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Meet the publisher
Overlooking the Tuscaloosa riverfront, a man sits in a corner office tucked away
from an open newsroom lined with cubicles. A wall of windows gives way to a bird’s-eye
view of the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater and the Black Warrior River. A large wooden desk
sits covered in media packets, advertising department plans, a “Save the Date” memo and a copy of the day’s Tuscaloosa News.
Jim Rainey, publisher of the Tuscaloosa News, has occupied the office since
2012.
“My family moved here from Auburn,” he said. “I was in Auburn for 10 years
and then left, went to a job in Texas for eight months, but my oldest son was a senior in
high school at Auburn High. We didn’t want to pull him out. My family stayed there and
tried to sell the house and I went to Texas and came home.”
Before the Tuscaloosa News, Rainey was the publisher at the Opelika-Auburn
News. Typically, Tuscaloosa is enemy territory to most Auburn residents. But not for
Rainey. “I’m Alabama, I’m not Auburn,” he said. “The whole time I was down in
Auburn I was coming up here for ball games and I just kept it to myself.”
Most fans from either side would be quick to say, “well when we’re not playing
them I pull from them,” Rainey notes. “They’re all lying. Auburn people, they pull for
Alabama to lose every game, and Alabama people pull for Auburn to lose every game.
But I actually do because I have a foot in both camps.”
Rainey's son is a freshman at Auburn studying forestry, so he still visits Auburn. In
fact, Rainey said he could drive U.S. Highway 82 with his eyes closed and knows all the
spots to hit. “Jim’s BBQ is the best barbecue sandwich on the planet,” he said.
The Tuscaloosa News publisher earned his education at Clayton State University
in the metro Atlanta area. He began his 25-year newspaper career at a small weekly in
Fayette County, Georgia.
“If you would’ve asked me when I was 10 years old what I wanted to do, I
would’ve told you that I wanted to be a newspaper man,” he said. “It was curiosity about
the world and the opportunity to see history made. I had a front row seat and could be in
the mix.”
That news background sets Rainey apart from many publishers. He meets with the
editor throughout the day for briefings on what is happening with events and other
stories.
Rainey began his career as a sports writer, but realized there was more appealing
subjects to him on the news side.
Rainey said he loves connecting to and learning about the community.
Stories can be very rewarding. Rainey notes that it’s amazing how great stories
can touch the community. “The flipside of that is it can touch you right back,” he said.
Now, more than ever.
“There is as much, if not more, engagement with the community than ever before,
and I think that’s because social media and the Internet has allowed us to have two-way
conversations,” Rainey said. “Instead of us just speaking to the community, the
community can speak back. I think that’s a very positive thing.”
About The News
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, The Tuscaloosa News sits perched on a knoll overlooking the Black Warrior River. A daily newspaper founded in 1818, The Tuscaloosa
News serves as the main source of information for 10 counties.
In 1985, the News was acquired by The New York Times Company from the
Public Welfare Foundation. Former owner Edward Marsh donated the paper to the
foundation before his death in 1964. In 2012, Halifax Media Group, now Gatehouse
Media Publications bought the News and has been its owner since.
The fifth highest in circulation of any paper in Alabama, the paper has a
circulation of just under 30,000, including home delivery and single copy. The paper’s
website, Tuscaloosanews.com, averages three million visitors per month. The paper’s
sport website, Tidesports.com, in conjunction with Yahoo! and Rivals, has a subscription
base of 7,000.
The News occupies a 90,000 square foot building that houses 116 full-time
employees. The News is printed within the building, along with other local papers from
the surrounding areas, such as the Gadsden Times and Meridian Star. The Tuscaloosa
News is printed around midnight daily.
In 1957, the News won the first of its two Pulitzer Prizes. Buford Boone wrote an
editorial on the issue of segregation at the University of Alabama. The second came in
2011, when a deadly F5 tornado ravaged through the city. The News won the prize in the
breaking news category.
The prize for breaking news coverage recognizes an organization that captures
events accurately as they occur, as quickly as possible, and, over time, illuminates,
provides context and expands upon the initial coverage.
The tornado had knocked out the power at the News building for more than 48
hours, according to an article on TuscaloosaNews.com. The newspaper had enough
generator power to run a handful of computers and reporters used social media to get out
real-time updates of the happenings in the city. For two days, the paper was printed in
Birmingham.
​
The News' Pulitzer entry highlighted the coverage from the day of the storm,
including a Twitter feed that provided real-time updates to residents, emergency
personnel and readers around the world, photo galleries and video of the aftermath and an
online bulletin board for people seeking residents in the path of the storm.
​
“I think it reminded the community here that there is a newspaper here that is full
of staffers who are very dedicated to the community,” Tuscaloosa News Publisher Jim
Rainey said.“It would have been very easy for the newspaper to do the minimum and get
through it because we had employees whose homes had been destroyed. Any of them,
while their spouses or roommates or whoever are at home picking their stuff up out of the
yard, they were down here trudging away trying to keep the community informed.”
​
The tornadoes took place on April 27 and the April 28 edition of the paper
included first-person staff accounts from around the city with facts and numbers detailing
the devastation. Coverage on April 29 included information on security, outreach and
early recovery in damaged areas.
​
Two positive benefits resulted from the Pulitzer. It reminded the community that
they have a newspaper that cares. It reminded the community of the dedication of that
newspaper. It also taught the newspaper staff the importance of using social media in this
day in age.
​
“The great thing about working at a community newspaper is that you can really
reach out and touch the community,’ Rainey said. “You can see how our reporting can
help shape the community.”
For more information...
For more on how The Tuscaloosa News’ Pulitzer Prize winning team used Twitter to cover the 2011 tornado see Poynter.org
Tuscaloosa City Council
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A three-story parking deck connects to the three-story Tuscaloosa City Hall building by a
bridge stamped with the city’s logo in the middle. Normally, the Tuscaloosa City Council
normally meets for a six-hour day of meetings and sessions.
​
However, once a year the six-hour days double to 12 as the Council goes over budgets for the next fiscal year. Four hours into the first budget session, the drag of the long day ahead is looming for Jason Morton, a reporter for the Tuscaloosa News.
Morton has been covering these extensive days since October of 2010. The Alabama
graduate joined the News staff in 2004 and was placed on the city government beat six years later.
“I was a journalism major with minors in English and creative writing,” he said. His first
job took him to Lagrange, Georgia, from 2000-2004.
For this long day, Morton sits in the corner of a room with a wooden table long enough to
serve a king’s court watching city leaders discuss the city’s budget for the next fiscal year.
Hours of back-and- forth in the conference room conclude. Members disperse after four
hours in the conference room for a 20-minute break before moving on to other matters.
Every room in city hall seems to house a coffee pot. Apparently it takes a lot of caffeine
to run the city.
Morton’s next job is to cover the pre-council meeting. He scrolls through Twitter and
Facebook before the meeting begins.
Normally, Morton is the only reporter in the room, serving in his “watchdog on the
government” role. This day he is joined by a local television reporter.
Morton’s job keeps him in the halls of government watching closely, even when the days
are long. He also goes out into the community to reaction to and to write about the impact of official decisions.
This particular 12-hour drags on, but Morton drinks more coffee, taking notes and
watching closely, serving the community by being the only reporter in the room.