The first few days in any new job can be a whirlwind.
Where are the bathrooms? Who answers to whom? Faces and names.
Try starting Masters Week at The Augusta Chronicle and throw a few tornadoes into the mix.
What a way to start as the new executive editor.
My appreciation for the commitment and passion of The Chronicle journalists grew as they delivered under terrific pressure.
Behind a veil of glory assignments following legends around Augusta National Golf Club, a behemoth of work resides. Tracking players, responding to miracle shots and reporting sudden defeat are sweet and sweaty work.
When the tornadoes struck last week, it meant triple-time for parts of the newsroom. They switched into higher gear to provide information for people in desperate need. Their focus was making sure people understood the nature of the devastation and the challenges ahead.
Elevated coverage continues in today's paper.
We take pride in comprehensive Masters Tournament coverage. Online and print efforts are award-winning. Resting on laurels won't move us forward though. As Augusta National innovates, so do we.
We introduced a moment-by-moment Inside the Masters blog on augusta.com. We led on stories about the thrill and course changes. We were the first Web site to post photos of the champion and his winning moment.
This is a newspaper with deep bonds in a community steeped in tradition. Like Augusta National, experiments and innovation are occurring behind the scenes and before your eyes to keep the excitement of journalism and public service vibrant.
I am fortunate to join The Chronicle team at a critical time. The opportunities are brimming and just waiting to boil. My family is moving in favor of this opportunity and this area. The diversity of the community, the insular economy and the communities are ripe for good living.
Business mogul Warren Buffett isn't right about everything, but his point about seizing opportunity when fear and negative headlines dominate should be taken to heart. Newspaper industry headlines fall in that category lately. There are many who would like to bury newspapers against some of the rough terrain we all face in the marketplace, but I assure you we are very much alive.
Forward-thinking businesses and institutions are making prudent investments for the next surge.
We are taking the mission of updating our online news to another level, beyond just the breaking news. When we know the news, you will know it. Augustachronicle.com will be more up-to-date and urgent than ever before. We will serve a larger and larger audience in exceptional ways.
Watch our print stories develop day-to-day in real time. As we do this, we'll have to offer a new presentation of this blossoming digital material. This will evolve and launch in the coming year.
Your print edition also will become more locally focused and alive. Our goal is to help you measure the impact of the news and stay informed. We'll deliver your news with a greater sense of urgency.
On all platforms, we'll be ramping up our watchdog reporting and public service efforts. You might have noticed how reporter Johnny Edwards shines a light on local government, your tax dollars at work -- or not. We will continue to lead in this way.
We want your news tips. Send us your ideas and you'll get a response and see action.
Keep an eye on The Chronicle , our Web sites and your mobile devices in the coming months. We have the dial set to boil on some new initiatives.
Reach Alan English at (706) 823-3487 or alan.english@augustachronicle.com
Alan English joined The Augusta Chronicle as Executive Editor on April 6. He is the former executive editor for The Times in Shreveport, La.
Reach him at alan.english@augustachronicle.com. Read more about him online here
For coverage of the 2009 Masters Tournament go to augusta.com.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome to Augusta, Alan English. I look forward to The Chronicle's continued growth and improvement.
"Steeped in tradition" Eh? This paper once had two seperate editions, one for non-minorities and one for minorities. That sure was steeped in tradition with misinformation, misleading stories, and misleading the public. Such actions by any private operation demonstrates the complete bias in which all articles are viewed. Yeah, Yeah, that was then, but not much has changed, in terms of story telling, with this bunch. Again, a poor example of public service with an obvious agenda, as stated by a new hire of being steeped in tradition. Ha!
Best of everything to you and your family. Augusta isn't a bunch of crybabies as these forums usually depict.
Hey Justus, which edition was for whom? My family got the Chronicle. Our dear friends and neighbors got the Herald. Which of us was a minority? Do tell.
justus4, I have spent 65 years reading the Augusta Chronicle, so I also read the Augusta Herald, which published its final edition on Friday, April 30, 1993. I challenge you to prove that the Herald was an edition for minorities. It was simply the afternoon paper.
Mr English, welcome to Augusta!
Welcome to Augusta! If you want to sell newspapers, then the Chronicle needs to stop being just a GOP publication, and teach folks how to sell a newspaper on the corner. Some of them just sit there like bumps on a log. Also, I stopped my subscription because the carrier would put my paper in the neighbors yard. Four phone calls later, I cancelled.
I don't think Mr. English is in the distribution department, but I agree with coalminerpa in that most of the folks on the corners just sit there and make no attempt to sell.
Probably not in that dept. SCgal but he needs to see the big picture.
SCGAL, why don't your B.S. back to whatever city you are from. No one wants crimes committed by " Minorities" left out of the paper. I do not give a damn if the person is Black, White, Asian or stripped, if they kill you, you are dead, regardless of the color.
Welcome, Alan English, and good luck. We took the Chronicle and the Herald when I was growing up--and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sundays. The Chronicle and the AJC came by mail, the Herald by bicycle. Mr. English, if you can take a few moments in the news library to peruse a sampling of the now-defunct Herald in actual print, I believe you will find the experience worth your while. You will see what can happen to an essentially mediocre afternoon newspaper when its management gets desperate. I shall never forget the ignominious demise of the Herald. It was like the corpse of a respectable old lady that some tacky stranger had dressed to lie in state in pageant wear. I would love to see the Chronicle survive and thrive in the digital age, but if it can't, please be merciful and allow it to die a quiet, dignified death.
Why? Because all of us " Blacks" must be related? Hell we all know that we look alike. Right?
Good morning Mr. English...and welcome to Augusta....as you can see there is a diverse and quite opininated crowd here who comment on most every thing...you will see the good...the bad...and trust me ..the ugly...as you can see from the removed comments...we fight and disagree on many things...we (most of us) love our Country and do not wish it to go the way that it iseems to be heading..and we say so........welcome.
We? Speaking French this morning? LOL
Unfortunately, newspapers are a dying medium. The Chronicle will have to learn how to survive on the internet and compete for digital advertising dollars.
Mr. English, I agree with several of those who commented before me: The AC has adopted a right-wing, reactionary editorial stance that alienates large segments of the community. My family subscribed for the first 4 years after we moved here, but last fall the increasingly biased and imflammatory election coverage made us cancel. We had planned to reinstate our subscription once things had calmed down after the election, but if anything, the paper has become more and more narrowly focused on attacking the Obama administration and undermining unity. I read the editorials every day, and if you want to win back subscribers, I'd advise you to tone it down, broaden your approach, and rejoin the 21st century.
"bonjour hypocrite ... espérons que la journée est chaude comme une pluie de printemps et le coeur pur que vos pensées ................."
This is a right-wing propoganda pamphlet rather than a newspaper. However, it functions nicely as a wrapper of fish.
owww shivas...don't be bitter..............I prefer the NYT to carpet my cages with...to each his own!,,,Have a blessed day now ya heah?
Great news here in ATL. In a desperate attempt to save itself, the AJC has fired it left wing nut-job Cynthia McKinney as editor.
I see the black racists are out with the woe is me rhetoric today.
Ode, they have no other option except to take a little personal responsibility, heaven forbid.
mckinney??? Is that ugly little commie still afloat?
Welcome to Augusta Mr. English. I look forward to seeing the changes and improvement you have in mind for the Chronicle.
"Mr. English, I agree with several of those who commented before me: The AC has adopted a right-wing, reactionary editorial stance that alienates large segments of the community."---midwesterntransplant AMEN! Augusta is my beloved hometown, and it's so sad to see what the AC has become. I love to go back and read the old issues, but it's such a contrast to the way it is now. And please, do not waste valuable editorial space on commenting on things such as a singer on a British TV show. The AC is better than that. Augusta is better than that. Your editorial staff is better than that. I look toward your paper to educate and inform me, not print something that I could read to kindergarteners.
justthefacts - they have an option. They will keep voting fiscal liberal socialists into public office until the government provides the same lifestyle for all and eliminates the consequences of one's personal actions.
People actually want to know what that freeze-dried wackaloon Cynthia McKinney thinks? She was, and still is, an embarrassment to the fine state of Georgia. I guess Daddy McKinney isn't going to like it, either. And I don't consider her left-wing. I consider her a racist Marxist anti-Semitic anti-American.
My apologies, I meant Cynthia Tucker in my earlier post.
ODE TO AUGUSTA, Why not? You White racists are on here all day look with the whining.
Mr English I would like to see some rules for posting in the paper. Maybe you can stop the message board mentality that has taken over and replace it with a requirement that posters at least make comments for the issue at hand. As it is the R&R section is so full of welcomes between a few posters the rest of spend all our time going from page to page. I wish you luck in your new job and welcome new ideas for our city paper.