Ashley Kang

Ashley Kang is a content producer for WAER 88.3 FM under Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. She supports the station with community-driven story ideas; planning of the monthly public affairs show; Syracuse Speak; and the launch of an education beat.

She previously served at Syracuse University as director of The Stand, Syracuse’s South Side Community Newspaper Project, for 13 years. That effort targeted Syracuse’s South Side neighborhood and was produced in partnership with Newhouse students, Syracuse residents and a community board of directors. Both the print and online news source aimed to show the positive things happening within the neighborhood as well as the obstacles to success residents face.

Recently, she partnered with the Syracuse Press Club to launch the Syracuse Journalism Lab, an effort to inspire talented high school students from Syracuse’s underrepresented communities to pursue journalism careers. She oversaw progress of the 2021 pilot, and in 2022, took on the role of Journalism Educator, leading a 10-week after school program offered to interested Syracuse City School District students.

In the past, she's worked with the American Press Institute as a consultant, assisting with research to learn how newsrooms and media outlets are launching strategies to intentionally listen and engage with communities previously underserved or undercovered, co-authoring a paper on how “Focused Listening” can address journalism’s trust problem. 

She was selected as one of 33 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Justice Reporting Fellows, which promotes criminal justice journalism. Additionally, she was selected to the Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Media in 2020.

Before joining Syracuse University, she worked at The Citizen, a daily newspaper based in Auburn, NY, first as a copy editor and then as the paper’s features editor.

She is a graduate of the Newhouse School and the Syracuse University School of Education.