Mike is an SPJ digital trainer who has taught Google News Initiative tools to nearly 9,000 journalists and educators in the past six years. He is co-founder of and trainer in the MediaShift Training Network and the founder of Penny Press Digital LLC, a consulting and training company. When he’s not on the road doing trainings, he teaches data and multimedia journalism at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he is a full-time faculty member. A former reporter at the LA Times and web editor at the Chicago Tribune, Mike served for 13 years as a faculty member at Northwestern, Arizona State University and DePaul University, teaching digital journalism to hundreds of students and professional journalists. He holds journalism degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (undergrad) and Northwestern University (masters). Mike founded and updates the research site The Journalist’s Toolbox (journaliststoolbox.org) for SPJ and runs the Chicago data site, The Red Line Project (redlineproject.org).