Michael O'Connell, Patch Staff

Michael O’Connell is a field editor with Patch in Northern Virginia. He was also the host and producer of the weekly It's All Journalism podcast and produced the Better News podcast for the American Press Institute.

Previously, Michael was a digital editor at Local News Now, a senior digital editor at Federal News Network, a producer of the National Governors Association's Meet the Threat podcast, and managing editor at The Connection Newspapers. For three years, Michael taught podcasting in the American University School of Communication’s Masters in Digital Storytelling program.

Besides speaking about podcasting at various journalism conferences, Michael is also the author of the textbook, Turn Up the Volume — A Down and Dirty Guide to Podcasting.

In June 2018, Michael traveled to Tajikistan on behalf of the U.S. State Department to teach young journalists how to podcast. Through that program, he also had the opportunity to speak to journalists remotely in Albania, Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia.