Courtney Sebesta

About

Courtney Sebesta began her professional journalism career 22 years ago at the Austin American-Statesman working her way from Editorial Assistant to Managing Editor. Her teams have won prestigious national journalism prizes like the duPont-Columbia University Award, multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards and most recently was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Public Service. While she has been with the Statesman, her newsroom has been awarded countless other national, regional, state and local awards. Throughout her journalism journey, Courtney led digital efforts at the local level and then became part of the GateHouse Media corporate team as Senior Director for Audience Development. She created an audience team who wrote top of funnel trending content, developed social and newsletter strategy and was responsible for experimenting with the intersection of content and product innovation. While with the USA Today Network at Gannett, she joined the Eastern and Western Digital Optimization Teams as a manager guiding 72 small to mid-market newspaper sites in digital strategy. She led the Sunbelt region Digital Optimization Team overseeing digital operations for Gannett newspapers in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado. In 2022 she was promoted to DOT Director overseeing the Sunbelt and Midwest USA Today Network digital operations in Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. She was most recently promoted to Managing Editor at the Austin American-Statesman where she focuses on leading news coverage, investigations and top-line digital subscription growth.