About
Mission
The LAMP is for a media-savvy youth, for a more involved parent, for an innovative and modern educator.
For a critical mass.
The LAMP’s vision is that one day media literacy will be seen as the critical requirement to understanding the world and our place in it. Educated consumers demanding more accountable media will create a ground swell to which media companies will have to respond. As part of this movement, The LAMP works in communities to build healthy relationships with all forms of media.
Core values:
- • Process over product
- • Media literacy as a basic need
- • Freedom from censorship
- • Critical curiosity
- • Accessibility regardless of socioeconomics
Senior Staff
DC Vito
Co-founder, Executive Director
DC is the Chair of the Youth Services and Education committee of Brooklyn’s 6th Community Board. He has served as chair of the committee for two years, and a total of four years on the Board. He has been an active community organizer for well over a decade, managing and working on over 20 political and issue-oriented campaigns ranging from the local city council to national presidential races. He also served on the 6th Neighborhood Advisory Board of New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development.
Katherine Fry, Ph.D.
Co-founder, Education Director
Katherine is a professor of media studies in the Department of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She earned her Ph.D. in Mass Media and Communication from Temple University in 1994, and brings to The LAMP many years of experience teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in media history, criticism, theory and research methods. She has an extensive background in curriculum development. In addition to her teaching, Dr. Fry’s publications include the following books: Constructing the Heartland: Television News and Natural Disaster (2003, Hampton Press); and Identities in Context: Media, Myth, Religion in Space and Time (2008, Hampton Press). She has also published articles and contributed to books about communication technology and psychological well-being, television news, advertising and popular culture and radio. Her current research is in the history of news and in the future of news from the audience perspective. Fry is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York State Communication Association, and holds memberships with, and regularly presents on panels for, the International Communication Association and the Media Ecology Association.
Emily Long
Communications Director
Emily earned her Masters of Fine Arts in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia University in 2006. While at Columbia, she edited and catalogued hundreds of interviews and transcripts for the Oral History Research Office, focusing primarily on their 9/11 Project. From 2006 to early 2009, she was also the Resident Dramaturg at Electric Pear Productions where she designed and facilitated their playwriting workshop, as well as production dramaturgy. The LAMP is pleased to have Ms. Long on board as Communications Director, offering her extensive experience with numerous media through her work with Columbia’s Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Atlantic Theater Company, Sesame Workshop and Cine Mosaic to name a few. She is also a regular contributor to the Independent Film Channel’s Make Media Matter blog.
Advisory Board
Jennifer Proulx
is originally from Amherst, NH. At the young age of 18 she moved to San Francisco where she received her Bachelor degree in Radio and Television from San Francisco State University. She has since worked covering a round-the-world yacht race, taught video production at a community college, served a year as an Americorps volunteer in a 1st grade classroom, and edited numerous award winning television programs and independents, for networks such as MTV, Vh1, PBS, A&E, TruTV, and The Food Network. She is dedicated to expanding learning opportunities for children while closing the opportunity gap. To this end, she is currently an M.P.A. candidate at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU and was a recipient of the 2010 Education Pioneers fellowship which brought her to Chicago Public Schools where she consulted on the implementation of the 21st Century Online Learning Project.
Jorge L. Ramos
is the six-time Emmy Award winning senior anchor of the 6pm and 11pm news on Telemundo New York. A pioneer in the field of Spanish-language broadcasting, Ramos began his career in 1979 as the first reporter of the newly-founded broadcast station that first went on the air in 1980. Ramos was born in Puerto Rico and graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a degree in Humanities. In the early 70s he worked at radio stations WKVM and WQBS in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Ramos moved to New York City in 1976. In his 29 years at Telemundo, Ramos has covered numerous elections and inaugurations in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.
Larry Smith
is the founder of SMITH Magazine, an online storytelling community. He’s the co-editor of the New York Times bestseller, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure from SMITH Magazine. He’s also currently a contributing editor of ESPN Magazine, and has whirled through the media world at publications such as Men’s Journal, Yahoo Internet Life, P.O.V., EGG, and Might magazine. Besides The LAMP, he also serves on the board of the alternative news organization, AlterNet.
Joshua Teeple
CPA, CFE, CISA, CITP, is a member of the board of directors for the LAMP and its finance chair. Mr. Teeple resides in Irvine, California, where he is the Forensic Services Market Lead – Orange County at a full-service, national public accounting firm. He specializes in forensic accounting, litigation support and fraud investigations. Mr. Teeple serves on the financial advisory board of a regional water filtration company and is an audit committee member for HOLA (Heart of Los Angeles), a not-for-profit community organization providing after-school activities for indigent youth. Mr. Teeple is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Information Systems Auditor, and Certified Information Technology Professional. He graduated from the University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration in 1997. Mr. Teeple has authored numerous articles and case studies in his fields of expertise and regularly speaks at industry events. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the California Receivers’ Forum, the California Bankruptcy Forum, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, and the SANS (SysAdmin, Audit Network, Security) Institute.
Jared Yeater
is originally from Fargo, North Dakota and earned his BA in English from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. After working in live action production for several years he joined Twist Films in Minneapolis and moved east to start their New York office as Head of Production. Passionate about Visual FX and post production, he joined Click3X in 2007 as a Senior Producer and quickly moved up the ranks to take on the role of Head of Production. Over the course of his career he has had the fortune to work on projects for clients that include E*TRADE, Walmart, Army, Verizon, Google, Fedex, and the NBA. He’s also worked on inspiring creative music videos for indie bands Animal Collective and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He spends most of his free time watching Minnesota Twins baseball games, and works as the Senior Producer for VFX, design and animation at The Mill in New York City.
