Changes coming to the Daily Times Leader
With over one hundred years of history in the city, the Daily Times Leader has continuously evolved over many years to meet the needs of the West Point and Clay County communities. In 2022, the Daily Times Leader made another change by bringing on Wendi McMinn Dorsey as the paper's Consumer Sales Director. Dorsey hopes that her leadership will impact the paper in many ways, including providing the paper's readers with an extra level of transparency.
“There are going to be some changes.
There are things that have needed to be changed for a long time, and there are going to be some things that go back to the way they were,” Dorsey said. “We're working on fixing some of our issues to make a product that people can look forward to, so we can bring it back bigger and better.”
Dorsey remembers how the paper used to appear in years past, as she has worked for the paper previously. From 2015 to 2020, Dorsey worked for the Daily Times Leader in a number of roles, including working at the front desk, in classified and legals, in circulation, and as an advertising sales representative. During COVID, Dorsey left the paper to spend more time with her family. But, in 2022, she returned to work as the Consumer Sales Director.
“People who know me from my past working here know that if there was an issue, I was going to take care of it. Whether it was my job or not, I was going to take that issue and I wasn't going to stop until that problem was resolved,” Dorsey said. “The words ‘that's not my job' really don't enter my mind… I will fix it or find a way to get it fixed.”
Under Dorsey's leadership, the Daily Times Leader intends to make several changes to improve the quality of the newspaper going forward. Currently, Dorsey is looking for members of the Starkville Daily News team, but she intends to simultaneously grow the Daily Times Leader team as well.
“We are looking for people and we want to build the team,” Dorsey said. “This office used to be fun and lively. It was like a giant family. And right now, we have a little family that we're trying to grow, so we can get the paper back the way people remember it.”
By rebuilding the team of the Daily Times Leader, Dorsey
hopes to improve the overall paper quality in the future as well, with the goal to include as much as possible in the paper. Content
changes will follow logistical and personnel changes. But Dorsey asked the community to get involved in the meantime.
“We used to have a B section and a C section, and we would love to have the paper that full again,” Dorsey said. “But we are asking the
community to submit things and let us know what is going on… because we are a small team right now. It's hard for us to follow everything and to know about everything. We need the community to help us cover everything. We want to cover everything as much as we can.”
To submit information on local happenings, you can email news@dailytimesleader.com.
The Daily Times Leader will continue to serve the West Point and Clay County communities in the future, just as the newspaper has since 1867.