Diane Sylvester is a multi-media storyteller, with a career as a journalist, newsroom leader and media consultant. As a newsroom leader Diane has worked as a senior manager and editor for large and small news organizations envisioning and executing strategies that align with an organization's mission with a focus on community engagement and team building that includes diverse participants. She recently worked with Futuro Media which produces the award winning podcast Latino USA on PRX founding the organization's investigative unit and aiding the executive team in strategic growth initiatives including fundraising more than $5 million dollars for the organization. Under her leadership, the investigative unit's inaugural reporting project The Moving Border won the 2021 Overseas Press Club Lowell Thomas Award for investigative reporting. The team also produced Futuro's first fiction podcast that looked deeply at issues of racial inequity.
Diane was previously a Senior Planning Manager in the Wall Street Journal's video department and oversaw coverage of the 2016 election and helped develop a new system of integrating the video department with other reporting desks. Having directed and produced works for CNN, ABC and MSNBC, she contributed to award-winning coverage from Washington D.C., New York, New Orleans, and Kosovo including investigative reporting projects. She has interviewed Kofi Annan, Hilary Clinton, the Dalai Lama and other newsmakers while telling the stories of those affected by large policy and political events. Her work has garnered several EMMY awards, a New York Press Club award, and a Telly.
As a media consultant Diane has helped organizations in their strategic growth and public relations efforts. She worked at Lincoln Center for the Performing arts, writing public statements from leadership on arts in education and with the organization's leadership and board on their $500 million capital campaign to upgrade the campus. She has worked with other non-profit organizations, artists, and newsrooms to communicate their goals and work to the public and to help them raise funds via grant writing efforts and fundraising events, including the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, The New York Amsterdam News, Futuro Media and UNICEF.
Diane also works as a filmmaker and multimedia artist. She is currently working on several multi-media works, including a multi-screen installation, Paral.lel, which will tell the stories of residents of the Poble Sec neighborhood in Barcelona while exploring the multiple dimensions that construct identity. Diane is also the producer-director of Oye Cuba! A Journey Home, a feature-length documentary about the cultural connections shared between the United States and Cuba as evidenced through jazz and Grammy award-winning jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill. Oye Cuba! is the recipient of an NEH Bridging Cultures Through Film grant as well as a New York State Council for the Arts grant.
Diane was previously a Senior Planning Manager in the Wall Street Journal's video department and oversaw coverage of the 2016 election and helped develop a new system of integrating the video department with other reporting desks. Having directed and produced works for CNN, ABC and MSNBC, she contributed to award-winning coverage from Washington D.C., New York, New Orleans, and Kosovo including investigative reporting projects. She has interviewed Kofi Annan, Hilary Clinton, the Dalai Lama and other newsmakers while telling the stories of those affected by large policy and political events. Her work has garnered several EMMY awards, a New York Press Club award, and a Telly.
As a media consultant Diane has helped organizations in their strategic growth and public relations efforts. She worked at Lincoln Center for the Performing arts, writing public statements from leadership on arts in education and with the organization's leadership and board on their $500 million capital campaign to upgrade the campus. She has worked with other non-profit organizations, artists, and newsrooms to communicate their goals and work to the public and to help them raise funds via grant writing efforts and fundraising events, including the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, The New York Amsterdam News, Futuro Media and UNICEF.
Diane also works as a filmmaker and multimedia artist. She is currently working on several multi-media works, including a multi-screen installation, Paral.lel, which will tell the stories of residents of the Poble Sec neighborhood in Barcelona while exploring the multiple dimensions that construct identity. Diane is also the producer-director of Oye Cuba! A Journey Home, a feature-length documentary about the cultural connections shared between the United States and Cuba as evidenced through jazz and Grammy award-winning jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill. Oye Cuba! is the recipient of an NEH Bridging Cultures Through Film grant as well as a New York State Council for the Arts grant.
