Media Panel: Newsroom Vets and Insiders Dish How to Survive the Gauntlet

Tim Bird is the executive vice president of client services at LifeSci Communications. A long-time healthcare PR and marketing communications practitioner with deep strategy and health science roots, Tim has a track record of success building effective teams and spearheading award-winning campaigns that deliver results for life science companies and organizations across a range of sectors, geographies, and business sizes.  He's an accomplished strategist known for helping many of the leading players in health and medicine to amplify their voices, build their influence and create lasting change in some of the world’s most complex and challenging health conditions including HIV/AIDS, diabetes,  substance abuse disorder, epilepsy, vaccine preventable diseases, and Crohn’s disease. He has held senior leadership positions for some of the world’s leading communications agencies. Tim’s mission-driven leadership, and his team has helped companies and organizations with health improvement goals build reputations, shape policy, speed research, reduce stigma, advance care and access, and create awareness and demand for both new and mature therapies. Tim was named a 2021 Health Influencer by PR Week for his outstanding leadership of M Booth Health and its clients through the pandemic and work with pharma and advocacy organizations to guide the conversation about safety, vaccines and mitigation.

Cheyanne M. Daniels is the race and Politics reporter for The Hill. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Cheyanne reports on politics and policies affecting disenfranchised and minority communities. Prior to her time at The Hill, she worked for the Chicago Sun-Times, covering the city’s South and West sides. Cheyanne’s work has also been published in the Wisconsin State Journal, theGrio, UPI and South Side Weekly. In her free time, Cheyanne is an avid book reader and horseback rider. Hailing from the south suburbs of Chicago, Cheyanne now lives in Washington, D.C. You can follow her on Twitter at @CheyannaMarie97.

Alex Rosenwald is the Senior Director of Communications for The Hill, where he focuses on the reach and awareness of their streaming channel, live events, and journalists.  He previously served in communications roles for the Hudson Institute, Ricochet, the Washington Examiner and The Weekly Standard. Rosenwald received a Bachelor’s of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, focusing on Middle East history and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from George Mason University.  He is also a James Madison Fellow at Hillsdale College.

Steve Drummond is a journalist, educator and author. In more than 20 years as a senior editor at NPR in Washington, his work has been recognized with many of journalism’s highest honors. Before coming to NPR, he was a newspaper reporter in Florida and in Michigan, and has written for many publications. He currently leads NPR’s education reporting team. A three-time graduate of the University of Michigan, Drummond lives in Bethesda, Md., and teaches journalism at the University of Maryland. His work has been honored with many of journalism's highest awards, including three Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University awards, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Edward R. Murrow Award. He is the author of The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two, published in May 2023.