Marcel Pacatte comes to The Source with a background in newspapers, magazines and education.
He has started part-time and will be covering news and events, and writing features.
Pacatte, who also publishes the Waverly Journal, says he is excited about the opportunity to help The Source tell the stories of the people of Jacksonville and the surrounding communities.
He has a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield and has taught at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Boise State University and Routt Catholic High School. His undergrad degree, in journalism, is from Eastern Illinois University.
At Medill, he ran the Chicago newsroom, where students provided stories for print clients and published stories on a public website.
His father, also Marcel, taught at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield and his mother, Ann, worked for the Illinois Department of Corrections, including for a time as a counselor at the prison in Jacksonville. They also published the Waverly Journal, for about 25 years, from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Pacatte has worked as an editor and reporter at the Chicago Tribune, Kansas City Star, Milwaukee Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Bloomington Pantagraph.
He also was managing editor of Discover magazine, where the first issue he worked on, a retrospective on Albert Einstein, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.
In addition, he worked on the team that created Women’s Health magazine and other special projects at Rodale Publishing.
He is a Secular Franciscan, a Catholic lay order created by St. Francis of Assisi 800 years ago.
He encourages people to send their story ideas to marcelpacatte@outlook.com.
