I curate and coordinate Memphis-focused arts and culture coverage for the publication. That includes assigning and editing stories from staff reporters and our intern cohorts; creating and maintaining an arts and culture editorial calendar; writing monthly concert and art exhibition preview stories; and writing features, profiles, breaking news and other stories concerning Memphis individuals, groups and organizations.

I recruit interns from area colleges, working with professors, internship coordinators, The Daily Memphian social media manager and local organizations. For the first cohort, I acted as facilitator between five student journalists and their Daily Memphian editors. For subsequent cohorts, I served as direct editor and manager of two or more student journalists. I am responsible for onboarding, including introducing the students to the company culture, taking them through pitch and story protocol, working with them from idea to story completion and providing feedback. For each cohort, I edited and gave notes on stories. Students were introduced to photographers, podcast directors, writers, editors and more to aid in their career development. A new cohort begins each semester — this includes spring, summer and fall.

In tandem with the digital director, I work with a team of several people to digitally produce/design stories for the website, publish several newsletters weekly, send mobile and email news alerts, post stories to social media (working alongside the social media manager) and manage the flow of stories on the front page. My responsibilities have included writing a weekly COVID data story, creating COVID data charts that I and others updates daily, working with photographers and reporters to coordinate art for stories, working with a reporter to publish a story live from a weekly COVID briefing and determining which stories meet the criteria to be subscriber-only. I produce complex data visualizations, with tools including Tableau, R, Google Maps, QGIS and other tools. I also write stories, mainly art and culture, including profiles, concert previews and features.

I served as point person for coronavirus coverage, initially running the live blog and transitioning to a daily story and turning the health care reporter’s notes from the periodic briefing into a story while the briefing is still going or shortly afterwards. Previously, I was one of two neighborhoods reporters covering areas of town underrepresented in daily newspaper coverage. For nearly a year, I covered arts and culture and assigned stories to a freelance writer weekly. I covered business and other news, as needed. As a digital producer, I copy-edited and designed stories, sent email alerts and push notifications to readers and posted stories to social media. In addition to scouring the web for story ideas for myself and others, I regularly gave feedback on colleagues’ stories before they submitted them to editors. I am a charter staff member, having begun working at the outlet before its launch.

I served as the head of an affiliate chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. Duties included fiduciary responsibility, along with the treasurer and past treasurer; facilitating community partnerships; finding volunteer opportunities; fostering professional development opportunities; planning monthly meetings; finding out the needs of new and established area journalists; distributing information via social media and newsletters; recruiting new members and working with eight other board members to conduct the chapter overall. I was responsible for a yearly chapter audit, including bonding and providing a quarterly update to the NABJ Region III director.

I covered tourism and hospitality, health care, and startups. I managed the social media accounts, the twice-daily email newsletter and localized stories from other American City Business Journal papers. I tracked analytics for social media, the website and email.

Contributed to At Home Tennessee, Memphis Connect, I Love Memphis Blog, Click Magazine, High Ground News, Chalkbeat Tennessee, Style Blueprint Memphis, The Memphis Flyer

I served as manager of a high school newspaper program funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation and housed at the University of Memphis. During my tenure, I oversaw the transition from city to countywide, supervised graduate assistants, annually traveled to 20 high schools and other organizations to recruit students, planned an annual week-long summer day camp with a $10,000 budget, recruited guest speakers for camp and staff meetings, led monthly staff meetings, hired alumni to work at camp, facilitated new partnerships and opportunities for students, tracked alumni, prepared regular reports for funders, hosted interview and soft skill workshops, and helped students successfully apply for college scholarships and other opportunities.

I helped select students for the program, kept track of more than 100 students’ progress on news stories, helped plan the annual summer camp for 60 students, worked with students to develop reporting skills during in-person visits and via email during the school year, sold ads, designed the paper using InDesign, copy-edited the paper, redesigned the WordPress website and managed the website and social media.

Edited music stories on a top-rated music and pop culture website several times a week for clarity, style and grammar.

· Wrote breaking news briefs and stories concerning car wrecks, house fires, drownings, major drug and criminal arrests, etc. Wrote stories covering health concerns and issues in the faith-based community. Called 20 police agencies/departments nightly to check for news items. Took photos and shot videos for stories, as well as standalone art. Developed contacts and conducted interviews over the phone and in person with a variety of persons. Compiled sentencing info from District Court to run in a weekly news item. Did “People on the Street” surveys or "Look Who's Reading the Paper" items. Put together items for faith calendar, bulletin and fellowship pages. Acted as anchor for "First Look" promo shot for the web