Editorial
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – For our regular readers you’ll have noticed a refreshing change the past couple months with the help we’ve had from Doug Gray, our editor of the recent eight or so weeks of Online editions and two Print editions. Doug was with us from the start in 2009-2010, had a spell with another outfit, then returned in September.
We wanted him to stay on as editor but he was keen to focus more on reporting, and now you’re all stuck with me again. After over four years and 200+something weeks of editing news, it was a welcome break. But I have to admit, I did miss it.
These last couple months I have been in New York, doing some consulting work and, frankly, raising money to help The Rio Times continue to grow. The changes may have been stressful for everyone involved, but it should make us stronger, with some new ideas and new capital injected into our publishing business.
Another big change for The Rio Times is that we are losing Lisa Flueckiger later this month, Lisa started with us as a massively over-qualified intern in the Newsroom and quickly took on the role of sub-editor, before becoming a reporter as well.
A few months ago she also took on the role of operations manager, and has been a cornerstone of the team. Unfortunately for us, she has taken another position, more full-time and a great opportunity for her, so we wish her all the best.
Some other big changes we put in place a few months ago have continued to work very well. Maria Conde has been our daily article editor (as well as a senior reporter), and she has been instrumental in our ability to publish 2-3 times more news reports per week.
We also have our environmental opinion writer Alfonso Stefanini, who has taken on the role of distribution manager. This has been huge in our ability to get more newspapers out to more locations and faster every month. We have a lot of plans in this area to help The Rio Times grow, and we hope he’ll be able to stay with us for a long time to come.
The Rio Times has been, and always will be, a small, close-knit team. We have had an amazing roster of reporters and a group of people who love what they do. They have to love it, because nobody gets into the news business for the money these days – it is an industry (as a viable financial model) that has imploded since the early 1990’s.
Those who work in journalism do so to add value to society, to help inform people, to help them understand the world around them and hopefully be better humans because of it. From politics to lifestyle issues, business to travel, information is what makes the world move forward.
Speaking of progress, we are very close to launching a new web site, it has been over two years since our last redesign and a lot has changed in terms of technology and how news is viewed. So we’re seeing a lot of changes, and rolling forward.
