Web editor
I was hired as web editor at the Tyler Morning Telegraph daily newspaper in Tyler, Texas in October 2006. My initial role was two-fold:
- To ensure that all content from the print newspaper was uploaded to the TylerPaper.com website in a timely manner. This essentially occurred through the work of second-shift staff who reported to me.
- Get breaking news reports on the website during daytime hours. Over time, we developed social media channels to drive people to the website when breaking news was posted.
State award for journalism excellence
In 2011, the Tyler Morning Telegraph (more specifically, the website at TylerPaper.com) was honored by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors for the Star Online Report of the Year in Class AAA. The award was given for the website’s coverage (led by yours truly) of a series of mysterious church fires in Tyler and surrounding areas in 2010. The reporting work included articles and videos of the fires by Kenneth Dean and others on the reporting staff. I created a page on the website where all articles and videos on the series of fires were archived and available for public view at any time. The page provided a complete history of the story which developed over several months, and the page was what the Associated Press reviewed in their judging.
Unfortunately, the website has undergone several major changes since my departure from the company, and the page is no longer available for me to provide a link.
It was very rewarding to have a state journalism organization honor a digital news entity that was still in its early stages of development for excellence.
Digital Media Manager
In 2012, I received a promotion to the title of digital media manager. This position gave me responsibility over more than just breaking news and getting print newspaper content uploaded online.
The major change I facilitated was the expansion of a full video department with equipment and staff dedicated to video production. As part of this expansion, I led the effort to introduce a new revenue stream into the company by utilizing “pre-roll” paid advertisements on our videos via use of the Brightcove online video platform.
I created a YouTube channel which had recorded more than one million views prior to my departure from the company. We typically created and posted several videos per day, including scheduled news and sports updates when there wasn’t breaking news. Facebook and Twitter social media accounts were used to drive traffic to the website and the monetized videos.
We also benefitted from a news partnership with KYTX CBS-19 in Tyler. They provided us an early-morning update from their morning news, as well as an early-evening update just prior to their 6 p.m. newscast. In return, we created for them a 90-second mid-afternoon sports update that appeared on their air between the ending of the 3:30 p.m. program and the start of the 4 p.m. program.
We also created a high-school football halftime highlights show that was published on Facebook and Twitter at halftime of East Texas high school football:
Video editing
As we were first breaking into the video business, we didn’t have modern equipment or personnel to shoot and edit video. Nevertheless, we dove in head-first with the idea of creating a digital-first news mentality in a print-oriented newsroom. Here is an example of a breaking news video reported by Danny Mogle and Kenneth Dean that I edited:
Another video I edited entitled “Her Clients Give Her a Hand For the Way She Uses Her Feet” went with a feature story written by reporter Coshandra Dillard, who also shot the video. The edited video has had more than 132,000 views:
This video that I shot, narrated and edited, “Fit City Day in the Park,” focused on a community-wide fitness initiative called “Fit City Tyler” which remains active years later:
