Executive
Mary Lou Fulton, Vice President of Audience Development
Mary Lou Fulton leads the development of new products such as magazines and websites that are complementary to what readers find in The Californian. Those products include The Northwest Voice community web site and newspaper; Bakotopia.com, an online community and marketplace focusing on local events and people; and Más, a weekly magazine in English about Latino life, culture and community in Kern County.
Mary Lou also oversees Mercado Nuevo LLC, an independent subsidiary of The Californian that is the operational home for many of the company's new businesses.
Her background spans both newspapers and technology. She started out as a reporter and editor, working for the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. Among her assignments at The Times was serving as the founding editor of City Times, the community news section created after the 1992 riots to improve coverage of Central Los Angeles.
Mary Lou moved to the online world in 1995 when she joined The Washington Post's new media division and later became Managing Editor of washingtonpost.com. Fulton also held senior positions at a number of online companies, including America Online, GeoCities and HomePage.com, before returning to the newspaper business in 2003 when she joined The Californian.
A native of Yuma, Arizona, and a second-generation Mexican-American, Fulton holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Arizona State University and a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.