FAYETTEVILLE — Lisa Thompson has been named the brand new govt editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, efficient Aug. 3.
She has been filling that place since Rusty Turner’s retirement Could 19.
“I am assured in Lisa’s potential to guide the newsroom and guarantee our readers are getting the absolute best product,” Eliza Hussman Gaines, WEHCO Media writer, mentioned in a press release Thursday morning. “Lisa has been within the journalism trade for nearly 40 years, a majority of that point spent with our firm. Along with her expertise, she has good news judgment and a deep information of the communities served by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I am excited to see what she does on this position.”
Thompson got here to The Morning Information of Northwest Arkansas — which later grew to become a part of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — as Sunday editor in 2002 and was promoted to managing editor in 2004. Her earlier expertise contains stints on the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in each Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas, the Idaho Statesman in Boise and the Anchorage Instances in Alaska. She holds a bachelor of arts in journalism with a minor in authorized research from the College of Arkansas at Little Rock.
As govt editor, Thompson is not going to solely supervise the editors, reporters, photographers and designers on the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the River Valley Democrat-Gazette in Fort Smith and NWA Media’s weekly publications, she’s going to “be the champion of the newspaper in the neighborhood,” Gaines mentioned.
“I’m honored that Eliza and the remainder of the administration crew at WEHCO have entrusted me with the duty to proceed to make the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette the supply for information and knowledge in our circulation space,” Thompson mentioned. “Rusty Turner was each an impressive newspaper editor and a revered, energetic member of the Northwest Arkansas neighborhood. He will likely be a really arduous act to comply with.”
“The newsroom has been very profitable serving the communities it covers,” Turner mentioned. “I do know from my time on the paper that Lisa performed an incredible position in these successes. Nobody deserves the chance to guide that newsroom — a newsroom she performed a big position in constructing — greater than Lisa. I could not be happier for her, the newspaper and particularly the readers. She places readers first, and you may’t go fallacious as a journalist doing that.”
“Lisa has the expertise and information to guide the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette into new and thrilling locations,” agreed Brent Powers, president of NWA Media. “I do know that she’s going to deliver the identical ardour she has displayed within the managing editor position to her new govt editor position.”
Beneath Thompson’s management, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on July 22 gained the award for normal excellence among the many state’s bigger day by day newspapers on the Arkansas Press Affiliation’s annual conference in Little Rock. The newspaper earned 15 first-place citations.
“I am fortunate to work with an awesome employees of journalists who attempt each day to deliver our readers the very best they’ll produce to inform the tales of this area — its locations and folks — as solely neighbors can,” Thompson mentioned. “I wish to thank the Northwest Arkansas-Democrat Gazette’s management for this private alternative however — greater than that — I wish to thank them for his or her dedication to retaining the readers of this area and this state knowledgeable.”
Outside reporter and photographer Flip Putthoff, senior among the many newsroom employees having joined one of many newspaper’s predecessors in 1980, put his response merely.
“They could not have picked a greater particular person,” he mentioned. “Lisa is a superb editor.”
Thompson and her husband, Doug Thompson, stay in Fayetteville and have 4 youngsters and three grandchildren.
