I tell journalism students they are entering my profession at a time of extraordinary opportunity. I still believe that, even if the opportunity at TBD didn’t turn out to be what I was expecting.
I agreed today to pursue another extraordinary opportunity. I will be rejoining my friend and mentor Jim Brady and joining the visionary John Paton, Jon Cooper and other Journal Register Co. colleagues I am eager to meet.
I will be leading community engagement efforts for JRC: social media, community blogs, community conversation, the full range of community engagement. More on that as this adventure unfolds.
I leave TBD with deep gratitude to Jim for the opportunity to work here. I don’t know of anyone who better combines journalistic excellence, digital vision, business strategy, leadership and good humor. He conceived and executed a project with great promise. Anyone who says TBD failed wasn’t paying attention; we weren’t given a chance to succeed.
I also leave grateful to my colleagues for the special experience we shared here. I have never worked with a group better than the community engagement team at TBD: Mandy Jenkins, Jeff Sonderman, Lisa Rowan, Daniel Victor, Nathasha Lim and Elliot Kort. They are extraordinary journalists, digital adventurers and fun people and I will always cherish the memories of working with them, even briefly.
I won’t do the full roll call of TBD colleagues, but they amazed, amused, elevated and challenged me every day, particularly my colleagues in leading the project: Bageshri Ghate, Steve Chaggaris, Carol Touhey, Erik Wemple, Paul Volpe, Mitch Schuler, Andrew Beaujon, Julie Westfall and Sommer Mathis.
I am deeply disappointed that our company failed to recognize the opportunity we had here to develop a new business model for local journalism. But I don’t want to dwell on that here. Business is business, and you always need to understand that the owner gets to decide how to spend his money. It’s time to move on.
As I move on, I want to encourage other journalists – from my graying peers to students pursuing journalism degrees – to continue taking risks in pursuit of a prosperous future. Much as I wish our company had given TBD a chance to succeed, I am grateful that we got a chance to show a glimpse of our bold vision.
And I’m especially grateful for this next extraordinary opportunity.
Congratulations, again, Steve.
Love your persistent pursuit of hope for this business.
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Congrats, Steve! Does this mean you’ll be staying in DC?
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For now, at least, I’ll be based in DC, but on the road a lot.
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TBD illuminated a lot of terrain in its short time, and you were one of the lights. JRC is extremely lucky.
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Congrats and good luck, I’ve been hearing great things about the Journal Register for a while now.
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Congratulations Steve! I hope all the best and — of course — continued success for you in your new endeavor.
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Best of luck. Like many, I’ll be interested to see how the vision JRC articulates unfolds.
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Awesome! Congrats, Steve. Did you turn out the lights when you left the twin towers of Rosslyn?
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Congrats, Steve! I keep fingers crossed for your next bold achievements, now in JRC :)))
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This is great news! Congrats. The JRC is very lucky to have you and I can’t wait to see what you do over there.
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Congratulations, Steve! They are lucky to have you!
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[…] you have a new job, the initial response, of course, is to congratulate you. If your new title is director of community engagement and social media, the second response is: What does “community engagement” […]
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Steve, John mentioned that he had hired you for the social engagement thing last week in Augusta. I am very happy for you and for JRC. What a great team that’s being built up there. Fantastic!
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Thanks, Michael! Very much enjoying being a part of that team.
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[…] Admission #1: I know this looks like shameful sucking up to write a whole blog post agreeing with something my boss said. But I should note that I was praising John Paton long before I came to work for him. […]
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[…] that my blogging was directly related to the contacts that led eventually to my jobs at TBD and Journal Register Co. That’s how you monetize a blog. You use it to become a voice in your niche. You learn about […]
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[…] why many of these buzzwords are the accurate terminology to use, starting with the term in my job title (and my previous job […]
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[…] Few remain there. TBD barely remains, its staff and mission diminished and redefined. Founding leader Jim Brady parted ways with owner Robert Allbritton last November. By February, Allbritton changed the mission and cut the staff. By May, I was gone. […]
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[…] Press Institute from 2005 to 2008. My short tenures at Gazette Communications and TBD and my current job at Journal Register Co. are rooted in efforts to develop a successful business model for digital journalism. I have […]
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[…] and his transparency in discussing the company’s Digital First approach, drew my attention to Journal Register Co. and made me interested in that company long before I ever thought I might leave TBD. It’s […]
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[…] social media director for Journal Register Co., I have been watching recent developments in Facebook and planning to blog for my JRC (and now […]
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[…] provided it at no charge. But I regard my blog as a huge financial success. My jobs with TBD and Journal Register Co. came at least in part because of the international reputation I developed, based in part on the […]
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[…] author is Steve Buttry, currently the Director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Journal Register Co. He’s a guy with 40 years in journalism and has a busload of […]
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[…] Buttry is Director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Journal Register […]
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[…] move to Journal Register Co. and Digital First Media and my work for my new companies dominated my writing this year on this […]
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[…] Journal Register Co. and Digital First Media. Director of community engagement, 2011-present. We’re out to transform the news business. Need I explain why? 0.000000 0.000000 Rate this: Share this:FacebookTwitterStumbleUponDiggRedditPrintEmailLinkedInLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]
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[…] got his inspirations from Steve Buttry, a former reporter and editor who is now the director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Journal Register Co, when he presented to the online journalism course McLernon was […]
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[…] Buttry has been in the newspaper game for 30 years and is the Director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Digital First Media and Journal Register Co. Read the full blog post from Steve Buttry by […]
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[…] (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Shortly after he began working for Journal Register Co. just over a year ago, Steve Buttry took to his blog to explain his new […]
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[…] Buttry, the Director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Digital First Media andJournal Register Co., recently shared a great explainer of how to use […]
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[…] any rate, when I joined JRC last year, Jon Cooper asked me to work on implementation of the Social Media Wire and I immediately […]
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[…] a quartet of the old band playing for Digital First Media: Jim, Mandy Jenkins, Julie Westfall and me. I’ve updated us plenty, but I wanted to check in with the rest of my colleagues. Jeremy […]
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[…] I joined Brady at the Journal Register Co. 15 months ago, Thunderdome has been this mysterious project on the distant horizon. At that time, […]
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[…] year I jumped back into the newspaper business (sort of) after discovering that resistance to innovation was just as stubborn in […]
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[…] got his inspirations from Steve Buttry, a former reporter and editor who is now the director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Journal Register Co, when he presented to the online journalism course McLernon was […]
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[…] as written. (Disclosure: I used to work in the same newsroom as the Politico staff when I was at TBD, owned by Allbritton Communications, which owns Politico. I think Byers arrived after I left, but I […]
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[…] got his inspirations from Steve Buttry, a former reporter and editor who is now the director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Journal Register Co, when he presented to the […]
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[…] TBD I moved to DFM (then the Journal Register Co.), where I had a similar intense focus on my duties on this job. So Patch has always been on the edge […]
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[…] I’m deeply grateful to Jim Brady, Jon Cooper and John Paton for the opportunity to work at Digital First (and Journal Register Co. before it became DFM). […]
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[…] joined the Journal Register Company in May 2011, expressing gratitude for what I called an “extraordinary opportunity.” Today I leave Digital […]
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[…] direct message praising a blog post I had written. Apparently I did good work for TBD because Brady hired me again to work at the Journal Register Company (which later became Digital First […]
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[…] Editor at New York City’s Digital First Media (DFM), where he had originally started as Director of Community Engagement & Social Media for former DFM company, the Journal […]
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[…] of people probably shared similar skepticism (with or without the rooting) when I joined TBD and Digital First Media (neither of which had those names when I joined them). TBD didn’t last nearly as long as […]
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[…] Another extraordinary opportunity: this time Journal Register Co. […]
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[…] got his inspiration from Steve Buttry, a former reporter and editor who is now the director of Community Engagement & Social Media for Journal Register Co, when he presented to the online journalism course McLernon was […]
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[…] board, and between breakfast and lunch we discussed possible roles with his company, which I did join that May. Chuck had also arranged for him and John and me to have lunch with Dan Conover, who had a great […]
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