Dayhoff Art: 20080528 The Tentacle: Ham Nation by Kevin Dayhoff

The Tentacle: Ham Nation by Kevin Dayhoff

May 28, 2008 Kevin E. Dayhoff

Newspaper junkies learned last week that Mary Katherine Ham is joining The Washington Examiner as the online editor of “the publication’s forthcoming new web site.”

The announcement came by way of an email alert from The Washington Examiner’s editorial page editor, Mark Tapscott.

The news comes as excitement grows among those in the central Maryland area, who are Washington-oriented and get much of our national news from online publications, especially The Washington Examiner. Many are looking forward to the paper’s launch of its new web site – “dcexaminer.com.”

It is also welcome news for those who have followed the career of Ms. Ham on Fox News and Townhall.com and understand that she is just what is needed to bring online publications into the new millennium.

[…]

Moreover, the fresh new approach to an online publication is more likely to be achieved with an editor with a background in Internet media. Moving an aging dinosaur print media editor over to the online world and re-labeling their job description, and the sign on the door, isn’t going to work.

This is where someone like Mary Katherine Ham, a 2002 graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism, has a running start and advantage over any print media refugee assigned to an online publication. For starters, she is 28 years old and is a second-generation journalist.

As The Examiner press release notes, she “grew up in a newspaper family, as her father was managing editor of The Durham Herald-Sun (NC) for 13 years and four as director of digital publishing.”

Furthermore, Ms. Ham is currently a blogger, columnist, and managing editor for the web site Townhall.com. Many have enjoyed her regular appearances on “The O'Reilly Factor” on Fox News, where Bill O’Reilly introduces her as an “Internet Cop.” Others have enjoyed her work in an award-winning video blog series titled “HamNation.”

[…]

It was actually no surprise that The Washington Examiner hired Ms. Ham. Mr. Tapscott has stayed on the cutting-edge of the integration of news reporting into the technological age.

Apparently he did not need a lesson in computational complexity theory, or a “qualitative, anthropological study of young media consumers,” to understand that the future of newspapers is found in the increased integration of video, interactive ability, depth – with “path to the back story,” and honest news reporting.

Mary Katherine Ham is scheduled to begin working at The Examiner’s downtown Washington newsroom on June 10.

Read the entire column here: Ham Nation

20080528 The Tentacle: Ham Nation by Kevin Dayhoff

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

His columns and articles appear in The Tentacle - www.thetentacle.com; Westminster Eagle Opinion; www.thewestminstereagle.com, Winchester Report and The Sunday Carroll Eagle – in the Sunday Carroll County section of the Baltimore Sun. Get Westminster Eagle RSS Feed

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“When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.” Tennessee Williams