I am a Washington-area editor and writer who had my first job in real-world journalism while in college — doing everything from covering City Council meetings, interviewing farmers in the fields, taking pictures, developing film, designing pages, setting type and helping clean up the newsroom after deadline at the three-times-weekly Grayson County News-Gazette in Leitchfield, Kentucky.
That breadth at the beginning prepared me for the digital transformation to come.
I rose to become assistant editor at Nashville Business Journal, business editor at The Cincinnati Enquirer, city editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal in Nevada and a special projects editor at USA TODAY. I have scouted out high-quality freelancers, led investigative teams and managed as many as two dozen people while dealing with performance reviews, annual goal planning and zero-based budgeting.
But I also haven’t been afraid to tackle the technical: computer-assisted reporting, interactive graphics, and quirky content-management systems.
When editors and team leaders became a luxury during tough times, I remade myself as an online producer at USA TODAY and a liaison to Gannett editors and reporters, putting my depth of knowledge to work to do more than merely post others’ stories. I made the pieces look better; made them more complete; and drove desktop, mobile and app traffic to them through search-engine optimization and social media.
I’m also not afraid to have a little fun journalistically.
I am an editorial cartoon aficionado who enjoys artwork of all political stripes. I’ve told commenters on Twitter that I consider ’toons the first memes.
I have published editorial cartoon galleries featuring Gannett staff artists and freelancers since fall 2007. The one for December 2018 on usatoday.com received more than 8 million page views in one month. The USA TODAY content-management system’s latest capabilities now allow for a yearly gallery, so I created the 2019 version, first loading it with the best cartoon highlights of 2018 for New Year’s Day readers.
