Staff and Leadership

Walter Fields
Publisher, City Limits
Bio | E-mail

NEWS ROOM

Karen Loew
Editor-In-Chief, Online Media
Bio | E-mail

Jarrett Murphy
Editor-In-Chief, Print Media
Bio | E-mail

Neil deMause
Contributing Editor-Safety Net & Workforce Development

Eileen Markey
Contributing Editor-Housing & Homelessness

Jake Mooney
Contributing Editor-Immigration & Labor

Helen Zelon
Contributing Editor-Education & Child Welfare

Jay DeDapper
Contributor, City Limits Video

BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Mark Anthony Thomas
Director, City Limits
Bio | E-mail

Nekoro Gomes
Marketing Assistant, City Limits
Bio | E-mail

Creative Direction
Smyrski Creative

City Limits.org Technical Team
Singlebrook Technology
Todd Kuhlman

Magazine Proofreader
Danial Adkison

CITY LIMITS INTERNS

Joshua Burke
Rachel Dodakian
Abigail Kramer
Maria Muentes
Samia Shafi
Norman Williams

Board of Advisors

Mark Edmiston, Chair

Adam Blumenthal

Andy Breslau

Michael Conner

Walter Fields

David Jones

Andy Reicher

Michele Webb

Staff Bios

Walter Fields is Publisher of City Limits, a public policy investigate journalism magazine and website focused on New York City. He is also the Executive Editor of NorthStarNews.com, a public affairs website targeting the Black community. Prior to becoming Publisher of City Limits, he served as Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs for the Community Service Society (CSS), responsible for overseeing the agency’s legislative agenda, and determining its political and communications strategy. He rejoined CSS in 2005 after a 14-year absence during which he was the principal of a New Jersey based government relations firm, Fields Communications, established the NorthStar News website, and served a stint as the Director of Public Affairs for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

He has served as a consultant to both Democratic and Republican political campaigns, conducted an assessment on democratization in sub-Saharan Africa for the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID), established a training program for new Black city managers in post-apartheid South Africa for the International City County Managers Association and the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, advised the Japanese legislature on product liability issues and lectured at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, and worked with London based Operation Black Vote on voting rights issues in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Fields has had a distinguished career as a journalist. He has served as a contributing columnist for The Record (Bergen County, NJ), The City News, a contributing editor to The New Jersey Reporter, a monthly political quarterly, and provided commentary over NPR affiliate WBGO-FM in Newark, New Jersey. His writings garnered several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Garden State Association of Black Journalists. In 2007, he provided voice-over for the documentary “Election Day,” that examined voting across the country in 2004.

He was one of the original contributors on the MSNBC cable news channel and contributing columnist to MSNBC.com, and a regular roundtable contributor to the nationally syndicated “News and Notes” on National Public Radio (NPR). Mr. Fields is a recurrent guest on national and local public affairs programs on radio and television. He has appeared as a guest on CNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” CNN’s “Talk Back Live,” MSNBC’s “Equal Time,” Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity & Colmes,” “America’s Black Forum,” NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” “All Things Considered,” and “The Tavis Smiley Show,” “BET Tonight,” and Court TV’s “Pros & Cons,” among others. He also is a regular participant on the public affairs and morning news programs on WRKS-FM (KISS-FM) in New York City. He serves on the Board of Directors of the long-running PBS public affairs program, The Fred Friendly Seminar. Mr. Fields holds a Bachelors degree in Political Science from Morgan State University and an MPA in Public Policy from New York University, where he was a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow and is a recipient of the school’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He also pursued postgraduate study as a National Science Foundation Fellow in Political Science at the City University of New York Graduate Center.  He is married to Donna Wharton and they have a daughter, Jordan Marie.

Karen Loew, Editor-In-Chief of Electronic Media, has served as editor of the City Limits website since June 2006. Karen's background is primarily in newspapers, as a beat reporter at The Tennessean in Nashville, The Northern Virginia Daily in the Shenandoah Valley, and The Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, where she majored in English and studied poetry writing with former Poet Laureate Rita Dove. She also lived and studied on a kibbutz in Israel. Before coming to City Limits, she freelanced for outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Times and Newsday. Loew is active in the Society of Professional Journalists as a board member of the New York City chapter. Past volunteer work also includes being a tutor for Literacy Volunteers of America, and a founding Friend of the High Line, helping to create the new park in Chelsea, where she lives with her husband.

Jarrett Murphy, Editor-In-Chief of Print Media, has been editor of City Limits Magazine since February 2007. Murphy grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx, and later received a diploma in public financial policy from the London School of Economics and a masters in economics from the New School. Before coming to City Limits in February 2007, he worked at WFUV-FM, the Hartford Advocate, CBSNews.com and the Village Voice. He lives in the Norwood section of the Bronx with his wife and son.

Mark Anthony Thomas, Director of City Limits, previously served as the Deputy Director of City Futures, the parent company of the Center for an Urban Future and City Limits Magazine until 2009. He served as the Public Relations Officer for the Medical School for International Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s collaboration with Columbia University Medical Center. From 2001 - 2006, he served as a community affairs representative for the Georgia-Pacific Corporation Foundation in Atlanta and managed the company's Partners for Education programs and developed the communications efforts of the foundation’s philanthropy. He served as the President of the Board of Directors of Helping Teens Succeed, Inc., funded by the Lumina Foundation and the Federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). He received his Executive MPA from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in 2009 and graduated in 2001 from the University of Georgia, studying Marketing and Mass Communications. While a student, he spent four years as a reporter and became the University’s first African American Editor-In-Chief for The Red & Black, the daily independent newspaper. A poet and an author of two books, he’s been prominently featured in Time Magazine, honored by Essence Magazine, and was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year in 2005.

Nekoro Gomes is the Marketing Assistant for City Limits. He is a native of Rochester, New York and graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois with a degree in journalism. Before joining City Limits as an editorial intern in January 2009, he was a writer and intern at Editor & Publisher Magazine, the Greenpoint Gazette and Working Films, Inc., where he was a George C. Stoney Fellow in 2007.

He lives in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn with his family.