About
I’ve been working as an online producer for knoxnews.com (Knoxville News Sentinel, E. W. Scripps) since February 2005.
In this role, my duties have included developing and executing Web-only content, coordinating with the newspaper side to create compelling Web components for stories appearing in print, updating the site with breaking news and assisting customers on the site.
Most recently, I launched “Songs of Appalachia,” a video series I produce with News Sentinel reporter Morgan Simmons. It focusses on musicians who have helped define the music of East Tennessee, and is often categorized as “home-grown” or “old-timey.”
In 2005, I was part of a team of online producers that developed RandomThis, a weekly video-blog documenting personal experiences and events around the Knoxville area. The blog won a 2006 Digital Edge award, a quarterly award within Scripps and has been featured in several industry publications.
For the past three years, I’ve also covered Bonnaroo, a four-day music festival in Middle Tennessee for KnoxNews.com. Working as a one-woman band, I provided blog-style coverage that included audio, video, photos and text.
While on the job, I enjoy shooting and editing video and working in Flash. I’ve been a part of numerous News Sentinel committees focussed on developing new readers and reaching young readers. I’ve also been involved in training reporters to shoot their own video and teaching newsroom editors on the print side to work in our Web content management system, Ellington.
I consider myself blessed with the opportunities I’ve had at knoxnews.com. I work with a team of award-winning producers and editors who are inspiring and challenging, yet also know how to have fun on the job. My boss once said: News is serious stuff. But it doesn’t mean wew can’t have fun doing it (or something to that effect). I believe that’s true.
This past January, I started teaching JEM222 at the University of Tennessee. It’s an online journalism class and is only one of two offered at UT. You can check out the student work on TNJN.com or on our class blog.
My education includes a Master’s degree in multimedia journalism from Northwestern University and bachelor’s degrees in journalism and English from Syracuse University.
While in graduate school, I worked with a group of Northwestern graduate students to create www.yourmomonline.com, a Web site written by and for teens. The concept and business model was picked up immediately by the Quad-City Times, as a Web site for teens in that area. Sadly, Your Mom is no longer online, but it continues to live on in our hearts, I’m sure.
While in college, I worked as a copy editor of The Daily Orange, Syracuse’s student-run newspaper, and as a DJ for Z89, a student-run radio station.
A proud native of New Jersey, I came to the News Sentinel after internships with CBS-2 Chicago, The York Daily Record (Pa.) and The Press of Atlantic City (NJ).
My parents live in a beach-front community in Southern New Jersey and run a family-owned restaurant and bar, which I credit as my early foundation in communicating and working hard. My brother, Brad Spuhler, lives in New York City and works in finance.
In my free time, I like to travel, watch live music, dance, shop and work out. OK, that last part may be a joke.