Ben and Rachel's Marriage Blog

What I Do… September 24, 2011

Since a lot of people don’t really know what I do at my job – Ben encouraged me write out a bit to showcase some of my latest projects.

About 2 months ago, the newspaper I work for, the Louisville Courier-Journal, went through a major layoff that cut 25 people from our newsroom.  While it was not a good thing – I got promoted from my night shift to a more normal shift because of it.  I work Sunday-Thursday now (YAY – Saturdays off!) with 2 afternoon/evening shifts til midnight and 3 day shifts 10-7pm.

I made 2 big special sections last month, one for the 9/11 anniversary and one for the Sherman-Minton bridge closure.  (The bridge between New Albany and Kentucky is closed indefinitely making traffic across the 2 downtown bridges a nightmare!)  Basically, I take all the stories, photo galleries, and videos the C-J produces and created a destination page to compile them.  I lay out the section, design special graphics for them, and code all the elements to show up in the right places.

I created the icons and headers for a new mobile application we’re developing for traffic tracking.   Now anyone who downloads our app see’s my design as the button on the mainpage of their iPhone.  I’m currently working on a more in-depth application that I’ll be working with a company that specializes in developing programs for smartphones to create.

Also, I’ve been working a lot with our Velocity paper (a Friday feature – alt-weekly type thing) on their website and expanding their social media strategies.  I’ve been using Facebook and Twitter to try to get more people in our target audience (18-35-year-olds) interested in our paper and website.  I also design a weekly email newsletter with stories from the paper.  I also created a Halloween guide to Louisville last week compiling information on places to get costumes, the area’s best haunted houses, and more.

So that’s what an Online Content Producer does!  I’ve been a lot happier in my job now that I have this new shift and they’ve really trusted me with a lot of important projects.  Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about me.