Candice Fortman

Candice Fortman, our Executive in Residence, builds newsrooms that people can actually use. As the former Executive Director of Outlier Media, Detroit's pioneering nonprofit newsroom, Candice reimagined what local journalism looks like when it's designed around real community needs. Under her leadership, Outlier became a nationally recognized model for service journalism, delivering practical information directly to Detroit residents and proving that sustainable, people-centered newsrooms are possible. Before Outlier, she led marketing and audience engagement at WDET 101.9, Detroit's NPR station, and earlier built her media foundation at Clear Channel Radio. A two-time John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University — class of 2021 and 2025 — Candice has spent years examining how journalism's business model shapes, and too often fails, low-wealth communities. She brings a combination of operator experience and systems-level thinking, helping organizations make clear decisions about what to build, who it's for, and how it lasts. At Blue Engine, she works with news leaders to design organizations that are accountable to the people they serve and structured to survive beyond any single grant, leader, or moment. Candice centers her work on equity, access, and the belief that useful information is a form of power. Her focus is on supporting communities and people who have been historically locked out of the systems meant to serve them. In Detroit, a city she loves fiercely, she stays rooted in the people and stories that remind her why any of this matters.