Neil Foote has worked all aspects of the media, including print, broadcast and the Internet. Foote has been a newspaper reporter (The Miami Herald & The Washington Post), a newspaper industry executive (American Society of Newspaper Editors) and an Internet strategist (The Dallas Morning News, Belo Corporation, Tom Joyner).As Director of Communications for Tom Joyner’s Reach Media, Foote manages the public relations and communications plan for all entities of the multimedia company that is the parent company for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, the nation’s #1 syndicated morning entertainment radio show. He is charged with creating an overall media plan for the company as well as each of its subsidiaries and special projects and has worked secure articles and appearances in major national media, including the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Ebony, Black Enterprise, CNN, Regis & Kelly Live! and NPR.
Foote joined Joyner in 2000 to develop and launch his website, BlackAmericaWeb.com, a news, information and entertainment site targeting African-Americans, which has become one of the nation’s top websites with more than 1 million members. During his tenure at the Belo Corporation, he helped launch, CityView.com, a local city guide that expanded to more than 50 U.S. cities and into a bilingual version in nearly a dozen Mexican cities.
On the industry level, Foote is co-chair of the “Executive Suite”Leadership Series as part of the National Association of Black Journalists and former chair of the National Association for Minority Media Executives, charter member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, a current member and former board member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has served on the Newspaper Association of America’s New Media Federation Board. Locally, Foote is chairman of the the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas serving North Texas, a Lifetime Trustee for The Lamplighter School, and formerly served on the board of the ChildCareGroup.
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Foote grew up in Bed-Stuy (Bedford-Stuyvesant), formerly Bedford Hills and Stuyvesant Heights. His two sisters, Donna and Cheryl, niece – Casaundra – and brother-in-law, C.J., live in the house that has been owned by family for more than 60 years.
Foote has a B.A. in Government from Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.) an M.S.J. from Northwestern University’s (Evanston, Ill.) Medill School of Journalism and an M.B.A. at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Tex.).
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Jane Foote, co-founder of Foote Communications, is a veteran journalist who worked at The Washington Post and The Dallas Morning News. Her vast career, with a specialty in covering economics, has taken her around the world. She has a B.S. in Journalism from Michigan State University and a master’s certificate from the London School of Economics.