My Work

The Times-Picayune | The Advocate

Hurricane Ida coverage: In August 2021, I led our digital and breaking news coverage of Hurricane Ida, which caused catastrophic damage to coastal communities and knocked out the local electrical grid, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power for more than a week during the hottest days of late summer. Here’s a complete look at our coverage during the first 72 hours (PDF).

Best of the Fest: In 2022, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was returning for the first time in three years, and our audience was excited. Readers were talking nonstop on social media about their plans for each day of the festival. Our features department was planning to produce short stories each day on their picks for which musical acts to see and which food tents to visit for each of the seven days of the fest. It was the perfect opportunity to deliver those recommendations directly to the readers most interested in them. I quickly rallied our cross-departmental newsletter team, and in less than a week, we spun up a pop-up newsletter called “Best of the Fest.” Here’s one edition of that newsletter, which had an open rate of 47% and a click-through rate of more than 13%.

Top 5: In 2022, I noticed shifting traffic patterns on our sites, with a growing surge in mobile traffic between 7 and 9 p.m. each night. After digging into that data, my team launched a new product, the NOLA.com Nightly Top 5, a daily wrap-up to help catch mobile readers up on the biggest stories of the day. We repackage the five most interesting stories of the day and push them out to mobile app users at 8 p.m. Here’s an example of the Top 5.

CNHI LLC

At CNHI, I built a newsroom from scratch, recruiting and hiring digital journalists to curate and create stories, slideshows and videos to publish on local newspapers’ websites. As executive editor of the CNHI News Desk, I directed coverage, assigned stories, edited copy and selected photos, videos and graphics for publication.

Here’s a selection of that team’s work, which was published across all 100+ CNHI websites and in many print editions: 

Kids who can stop an overdose? Compassionate care emerges in fight against heroin

In fight against opioid abuse, law enforcement takes aim at doctors

ACLU calls for Kentucky clerk to be held in contempt over refusal to issue marriage licenses

SLIDESHOW: 50th anniversary Selma to Montgomery march

Putting the madness in March: Classic NCAA Tournament buzzer beaters

Indiana town named for Santa Claus embraces Christmas season

From all across the political spectrum, thousands head to Washington for inauguration weekend

Public Speaking

I’m an experienced trainer and public speaker. Here are some of the presentations I’ve given:

Trends in Digital Storytelling | Ball State University journalism students | April 2019

Engaging Your Audience on Facebook | CNHI editors | August 2018

Social Media and the Real News | Georgia Student Press Association | February 2018

Engaging with Readers for the Long Haul | Hoosier State Press Association | December 2015

Reporting

I’ve also worked as a reporter, covering rural communities and the court system for The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La. Here are my two biggest projects, both of which won the prestigious Best of Gannett award for Investigative Reporting.

Poisoned Water: In 2004, fellow reporter Jan Risher and I spent weeks going door to door in the tiny community of Cow Island, taking water samples and gaining the trust of locals. Residents feared that high levels of arsenic in their well water was making them sick, and our test results showed they were right to be concerned. We produced a 10-page special section that connected the dots and provided possible causes for contamination. Because of our reporting, the state built a public water line to the area, and years later, an attorney won a settlement from the companies that caused the contamination, which was linked to pesticides used in cattle farming. Read the full 10-page section.

Prisoners of the Storm: James Mitchell wasn’t supposed to be in jail. He was one of roughly 8,000 Orleans Parish prisoners who were scattered across the state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He had been arrested but never charged, and his case stalled for months while the criminal justice system was in chaos. My work with fellow reporter Jason Brown told the previously untold story of these prisoners, and soon led to Mitchell’s release from jail. Our work was also featured in an ACLU report on the treatment of prisoners after Hurricane Katrina. The full project is no longer online, but two parts are archived below:

Lives fall through system’s cracks: Lawyers make it a mission to clear cases

Former prisoner rebuilds life: Man released after being lost in Katrina chaos