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Why don’t you cover MY team?
The call was polite enough. Why weren’t we covering the (now ended) Texas A&M women’s basketball team’s run in the NCAA tournament? I understand, I truly do, especially with Texas A&M. When I...
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Journalism, deadlines, being first and getting it right
I have a saying: If you aren’t right, you aren’t first. Still, the job of journalism can be incredibly difficult, particularly during confusing breaking news situations. Back in the day when it was...
View ArticleCh…ch…changes
We have a slight change in Monday’s Daily News Journal. For months, we’ve run a feature on Monday called Discover Rutherford. It’s pretty popular, but it isn’t there today. Discover Rutherford is...
View ArticleTime spent consuming media
There was a great article on the Poynter website titled, “New research finds 92 percent of time spent on news consumption is still on legacy platforms.” The article does bring up great points about...
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The resources to apply…
Sometimes, it is hard to look at a newsroom of the 1990s and then look at one today. At its height, the DNJ might have had 40 or more newsroom employees. And while some people will take shots at us and...
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Decisions Decisions
One of the many decisions that has to be made day in and day out is what the front page of the newspaper is going to look like. Sunday, our main story was titled In too deep: County housing seeing...
View ArticleA season of change
Social media is a powerful and swift tool. Shortly after the Daily News Journal began its restructuring of the information center (newsroom for you old-school readers) on Tuesday, Facebook and Twitter...
View ArticleThe next few steps
During the last 12 months, we have tried to make investments in the newsroom. We took a part-time position to full time, hired a full-time photographer, and hired a part-time copy editor, who will now...
View ArticleThe team approach
As we move forward with the newsroom’s reorganization and start to get new multimedia journalists hired, there will be another change – how the newsroom is actually organized. Previously, we...
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Independence and cooperation
My final blog post, related to the reorganization of the newsroom, is about our relationship with The Tennessean. The rumor mill is always working and there are a lot of folks who think we are, or...
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Coverage of the checkpoint
On Friday, July 5, I was at home enjoying a day off when the phone calls and emails started. It seemed a video taken at a DUI checkpoint in Rutherford County, claiming Rutherford County deputies had...
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The newspaper of tomorrow
As I look around and see the changes that are descending on the industry at the speed of, oh, roughly light, it naturally makes me wonder what the DNJ will look like in five years, ten years, or 20...
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A bit of family, a bit of faith
Prior to my arrival at The DNJ, my predecessor, Jimmy Hart, spent quite a lot of time on a content evolution plan. The goal was to identify key topics to the community – passion topics – and organize...
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When you can’t win for losing
I was talking over dinner with my wife about Sonny Gray, the guy from Smyrna who is now pitching for the Oakland Athletics. His first start was not a successful effort. The print headline was “Sonny...
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MTSU Sports and the Mobile App
Stephen Shirley got a little cranky on Twitter the other day, complaining about our mobile app. And rightfully so. This, to me, is the key tweet: As a high volume mobile user, I just wanted @dnj_com...
View ArticleBy the numbers
On the third, I provided you with some numbers and thought I’d start doing that weekly. So by the numbers from Monday, Sept. 16 through Sunday Sept. 22: DNJ staff wrote 33 local stories. DNJ staff...
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Why we ran the story: Teacher’s DUI
Every once in a while we’ll run a story in The Daily News Journal that sets a portion of the community against us. A recent one was our report on a local teacher who received a DUI. The story was...
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By the numbers: October 7
First a bit about Monday Some readers may have noticed that the Monday paper is four pages smaller than normal. This is due to the elimination of what we call “house ads.” These are advertisements in...
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