Josh is a journalist and organizer working for press freedom and the future of news through media and tech policy. Working with Free Press's 600,000 members Josh's work focuses on community building, collaborations and creative approaches to public education. Since 2011 he has been tracking journalist arrests and press suppression across the US, an effort the earned him “Storify of the Yearâ€ù and the Lew Hill Media Ally Award for his use of cutting-edge technology and First Amendment advocacy. Stearns is the author of numerous reports on journalism, media consolidation and public media, and speaks regularly about activism, journalism, sustainability and democracy. His articles have appeared online at the Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, BoingBoing and PBS MediaShift. He curates a growing directory of tools for verifying, fact checking and assessing the validity of social media and user generated content at VerificationJunkie.com.
