Joey Francilus joined the ACLU of Florida in July 2018 as Digital Media Associate, and was promoted in July 2022 to Digital Strategist. In this role, he assists in management of ACLU of Florida and ACLU branded digital content and assets, and provides editorial, publishing, and communications support for ACLU of Florida offices.
He has worked in print and digital journalism in New York and Florida, including for Dow Jones & Company, The Huffington Post, and Politico, covering the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, including reporting on Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, and interviews with Florida governors Jeb Bush and Rick Scott.
In his downtime, he maintains a personal website where he works on independently produced projects on topics that include Florida history and politics.
Prior to this position, he was an overnight news editor for iHeartMedia at WIOD in Miami, and reporter for Politico Florida based in Miami.
Joey is a Miami native, and began his communications career as a broadcasting magnet student at South Miami High School. It was there where he served as senior anchor of the televised school newscast, senior "Cobra Voice" pep rally announcer, president of the 2007-08 South Miami Social Studies Honor Society, and director of the 2007-08 South Miami Video Yearbook.
He went on to work in college as a disc jockey at the University of Miami campus radio station WVUM during his junior and senior years. He completed his capstone journalism degree in 2014 as a Dow Jones fellow and Ben Grauer scholar at Columbia University in New York, under the tutelage of June Cross, Helen Benedict, and Todd Gitlin.
Joey holds a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Miami and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University in the City of New York.
