Mark Furman brings 25 years experience as a daily newspaper editor and digital news executive producer to the classroom.

At the Baker City Herald in northeastern Oregon from 1999 to 2007, Furman and the news team twice earned recognition for the largest percentage annual print circulation increase of any Oregon daily. Furman partnered with the Credibility Roundtable Project of the Associated Press Managing Editors in 2000 to improve newsroom engagement with the community. The 2001 APME convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, introduced him to the Impact Study on Readership, which informed content and design changes at the Herald. In 2006, Furman received a fellowship to continue his news management education at the American Press Institute in Reston, Virginia.

Furman moved to Eugene in 2007 to teach reporting at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications after serving as a mentor at the Herald for interns from the Snowden Internship Program.

In 2008, Furman started work as the first full-time digital news employee of the Fisher Interactive Network at CBS affiliate KVAL.com in Eugene, Oregon. Furman later joined the Fisher Interactive lead team, supervising digital staff and production at the company’s CBS affiliates in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. By 2012, Furman and the news team in Eugene had increased monthly page views on KVAL.com nearly tenfold, becoming the most-visited local news site in the region. That same year, Fisher Communications named Furman the inaugural - and as fate would have it, final - recipient of the company’s Dedication to Excellence award.

In 2013, Fisher announced plans to form a duopoly in Eugene with the new owner of KMTR-TV, the local NBC affiliate. The same year, Fisher merged with the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Furman continued to supervise digital news and social media production for KVAL CBS 13 and KMTR NBC 16 in Eugene, operating the two local news brands in competition with one another. His team also operated KPIC.com in Roseburg and KCBY.com in Coos Bay. 

Furman resigned from the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 2022 to return to teaching at Allen Hall, reminded of a lesson he learned from the late journalist and educator Steve Buttry at the American Press Institute:

Journalists don’t have to climb any particular career ladder - but we have a responsibility to share our experience and help future journalists learn how to serve the public.