The Tennessean is “embarking on an ambitious project to create the newsroom of the future, right here in Nashville,” Executive Editor Stefanie Murray writes. It will redefine all newsroom jobs, and “Our employees will have the opportunity to choose the jobs they want to apply for.”
A new leadership team will aid in the paper’s redefinition: Former Executive Editor Maria De Varenne will be “news director” for the paper, and David Anesta will become its “consumer experience director.” (Murray also holds the title vice president for content and engagement; she was named to that post in February.)
The Tennessean will “use scientific principles even more than before to listen to what our readers want and act accordingly,” Murray writes. And coverage will shift:
We’re adding a reporter to cover University of Tennessee athletics, focusing two reporters on the comings-and-goings of Nashville’s lively retail scene and adding a reporter focused on tourism. We’ll have a four-person investigative team whose important mission is to serve as the watchdogs of the community. And we’ll have several columnists, including a metro columnist, a second sports columnist, a columnist focused on telling neighborhood and human-interest stories, and a columnist to write about food and the food culture in Metro Nashville. Also new: we’ll have staffers whose job it is to talk to, and engage with, the community.
