With a background in online journalism, Mike Davis will bring a different perspective to the sports department of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Davis was named the assistant managing editor for sports — succeeding Garry Howard, who left for the Sporting News — and will retain some responsibilities of his prior job as editor of JSOnline.com, the newspaper's website.
"My primary goals are to continue our strong, insightful beat reporting on our local teams and athletes and to continue to strengthen our reporters' interactions with readers online," Davis said. "Fans not only want to read what's happening with their teams but also discuss what's happening — both among themselves and with our reporters. The more we can gain that connection, through blogs, chats, video, social media and other interactive features, the more we'll be a go-to place for sports fans.
"But the core always has to be our expertise and thorough reporting on our teams and athletes. That's what readers can't get anywhere else, even with the proliferation of sports news and information."
Davis started at the Milwaukee Journal in 1990 as deputy sports editor and continued in that role when the Journal and Sentinel merged in 1995. He worked with reporters on story planning and was the on-site editor for both of the Packers' Super Bowl appearances in the 1990s as well as the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
He left the sports department in 2000 to edit the paper's website, where he helped guide the growth of online sports coverage and the Packer Insider subscription site.
Before joining the Journal, Davis worked eight years at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida as a news reporter, legislative editor, assistant city editor and assistant business editor.
Jolly takes new role at New York Times
Tom Jolly has moved from sports editor at The New York Times to night news editor, where he will supervise the entire news report for the website and print editions.
Jolly was sports editor for eight years, leading the department in aggressive enterprise reporting on areas such as concussions, dopings and college athletics.
"His experience in one of our most Web-savvy departments, combined with a resume that includes three years on the news desk, makes him a perfect candidate to reinvent the night side," Times executive editor Bill Keller wrote in a memo announcing the change.
Jolly said his most gratifying achievement in sports was shifting the focus of the report to match the changes in the audience, which he said is less defined by geography and "more by a shared curiousity in news and big events."
"In a short time," Jolly said, "our readership shifted from being based primarily in New York, where we had about one million print readers a decade ago, to a worldwide audience of something like 10 million a day. While our readership was growing, our staff wasn't, so we had to rethink our approach to coverage. Oddly enough, I think of our Web report as what we used to put in the newspaper and our newspaper report as what magazines used to do.
"That has meant a lot more enterprise and project reporting, which is challenging but rewarding. The response to our head-injury reporting led by Alan Schwarz has been especially gratifying, of course. As sports editor, I never expected to be getting e-mails and letters from mothers, fathers, wives and others thanking us for making a difference in their world. But we've managed to produce a lot of other high-level work like our steroids reporting, our coverage of women's sports and more off-beat kinds of things like our weekly summer feature aimed at recreational golfers."
In his new role, Jolly will be working to help the Times take advantage of the many media platforms in existence and yet to come.
"I'm excited about the opportunity to help the Times move further forward in the rapidly evolving news marketplace," he said. "Our challenge is to make sure we're doing everything we can to maximize our reach throughout the digital world while continuing to produce high-quality journalism. Our success will be determined by our ability to produce a news report that is integrated at all levels and takes full advantage of the unique attributes of each platform, from print to iPad and beyond.
"It's astonishing for me to think that when I became sports editor at the Times just eight years ago, we weren't even printing color pictures in the newspaper, let alone talking about multimedia. Who knew that in the span of one presidency, we'd become fluent in texting, Facebook, Twitter, Digg and apps? It's going to be incredibly fun to see how the next eight years shape up."
Engel tabbed for Times of NW Indiana
Brad Engel was hired recently as the sports editor at The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Engel served as sports editor of The (Aurora) Beacon-News, Naperville Sun and Sun Publications since 2008.
He has been with the "West Division" of what is now Sun-Times Media for the past decade, serving primarily as a reporter, columnist and blogger.
Engel has covered everything from high school sports to professional soccer, from women's basketball to the NFL. He has won numerous writing awards, including four APSEs in four different categories, the 2006 Peter Lisagor Award for sports story of the year from the Chicago Headline Club/Society of Professional Journalists, and runner-up honors for the 2009 Chicago Journalist Association's sports story of the year.
Engel is a graduate of Truman State University (formerly Northeast Missouri State).
Sun-Sentinel names Berardino columnist
With more than a decade of experience covering sports at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Mike Berardino moved into the role of sports columnist this month.
“Mike will bring strong opinions, aggressive digital skills and a deep perspective of South Florida sports history into his new role,” said Tim Stephens, Florida sports topics manager for the Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel. “Mike knows the South Florida sports scene as well as anyone. He is a Miami native. He grew up in Palm Beach County. In almost 14 years at the Sun Sentinel, he’s been the Dolphins beat writer, national baseball columnist and Marlins writer and has covered almost every major event, including multiple World Series, Olympics, Final Fours, Super Bowls, NBA Finals and golf majors. His combination of experience and skill will make him a trusted voice in our market, even when readers don’t agree with his position."
Berardino, who along with Omar Kelly has covered the Dolphins beat since June 2009, has been honored multiple times in the APSE writing contest.
ATLANTIC COAST
Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer: Bret Strelow was hired as a staff writer after a decade with the Salisbury (N.C.) Post. He will split duties on high schools and the ACC. … Michael McCray, a 2009 graduate of North Carolina A&T, joined the staff as a designer.
Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier: Veteran sports writer and former sports editor George Stone rejoined the staff as assistant sports editor.
SOUTHEAST
The Tuscaloosa News: Promoted Greg Ostendorf to a full-time position that is a hybrid sports/web position. Ostendorf is a University of Alabama graduate who has been working part-time at The Tuscaloosa News.
Knoxville News Sentinel: Hired Matt Johnson as chief copy editor. Johnson worked at the El Paso Times from June 2002 to July 2009 in a variety of roles, including feature writer, copy editor, night city editor, sports reporter, assistant sports editor and sports editor. He had been publisher of El Paso Varsity magazine, which debuted in July. Johnson replaces Nick Gates, who left the newspaper after 38 years. Gates covered Knoxville's minor league baseball and hockey teams during his tenure. The Tennessee Smokies named the press box at Smokies Park in honor of Gates this summer.
GREAT PLAINS
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Hired Adam Drey as a page designer, who will likely focus on sports. He was previously at the Albuquerque Journal. … Hired Cameron Hollway as director of stlhighschoolsports.com, a website that covers high school sports in the St. Louis area and combines the resources of the Post-Dispatch and the Suburban Journals newspapers.
NORTHWEST
Seattle Times: Amy Bergstrom was promoted to resident sports producer. The Colorado State University graduate had been a part-time news assistant in sports since 2008. … Charmin Flojo, Patrick Okocha and Nicholas Shekeryk were hired as part-time sports news assistants. Charmin is a a 2010 University of Washington graduate. Shekeryk, a Seattle University graduate with a master's from Syracuse, previously worked for the Syracuse Post-Standard and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Okocha is attending Everett Community College.
WEST
The Arizona Republic: Hired Sarah McLellan as a high schools and general assignment sports reporter. McLellan has been an intern at the Republic for nearly three years. She also interned at the Edmonton Journal. A native of Edmonton who gained her U.S. citizenship this fall, McLellan graduated from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications in May with the highest GPA in the school.
