Liz Halloran, previously of NPR and U.S. News & World Report, comes to the firm from the Human Rights Campaign
Cornerstone Public Affairs, a leading, bipartisan public affairs firm, announces the addition of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and strategic communications expert Liz Halloran as a principal. She brings to the firm deep experience at major media outlets, including National Public Radio (NPR) and U.S. News & World Report, where she reported on national issues, campaigns and the media.
Liz comes to Cornerstone after more than five years at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), where she has served as deputy communications director. At HRC, Liz focused on communications management, relationship development and execution of major media rollouts for the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization. Before joining HRC, Liz worked at NPR for more than six years, helping lead the international media company into the digital age as the outlet’s first online Washington national correspondent. At NPR, Liz covered the administration, politics and national issues as part of the online team that won four consecutive Edward R. Murrow Awards. Before her time at NPR, Liz was a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report, producing stories on politics, media and the U.S. Supreme Court that set the pace for subsequent news coverage in Washington and beyond.
Liz previously worked at the Hartford (Conn.) Courant, as a city, politics and general assignment reporter, and later as a senior reporter in the outlet’s Washington Bureau. In Hartford, she was a member of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for coverage of a mass shooting at the state’s lottery headquarters. In Washington, Liz reported on politics and national issues, and created the outlet’s first national media column in which she chronicled the rapid changes in the industry.
Liz joins a fast-growing Cornerstone public affairs team that includes Matt Paul, Jimmy Centers, Claire Burghoff, Armando Diaz, Katelyn O’Hare-Hayes and Renee Roig.
“Liz brings added capabilities to the firm with her award-winning newsroom mentality,” Geoff Gonella, Cornerstone’s president and managing director said. “Her wealth of journalistic knowledge will strengthen the expertise of our public affairs team and augment the effective communication and compelling storytelling done for clients.”
“Public opinion, policy and news today evolve, shift and break in real time and on various platforms right before our eyes,” Liz said. “Together with my new colleagues at Cornerstone, I look forward to utilizing my experience both in the newsroom and in not-for-profit public relations to build engagement strategies that not only tell an organization’s story, but also move the needle in terms of the perception of the public, the media, and legislative and regulatory bodies.”