In more than three decades as a journalist, Mizell Stewart III has been an award-winning reporter, top newsroom editor in three states, radio and television broadcaster and corporate news executive. He is passionate about developing the next generation of newsroom leaders, community service and advancing the critical role journalists play in a democratic society.  

Today, Stewart is President and CEO of Emerging Leaders, LLC, a leadership development consulting firm focused on mid-career and senior professionals. The firm’s clients include national media organizations and start-ups in the United States and Canada. Previously, he was the Vice President of News Performance, Talent & Partnerships for Gannett and the USA TODAY Network, the largest local-to-national news network in the United States. He is also a member of the adjunct faculty of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, where he was the founding co-director of the Leadership Academy for Diversity in Digital Media.

His prior roles include Chief Content Officer of Journal Media Group, Vice President / Content of the newspaper division of the E.W. Scripps Company and senior leadership posts at the Akron Beacon Journal, Evansville Courier & Press and Tallahassee Democrat. He also worked as a reporter and editor at the Dayton Daily News and Springfield News-Sun. A true multiplatform journalist, Stewart also was an on-air personality at WNIN-TV in Evansville, Ind. and WIOT-FM in Toledo, Ohio.

A four-time Pulitzer Prize juror, Stewart helped lead the team at The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. that won the 2006 Pulitzer Gold Medal in Public Service for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina. He is a past president of the American Society of News Editors, now the News Leaders Association, and the current president of the News Leaders Association Foundation. He is a frequent speaker and teacher on local journalism, leadership, newsroom diversity and community service at national journalism conferences and at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. In 2018, the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication recognized Stewart with the Gerald R. Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication Education.

Stewart is a journalism graduate of Bowling Green State University and completed the Advanced Executive Program, a joint program of the Kellogg School of Business and the Medill School of Journalism, at Northwestern University. He also earned a master’s degree in Executive Leadership and Organizational Change from Northern Kentucky University, where he received the Distinguished Student Award.

His service to BGSU continues today as a member of the university’s Board of Trustees. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the BGSU Alumni Association, the Board of Student Publications and the Journalism Alumni Advisory Board. He was inducted into BGSU’s Journalism Alumni Hall of Fame in 2007.

He is a board member of Public Agenda, the National Press Club Journalism Institute and Journalism Funding Partners and serves on advisory boards for PBS Frontline and Report for America. He was part of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy, an initiative of the Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute. His past community service includes the Indiana Debate Commission, the Board of Visitors at the University of Evansville, the Evansville African American Museum, WNIN Public Broadcasting, the Akron Press Club, Leadership Tallahassee, Young Actors Theatre in Tallahassee, Fla. and the Florida First Amendment Foundation.