Her story is the right stuff to high-five and highlight hyperlocal journalism. Like your MesaZona blogger she believes, “It is in every community’s interest to have a strong, healthy accountability journalism operation going on."
Kemp said pushing for transparency in local government is the sort of work she wants her own new newsroom online to do.
Robin Kemp lost her news job in Clayton County, Ga. — but she kept reporting the news. It paid off on election week.
Robin Kemp was 12 hours into the longest day of her journalism career when she got a call from a funny number. A British radio station wanted her on air to talk about the presidential election in Clayton County, Ga., where she lives and works. Could she be ready in, oh, 30 seconds?
That was Kemp’s first clue that her county, a suburban community south of Atlanta, had become the center of the political world. It was late on Thursday, nearly two full days after polls had closed, and Joe Biden was suddenly on the precipice of overtaking President Trump in Georgia and turning the state blue for the first time in nearly three decades.
It took her even longer to realize that the world wasn’t just watching her state. It was watching her.
Kemp, an indefatigable 56-year-old reporter who started her news site after the local paper laid her off in April, was the only journalist to watch all 21 hours of Clayton County’s marathon tabulation of absentee votes, from about 9 a.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday. . . "
No comments:
Post a Comment