year term. Current President-elect Becky Dernbach will become President for the 2025-2026 term.

An electronic ballot will be distributed to current MNSPJ members via email on Saturday, August 16. Ballots will close at 5 p.m. on Monday, September 8.

If you do not receive a ballot and are eligible to vote, please contact us at minnnesota.spj@gmail.com.

Results of the election will be announced at MNSPJ’s annual meeting, which is scheduled for Monday, September 22 (location TBD). There will be a remote option available. All members are welcome to attend the annual meeting. If you are planning on attending in person, please R.S.V.P to minnesota.spj@gmail.com.

Here are the 2025-2026 candidates:

President-elect

Aleesa Kuznetsov

Bio: I am currently a Senior Producer at MPR News where I lead the team for the program Minnesota Now with Nina Moini. I work to bring the top daily news to our audience as well as the unique stories and perspectives of Minnesotans across the state. Previously I was in the local TV world, working all hours of the day as a producer for FOX 9, WISH-TV in Indianapolis and NBC15 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Candidate statement: I have served one year on the board of MNSPJ and have enjoyed being part of an organization that is helping connect local journalists and uphold journalistic values at a time when they are being challenged. During my term so far, I proposed and helped execute a successful panel in partnership with NABJ-MN that reflected on journalism, five years since the murder of George Floyd. As president-elect I hope to continue partnerships with other local associations. I also want to help grow MNSPJ’s reach and membership by providing even more unique opportunities for building community, training and networking across Minnesota.

Secretary

Samantha HoangLong

Bio: I’m the audience growth manager at Sahan Journal, where I help expand the reach of our nonprofit newsroom’s reporting on immigrants and communities of color. Since joining the MNSPJ Board of Directors in September 2024, I’ve contributed to the communications and student affairs committees, as well as the Page One Awards. I also serve on the Leadership Council for ThreeSixty Journalism, supporting programs that mentor and train the next generation of diverse storytellers.

Candidate statement: I’m running for MNSPJ’s Secretary to serve as a dependable, detail-oriented documenter of the board’s work, helping ensure transparency and accurate meeting records. I also see this role as an opportunity to strengthen MNSPJ’s communications with members, partners, and the broader community by drawing on my background in audience engagement. I’m especially excited to continue helping foster spaces where professional and student journalists can connect, collaborate, and grow their skills.

Treasurer

Tim Montgomery

Bio: My career in journalism began at the age of 19 with 4 years as a contributing editorial cartoonist and illustrator with the Minneapolis Star. I went on to work 20 years at the Pioneer Press where i began ‘graphic reporting’ – creating multi-media packages where i wrote a story and created accompanying interactive graphic elements to convey additional information – and 16 years as a graphic designer at Hubbard Broadcasting (HBI). My work has also appeared on TPT, in Mpls/St. Paul Magazine, MInnesota Lawyer, Finance & Commerce, Asian American Press, the University of Minnesota, and I’m an independent community media producer with SPNN (St. Paul Neighborhood Network).

Candidate Statement: I’m seeking the office of treasurer to help with compliance for MNSPJ’s nonprofit registration status. Along with being a multi-media Minnesota Journalist for over 40 years, I also have experience working in the areas of contract negotiation, copyright law, non-profit management and tax preparation. As an MNSPJ Board member, I’ve helped in planning the Page One Awards Banquet, coordinating the annual intern night, professional networking and maintaining MNSPJ social media. With your support, I hope to serve MNSPJ membership as treasurer.

Board Directors

There are nine candidates for five open board seats.

Aaron Brown

Bio: Born and raised on Minnesota’s Iron Range, I’ve worked in radio, newspaper and online journalism since I was 16. I paid my way through a journalism degree at the University of Wisconsin-Superior with money earned from journalism, which was as difficult then and impossible now as you might imagine. After graduating in 2001, I was hired as city reporter at the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A few months later, after several candidates declined, I became the boy editor of the Daily Tribune. I tore down and rebuilt our afternoon edition when 9-11 happened. I wrote daily editorials and covered politics, including the 2002 Senate race in which Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash near where I grew up. After leaving the paper to pursue a graduate degree and a career in higher education, I maintained an active freelance career that included a weekly column for the Tribune, a daily regional news blog called MinnesotaBrown.com, and several programs for KAXE-Northern Community Radio in Grand Rapids. More recently, I wrote commentaries for the Minnesota Reformer. After teaching at Minnesota North College in Hibbing for 21 years, I left this year to become a full time columnist and editorial board member for the Minnesota Star Tribune. I’m still based in northern Minnesota, writing opinion columns about a wide range of statewide issues.

Candidate Statement: I would bring a variety of experiences to the board. I work for the state’s largest news organization, but am based at my home office down a dirt road in the woods of Northern Minnesota. I grew up in a trailer house and attended an inexpensive state school, so I can relate to new journalists who come from nontraditional backgrounds. As a longtime communication educator and academic committee chair, I know how to write curriculum and reach students of all ages and abilities. In addition, I deliver 10-12 lectures a year about history and media topics. Though my return to full time journalism is recent, I am committed to fighting for our first amendment rights to practice journalism. I left a safe, steady job to come back to journalism (yes, journalism) because what we are doing right now is so very important.

Imani Cruzen

Bio: My name is Imani Cruzen and I cover Ramsey County and St. Paul Public Schools for the Pioneer Press. Previously, I covered solutions-focused community work as a solutions reporter at the St. Cloud Times and have written for the Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal and MinnPost. In college, I served on the board of the SPJ University of Minnesota chapter.

Candidate statement: I’m passionate about creating more educational and networking opportunities in journalism so that it is more accessible to everyone. I really enjoy supporting other journalists and would love to help them network and find learning or career opportunities that interest them and to support MNSPJ’s goals. I also appreciate learning from others in journalism since there are always new perspectives and ideas and I’m still at an early point in my career.

J.D. Duggan

Bio: My name is J.D. Duggan, and I’m the retail/restaurant reporter at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. I’ve been doing journalism in some capacity or another since 2016, leading student newsrooms; freelancing; and covering business, housing and development in staff roles. I stepped into a newsroom in my third week of college and fell in love immediately on my first story. I have bylines in most local publications, from Sahan Journal and Minnesota Reformer to  Star Tribune and Pioneer Press, and a few nationals. I’ve also volunteered with high school students in various capacities.

Candidate statement: I’m applying for this role to be more engaged in the local journalism community. I’m interested in continuing to help young people get into the field, and I have a unique background of overcoming addiction and related challenges that make me well suited for helping people who may struggle in a standard classroom. I’m collaborative, communicative and driven. My freelance background covering political issues and staff experience covering business also gives me a unique blended perspective on local media. The Twin Cities has a strong media ecosystem, and it can always be stronger. I hope to help drive connection to uplift the entire local news scene.

Sheila Eldred

Bio: I am a mid-career freelance journalist interested in joining the MNSPJ board. I have covered (mostly) health for a variety of local and national publications, including Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Sahan Journal, Minnesota Monthly, the Washington Post, The New York Times, AARP, KFF, and others. I am currently helping SciLine develop resources for journalists tasked with reporting on vaccines.

Candidate statement: As a mid-career freelance journalist, I look forward to serving on MNSPJ’s board to create more connections in our community, especially with independent journalists. As a reporter who covers local, national, and international health stories, I think I can bring a unique perspective to the board. As health becomes more and more relevant to our everyday lives, and as more journalists are asked to write about health, my experience may be increasingly valuable to our community. Freelance reporters also face unique challenges, and I would love to help renew attention to independent journalists.

Ellen Finn

Bio: Ellen Finn is a producer for the Minnesota Public Radio show “Minnesota Now,” where she brings perspectives of Minnesotans statewide to live radio. Her work has been recognized by the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association. Before joining MPR News in 2022, Ellen got her start in radio on a magazine news and culture show at KALW Bay Area Public Media in San Francisco.

Candidate statement: As an early career journalist myself, I’m drawn to work on education events and scholarships for young journalists through MNSPJ. I became especially eager to support student and early career journalists from a wider diversity of backgrounds after spending time as a mentor at ThreeSixty Journalism radio camp last year. I see joining the MNSPJ board as a powerful way to make newsrooms more accessible to young people through training and social events. I’m also keen on working with MNSPJ to advocate for the free press and am especially excited about working on projects that train journalists (and the public!) on how we can harness our work to strengthen democracy and build community.

Mara Klecker

Bio: Mara Klecker is a K-12 education reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune, where she writes about education trends and topics rooted in the Twin Cities metro area. She joined the Star Tribune in 2018 after a brief stint at the Omaha World-Herald. She’s a native South Dakotan and a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s journalism college, where she participated in international reporting projects that took her to Ecuador, Nicaragua and Nepal.

Candidate Statement: I owe my career to organizations like SPJ and the opportunities and mentorship they brought me. I want to help build a strong, supportive and collaborative community of Minnesota journalists — something I know is critically important as our industry faces change and challenges. I am especially interested in increasing marketing and outreach to journalists who are new to the industry or to their organizations. I see this as a way to grow membership and better understand the ways the SPJ organization can benefit new members. I look forward to helping with planning and hosting events that bring members together with a sense of camaraderie and community.

Alex Malm

Bio:  My name is Alex Malm, a reporter with the Steele County Times and Dodge County Independent. My start in journalism began as a college student traveling across New Hampshire – and the rest of the country – covering the 2016 presidential election for the Boston Herald and my college’s news outlet. In 2017 I moved to Minnesota from my home state of Rhode Island to work for the St. James Plaindealer, a newspaper 45 minutes west of Mankato. At the end of 2018 I went to work as the editor of the Dodge County Independent. I went back to Rhode Island right before the pandemic for a job opportunity outside of journalism. After a year, I decided it was a mistake, and returned to journalism. I worked on the East Coast as a journalist for a couple of years, until 2022, when I moved back to Minnesota. After working for the chain of papers known as Southwest News Media for close to two years, the papers closed; my former boss at Bussler Publishing hired me the same day I got laid off. I’ve covered communities the size of Butterfield, Minn, to my hometown, Warwick, R.I., the second largest community in the state. 

Candidate statement: Greater Minnesota is home to so many vital community newspapers, covering issues in communities most people have never even heard of. I believe it’s important to have a voice and advocate for smaller news outlets on the SPJ board, which I could provide. If elected, I would work hard to ensure news outlets outside of the Twin Cities are recognized for their work.I think it’s vital that organizations like SPJ help recruit, train and retain the next generation of journalists. I didn’t have a traditional J-school experience; instead, I was converted into a journalist when I had the opportunity to travel the country covering the 2016 presidential election as part of an unpaid work experience with the Boston Herald.  There’s no doubt: Without that experience, I would not be working as a journalist. Young people need to get clips, and they need opportunities to do fun, meaningful work. Based on what I have heard from a freelancer we hired, who is from Minnesota and now attends journalism school elsewhere, it is very clear that not all young people are getting journalism experiences – even when paying tuition. This aspiring young journalist told me they mostly learn how to rewrite press releases. She has spent the summer working with us, and there’s no question that if she sticks with it, she can be a top journalist in the state one day. The Minnesota Newspaper Association offers a citizen journalism boot camp, which helps teach people to become journalists in their local communities. This could be another potential opportunity for SPJ to explore, either through a standalone program or by working with MNA.

James Walsh

Bio: I am a St. Paul kid who has been at the “Minneapolis paper” for 36 years now. A graduate of St. Paul Central High School and former sports editor of the Central High Times, I went on to the College of St. Thomas with dreams of sports writing. I discovered the joys — and the impact — of news while writing and editing for the Aquin and never looked back. In 1986, I was named the top journalism graduate by MNSPJ. After jobs at the Mankato Free Press and the Rochester Post-Bulletin, the Strib hired me in 1989, and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve covered a variety of beats, including education, legal affairs, medical technology, federal courts and St. Paul neighborhoods. Now, perhaps poetically, I write about disability, accessibility and aging. I recently agreed to serve on a media advisory panel at the University of St. Thomas, working with The Crest, the new student journalism vehicle.

Candidate Statement: I was on the MNSPJ Board nearly a lifetime ago and was the FOI chair. In that role, I organized a project that tested freedom in information of public bodies across the state, an effort that wone the Minnesota AP Freedom of Information award in 1999. I stepped down after my late mom became sick and parenthood and work dominated my days. I’d like to come back now, working to encourage, reinforce and spark a new generation of journalists to the work of holding power to account. The form for which we do that — newspaper, website, podcast, video or medium still to come — matters less than that we foster the people drawn to do it. With your consent, this now-old guy would like once more to be art of an historic organization doing pivotal work.

Scott Winter

Bio: I paid my way through college by covering Section 8 hockey and college sports for the Fargo Forum and Grand Forks Herald. Then I oscillated between making journalism and doing it. But in the end, I fell for professor jobs at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Bethel University and now at the Hubbard School of Journalism at the University of Minnesota. I love project stories, documentary multimedia and the competitive Twin Cities journalism market. I also love a perfect left-handed tennis serve, Frogtown pho and Natalie Merchant. I don’t love being introduced as Deena Winter’s husband.

Candidate statement: In my 11 years in this market, at Bethel University and now the U, I’ve been consistently surprised by the quality of Twin Cities media and the way colleagues and competitors rally around each other. I’m also impressed with the same cooperation among journalism educators from the Minnesota High School Press Association and Journalism Three-Sixty to the university landscape and Minnesota Newspaper Institute. What I want to see is more connection between the pros and the students/academics to help us further diversify newsrooms and celebrate good work. Recently, I’ve been floored by the content and professionalism of the most recent MNSPJ Page One Awards and would like to see more students at events like that to hear those rallying cries and celebrations of story.