Diocesan News

The Tablet’s Sales Director Elected To Catholic Media Association Board

March 29, 2023
By
JoAnn DiNapoli (left) and the DeSales Media sales team (from left) Carrie White, Kimberly Benn, and Kelly Calderon (left to right) participate in many activities around the Diocese of Brooklyn, like this Christmas toy giveaway sponsored by Catholic Charities Brooklyn & Queens. (Photo: Courtesy of JoAnn DiNapoli)

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — JoAnn DiNapoli, director of sales at DeSales Media Group, is used to being constantly on the go. The ever-busy DiNapoli is now adding something new to her portfolio.

She has been elected treasurer of the Catholic Media Association (CMA), an organization that promotes Catholic journalism and whose membership boasts more than 600 newspapers and digital sites in the U.S. and Canada.

The CMA, DiNapoli said, “is a very important organization, especially in today’s world.” The association “promotes Catholic journalism, and we do it by working together. We learn from each other and get different ideas on how to get the Catholic perspective out there,” she says, adding that those ideas include embracing newer platforms like digital and podcasts.

Catholic journalism is vital in today’s media landscape because it gives readers the chance to discover stories ignored by secular news outlets, she explained.

With her election, DiNapoli, who has been with DeSales Media Group (the ministry that produces The Tablet and Currents News) for six years, joins the CMA’s board of directors.

“I am very proud of and looking forward to working with the board members, many of whom I know from going to CMA conferences,”  she said. “I’m looking forward to hopefully adding something that will increase the impact of Catholic journalism.”

DiNapoli leads a team that sells advertising space in The Tablet as well as advertising in NET-TV, to communicate with Catholics throughout the Diocese of Brooklyn. 

“Whether it’s a parish card party or Futures in Education gala, every ad is important. It’s a way for them to get the things they’re doing across to the diocese,” she explained.

DiNapoli has many years of experience in advertising. Prior to coming to DeSales Media Group, she was the director of sales at the New York Daily News for 17 years and worked at the New York Post for a time. Making the transition from secular media to the Catholic world was daunting at first, she admitted. 

“When you’re comfortable in a position like I was as director of sales at the Daily News, I was nervous to make the change,” she recalled. “I find it so much more rewarding.”