New York, N.Y. – January 10, 2012 – ProPublica has hired social media producer Blair Hickman to join its newsroom on January 23. Hickman is a recent graduate of New York University’s Studio 20 master’s program in Digital Journalism and Web Innovation. She will be assisting social media editor Daniel Victor with ProPublica’s crowdsourcing and social media efforts.

Hickman comes to ProPublica from Dowser Media where she was a senior editor in charge of online editorial strategy, user research and defining and cultivating an awareness of solutions journalism. Prior to that, Hickman was a multimedia assistant for the PBS series “Women, War & Peace” as well as an editorial intern at Mediaite focusing on news and emerging media. She has written for a range of publications, including Jezebel, the New York Daily News and Patch. Hickman was also involved in Studio 20’s collaboration with ProPublica for the “Building a Better Explainer” project, which began in November...