Narrative Strategy & Advocacy

Make the
mission undeniable

High-stakes communications for mission-driven organizations. I build the narratives that win the fights that matter. And make the work worth showing up for.

Start a conversation
2 Decades in the fight
Global Reach & placements
Zero Boring briefs taken
Stephen Fee on a Zoom call with President Obama and PEN America colleagues

With President Obama. PEN America Global Free Expression Campaign

“You can’t prompt your way into a movement. You can’t optimize your way through a crisis of public trust.”

  • 01 Narrative Reframing & Category Creation
  • 02 Strategic Defense in Hostile Terrain
  • 03 Movement Engineering & Digital Mobilization
  • 04 Information Integrity & Anti-Disinformation
Selected Work

Category Creation

Naming the fight against “educational gag orders”

When state legislatures moved to restrict what teachers could say and what students could learn, the opposition needed a name with moral weight. I built the linguistic frame that shifted how the country talked. And legislated.

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Strategic Defense

Protecting a national mission during federal pullback

With a hostile administration and regulatory pressure mounting, I engineered both the defensive posture and the change narrative for a national housing organization. Simultaneously.

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Information Integrity

Spot It. Check It. Stop It.

Led the 2020 anti-disinformation campaign featuring Alan Cumming, Jennifer Egan, and John Lithgow. Proving the darkest corners of the information war can be fought with wit, reach, and cultural authority.

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Background

PBS NewsHour
PEN America
Enterprise Community Partners
Brennan Center for Justice
Physicians for Human Rights

The happy
warrior
difference

Stephen Fee

Stephen Fee

Narrative Strategist

As a former PBS NewsHour reporter and producer, I know how to find the story others miss and make it land. That journalistic instinct: for truth, for tension, for the human detail that changes everything. It is what I bring to every campaign, crisis, and narrative challenge.

High-stakes advocacy doesn’t have to be miserable. The best work happens when the team is coolheaded, creatively alive, and genuinely energized by the fight. I’ve produced an in-depth interview with Barack Obama. I’ve navigated administration-level conflicts without flinching. I’ve built digital organizing tools from scratch when none existed.

What ties it together isn’t grimness. It’s a strategist’s patience for complexity, and a stubborn belief that if we aren’t finding the joy in the mission, we aren’t doing it right.

Selected Coverage

CNBC Housing affordability is the number one issue in America right now ↗ Washington Post At least 238 writers and intellectuals were detained for their work last year, advocacy group says ↗ Fast Company This nonprofit is raising $250 million to help renters earn equity in their apartments ↗
Stephen Fee on location in Jerusalem with film crew
Stephen Fee at PEN America advocacy event holding Not A Target sign
Stephen Fee climbing the pyramids at Teotihuacan

Let’s talk about the fight you’re in.

Whether you’re navigating a crisis, launching a campaign, or trying to reframe an issue the world has gotten wrong: I’d like to hear about it.

stephen@stephenmfee.com

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