Melissa Bell is joining the Reuters Institute as a Visiting Fellow in January 2024

Melissa Bell is joining the Reuters Institute as a Visiting Fellow in January 2024. Bell, who has just stepped down as Vox Media's publisher, will be working on issues around local news, news avoidance and declining interest in news. During her time in Oxford, she'll share her experiences and her learnings with our Journalist Fellows and with the rest of the Institute's community. 

Bell is the co-founder of Vox, the explanatory news network launched in 2014 to bring context and clarity to the news. Under her leadership, Vox became an award-winning multi-platform newsroom with over 11 million subscribers to its YouTube channel and an audio slate that includes the flagship daily news show Today Explained, one of the nation’s top 20 podcasts. Recently, Today, Explained made its debut on public radio, where it reaches one million weekly listeners in addition to its podcast audience.

Bell currently serves as an advisor to Vox Media, Vox’s parent company. Prior to that, she served as Vox Media's first publisher beginning in 2016, overseeing the company’s editorial brands and playing a critical role in shepherding Vox Media’s merger with New York magazine, along with premium brands such as Vulture, The Cut, Intelligencer, Grub Street, and The Strategist. She also helped with the acquisition of Group Nine’s portfolio of brands, including The Dodo, NowThis, and Thrillist. During her tenure, the company launched its premium brand content design studio, The Explainer Studio, its top-ten podcast network Vox Media Podcast Network, and its television studio, Vox Media Studios, fuelled by Vox’s successful Netflix Show Explained, and HBO’s Level Playing Field. 

Bell delivered the Reuters Memorial Lecture in 2017 under the title We broke the news. How do we fix it?, which is available in this link. Prior to starting Vox, she was the Director of Platforms at the Washington Post and one of the top-read writers at the newspaper. In 2007, she was part of the founding team at Mint newspaper, which has since become the second-largest business newspaper in India.