Editor & Publisher Magazine named Leonard Woolsey as its 2023 Publisher of the Year.
Woolsey, president of Southern Newspapers Inc. and publisher of The Daily News in Galveston, learned of the honor during Editor & Publisher’s recent Senior Leadership Conference in Chicago. Woolsey was among numerous reader-generated nominees evaluated by a committee of E&P’s editorial department, according to the industry publication, which is known as the “bible of the newspaper industry.”
Promotions, new hires and other personnel news from Texas newspapers.
ROY KENT, Kerrville Daily Times
KERRVILLE – Roy Kent is the new managing editor at the Kerrville Daily Times.
The appointment was announced by Publisher Jennifer McCullough, who said Kent’s experience will be an asset to the local newspaper and the community it serves.
HOUSTON – Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran editor Kelly Ann Scott is the new executive editor for the Houston Chronicle.
AUSTIN – Bill Girdner, the editor of Courthouse News Service, who has worked to require timely news media access to court filings in Texas and across the nation, was honored with the 2023 James Madison Award by the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
FOIFT bestows the award on those who demonstrate outstanding commitment to the principles of the First Amendment and open government. The foundation presented the award to Girdner at its state conference Sept. 28 in Austin during the John Henry Faulk Awards Luncheon.
A joint convention of the South Texas Press and Texas Gulf Coast Press associations is on the calendar for April 18-20, 2024.
The two associations approved the move at their meetings last spring as a means of decreasing costs for each association and their member newspapers, as well as increasing attendance.
The convention will be held in Galveston at the Moody Gardens Hotel and Conference Center.
TAYLOR — A veteran advertising leader has joined Granite Media Partners Inc. as the new vice president of sales and marketing.
Shawn Burrell, a Texas native, started Sept. 5 and will be based at the 45-year-old company’s home office near Austin.
“I intend to bring leadership, support and vision while being a champion for our sales team,” Burrell said. “I am thrilled with the opportunity to help build Granite Media Partners to be the top source people think of when they need a powerful, robust marketing platform that delivers results.”
Fair warning: Get ready for some major geekage.
We’ve all seen the embarrassing example of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-produced copy in a recent large company sports section. This is what was published (since corrected):
“The Worthington Christian [[WINNING_TEAM_MASCOT]] defeated the Westerville North [[LOSING_TEAM_MASCOT]] 2-1 in an Ohio boys soccer game on Saturday.”
Gannett, the guilty party, recently stopped using AI on its sports desk as the results were just not ready for prime time.
Would you like for your newspaper photos to be more engaging and perhaps tell more of a story? If you missed the “Visual Storytelling for Newspaper Photography” session at the TPA summer convention, presented by Russell Viers, you have another opportunity to see it. Or maybe you saw it and you want your staff sit in. Either way, a more comprehensive version of his session will be streamed on Digiversity.tv LIVE October 5, 2023 at 10:00 am CDT on https://digiversity.tv/live.
By KEN ESTEN COOKE, 2023-24 TPA President
“Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”
– John Steinbeck
Ah, the Panhandle plains. Being in the Hill Country, I don’t get to visit “up yonder” frequently, but I was fortunate to attend the Panhandle Press Association’s regional convention in Canyon.