Local News, Fresh Faces, and a Few New Characters: Your Hometown Paper
Hello friends, it’s your vagabond newspaper reporter back to give you an update on what we’ve been up to at your favorite Texas newspaper.
If you missed my previous column and are wondering who the heck you’re reading, I’m the hired hand the folks at Moser Community Media (soon to be Texas Local Media, but more on that later) brought in to help run this operation. I’m a career newspaper guy and have worked from one coast to the other – including a stint in dry and dusty West Texas.
In that first column, I promised to keep you up to date on the inner-doings here, so that’s what today’s ramblings are about.
You may have already noticed some changes in the look or design of your paper. I know that’s not the biggest thing in the world to most folks, but it was a big project internally.
Kudos to our Regional Editor, Jennifer Paul – the talented pro behind that.
What you will see next is an increase in local coverage. We are beefing up our staff – bringing on a regional sports editor as well as reporters who will be concentrating mightily on this community. Veteran journalists like David Webb, Racheal Clark, Mitchell Pate, Alexandra Montoya, and others will be tasked with three rules regarding this paper: Local, local, local.
It’s our goal to not just tell you what happens in City Hall, but down the street, in the neighborhood, and around the county.
In that regard, we are not only expanding our news coverage, we are revamping and improving our community calendar, our police blotter, our sports coverage, and more. We’re adding several new features, including two brand new characters, Lone Star SAM and Tex-T (pictured here).
Lone Star SAM is a new column where you can send us questions and he’ll find the answer. SAM is an acronym for Straight Answer Man. The idea is pretty simple. If you want to know how much a public official earns, why one road is in good shape while another is not, which counties in the state have Javelina season or pretty much anything (remember, this IS a family newspaper) . . . just ask.
Lone Star SAM will go straight to the source, ask the question, and report back the answer.
Tex-T will share a quip or two here and there. It might be highlighting something great in the community. It might be a comment on the latest legislation out of Austin. It might be something about the weather. With Tex-T you just never know. All I can tell you is the folks who have read him so far seem to enjoy what he has to say. I hope you do as well.
Let me wrap up these latest scribbles by once again thanking you for your business. We appreciate your subscription, your reading, and your time. Please do continue to let me know what you like or what you don’t. After all, this is your paper.
Nice to connect again. I’ll be getting back to work now. We’ll talk again soon.
Timmons is a career newspaperman, award-winning author and industry consultant. He is the group publisher for Moser Community Media’s Central and Limestone newspaper groups which includes publications in Cameron, Marlin, Thorndale, Rosebud, Groesbeck, Mexia and Fairfield. You can reach him at tim@themexianews.com