Skip to main content

These members have dedicated themselves to the highest tier of MVJ support.

We thank them for supporting our organization.

Rye Barcott

Co-founder and CEO of With Honor

Rye Barcott is co-founder and CEO of With Honor, a cross-partisan political organization led by veterans focused on promoting and advancing principled veteran leadership to reduce polarization in the U.S. Congress. Previously, he co-founded and led the clean energy investment firm Double Time Capital, and co-founded the non-governmental public health organization CFK in Nairobi, Kenya. His memoir, It Happened on the Way to War, juxtaposes military service and social entrepreneurship. Barcott serves on the boards of the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, NDI, and the U.S. Institute for Peace. He chairs the board of CFK.

Dr. Jeffrey Blevins

Professor and Head of the Journalism Department at the University of Cincinnati

Dr. Jeffrey Layne Blevins (Ph.D., Ohio University) is a veteran of the U.S. Army, serving in the Military Intelligence Corps and attained the rank of Specialist (E-4). While in the Army he served a tour in the Republic of South Korea and earned the Overseas Service Ribbon, the National Defense Service Medal (Operation Desert Storm), Army Achievement Award and Army Service Ribbon. Today, Dr. Blevins is Professor and Head of the Journalism Department at the University of Cincinnati and editor of the scholarly journal Democratic Communiqué. As a frequent opinion-editorial columnist, his commentary on media policy and ethics have appeared in USA Today, Cincinnati Enquirer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, PandoDaily, Gateway Journalism Review and other venues. In 2009 Dr. Blevins served as a federal grant reviewer for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce. His scholarly research examines telecommunication policy and the political economy of U.S. media industries with a recent focus on social media networks. Dr. Blevins is co-author of a forthcoming book, “Social Media, Social Justice and the Political Economy of Online Networks” (University of Cincinnati Press, 2021).

Sewell Chan

Editor-in-Chief, The Texas Tribune

Sewell Chan joined The Texas Tribune as editor in chief in October 2021. Previously he was a deputy managing editor and then the editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021. Chan worked at the New York Times from 2004 to 2018, as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy Op-Ed editor and international news editor. He began his career as a local reporter at the Washington Post in 2000.

A native New Yorker, Chan grew up in an immigrant family and was the first in his family to finish college. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in social studies and received a master’s degree in politics from Oxford, where he studied on a British Marshall scholarship. Chan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and PEN America, which defends free expression. He serves on the boards of the News Leaders Association (formerly the American Society of News Editors), Columbia Journalism Review and the Board of Incorporators of Harvard Magazine. He was previously a member of the national advisory board at the Poynter Institute and was elected to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2022.

He is dedicated to bridging the dangerous divide between mass media and the public it serves, and sees military veterans as key stakeholders who can use their reputation for service to repair growing public opposition to quality journalism.