Meranda Watling

Current

Education reporter at Journal & Courier

Past

Editor at Daily Kent Stater
Reporting intern at The Courier

Education

Kent State University

Connections

130 connections

Industry

Publishing

Websites

Meranda Watling’s Experience

Education reporter

Journal & Courier

(Public Company; Newspapers industry)

January 2007 — Present (2 years 11 months)

(Lafayette, Ind.) I cover K-12 schools and education issues in Lafayette, West Lafayette, Tippecanoe County and surrounding region.
• Report and write A1 enterprise packages, timely stories for print and breaking news online. Frequently, pick up stories beyond the education beat.
• Plan and write a weekly Schools Page with news, features and Q&As about local schools. Sometimes shoot the display photos for the page.
• Maintain a schools beat blog for the newspaper's Web site.
• Serve as a newsroom representative on the New Product Development team.
Editor

Daily Kent Stater

(Newspapers industry)

August 2004 — December 2006 (2 years 5 months)

(Kent, Ohio) Supervised an editorial staff of more than 100 members and oversaw daily production.
• Under my leadership, both the print and online editions were redesigned and content was refocused to better align with the results of a reader focus group.
• We laid the groundwork for a then soon-to-be converged newsroom by establishing a news partner relationship with the campus TV and radio stations. This included recording a daily editor's pick stand up of our top news story for the nightly TV newscast.
• Previously held positions include managing editor (2x), campus editor, public affairs reporter, technology reporter, student finance reporter and proofreader.
Reporting intern

The Courier

(Public Company; Newspapers industry)

May 2006 — August 2006 (4 months)

(Findlay, Ohio) I spent the summer between junior and senior year of college covering general assignment and short feature stories in the city of Findlay and neighboring areas.

Meranda Watling’s Education

Kent State University

Bachelor of Science , Newspaper journalism (major), Sociology (minor) , 2003 — 2006

My journalism coursework included classes in beat reporting, reporting public affairs, copy editing, news design, magazine publishing, media ethics, media law, videography and photography. As a sophomore, I also was part of the collaborative online producing class, which worked on multimedia packages for the School of Journal and Mass Communication Web site.

Activities and Societies:

Daily Kent Stater, Burr, Fusion, Luna Negra, Society of Professional Journalists, Alternative Break Project, Habitat for Humanity