André Natta

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André Natta

André Claude Natta (born August 29, 1975 in East Orange, New Jersey) is the executive director of the Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism (AIIJ), publisher of BirminghamWatch.

Natta, the older son of two Trinidadian-immigrant nurses, grew up in the University Heights section of the Bronx. He attended St Nicholas of Tolentine Elementary and Mt St Michael Academy in New York and took art classes at the Cooper Union and at St John's University. He also participated in the Lwanga Scholars program for African- and Latin-American students sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York.

He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in architectural history (with a minor in architecture) from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. He played one season of baseball in college, setting a Bees record for on-base percentage with one hit and two runs scored in two at bats.

After 11 years in Savannah, which included stints as a freelance reporter and manager of a bed & breakfast. Natta applied for an opening with Main Street Birmingham (MSB), a city-created nonprofit that aimed to revitalize historic commercial districts outside the city center. He moved to Birmingham in September 2004, serving as MSB's senior coordinator until March 2007. He originally lived in a loft in the Goodall-Brown Building and currently resides in the city's Norwood neighborhood.

In April 2007, Natta started The Terminal, a "hyperlocal" web publication for the Birmingham metropolitan area, which he maintained for a 10-year run as publisher and managing editor. He also founded a media consultancy called Urban Conversations.

Natta has served the vice president of the board of directors for the Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve, as a member of Catalyst for Birmingham's board of directors and on the Jefferson County Historical Commission. He served as vice-president of community development for the Birmingham Jaycees and on the board of the Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism.

Beginning in 2011, Natta helped to facilitate "#wjchat" conversations about journalism on Twitter. He was a founding board president for the Tiny News Collective and a past president of the Birmingham Association of Black Journalists. He began working as a columnist for Poynter and as a digital media producer for WBHM-FM in early 2016.

In 2018 Natta completed a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. He joined the MuckRock Foundation as a collaborations editor in 2021 and moved up to product outreach manager for DocumentCloud a year later. He was tapped to lead the AIIJ in January 2024.

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