Dan Gainor, director of the Free Market Project and the Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow, is a veteran editor with two decades’ experience in print and online media. He has served as an editor at several newspapers including The Washington Times and The Baltimore News-American. Mr. Gainor also has extensive experience in online publishing – holding the position of managing editor for CQ.com, the Web site of Congressional Quarterly, and executive editor for ChangeWave, published by Phillips International. He has worked in financial publishing in his last two positions, launching new services for ChangeWave and Agora Inc. Mr. Gainor holds an MBA from the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business and a master’s in publications design from the University of Baltimore. As an undergraduate, he majored in political science and history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Mr. Gainor lives in Alexandria, Va., and volunteers as a media and issues speaker with the Close-Up Foundation.
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Amy Menefee is deputy editor for the Free Market Project. She tracks news coverage, writing and editing stories and reports. She also edits FMP’s weekly e-mail newsletter, The Balance Sheet. Prior to joining FMP in March 2005, she covered federal, state and local government. Her reporting experience includes Congressional Quarterly’s CQ Homeland Security, a daily Web-based publication, and The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. She worked as a reporter and assistant editor in the state Capitol bureau of The Columbia Missourian and also as a research assistant with Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. She holds an M.A. in public policy journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism (Columbia, Mo.) and a B.A. in journalism/mass communication from Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Ms. Menefee is originally from Macon, Ga., and resides in Alexandria, Va.
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Charles Simpson has been the Free Market Project’s research analyst since August of 2004. He combs through print and broadcast reports to examine the media’s coverage of business and economic affairs. A native of Mobile, Ala., he graduated with a degree in political science and economics from Emory University. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.
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Ken Shepherd is a staff writer for the Free Market Project. Prior to serving at FMP, Shepherd was a news analyst for the Media Research Center from May 2001 to November 2005 and served as a news analysis intern from October 1998 to May 2001. Shepherd helped research and author the 2005 Religion in TV News study, “Secular Orthodoxy Still Reigns,” and has periodically contributed to the MRC’s CyberAlerts and TimesWatch.org Web site. He contributes frequently to the MRC’s official web log, NewsBusters.org. Shepherd, a lifelong Marylander, graduated cum laude from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2001 with a B.A. in Government and Politics and a citation in Public Leadership studies.
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