About 14 years ago, an interviewer from a newspaper that I wouldn’t name ask me, then a young man in college, why a bright young woman like I would aspire to work for a daily newspaper.
He did not find my convincing response. The interview did not go well. I haven’t finished work in that outlet – that was, for what is worth it, not a daily newspaper.
And for a long time, after some practices and a brief stroke in a small letter in Central Virginia, I left the Daily World, spending a decade immersed in online business journalism with American city business magazines, first in Nashville and then in Columbus.
But just about a year ago, the opportunity was raised for me to come to Columbus Dispatch. It was a chance to do what I said to her the interviewer all those years ago, hoping to do with my career: to serve in a leading role in a big Western city in a big city. (My dreams and goals are extremely specific, but I promise you that is true.)
It was a scary jump, but the one who felt good. And while I’m still understanding a lot of things, I wish I could track that interviewer today (I mean not really, he was extremely intimidating and not super fun to chat) and tell him exactly why I was injured in a daily newspaper in 2025.
In short: where else can Columbes get the latest news about things that matter to them?
My job in sending Columbus
Daily newspapers have changed a lot, even from those in 2011. We move fast. We break the news. We answer the burning questions of our readers, informed by which tools like Google Trends and other readers’ analytics tools tell us they want to know.
We seek to tell stories in new ways, through videos, podcasting and other multimedia efforts. We work hard to adapt to a changing ecosystem, finding our readers where they are and giving them the information they need.
As a senior director of digital content at Dispatch, I am responsible for all of the above. You will not see my byline too much if ever on paper or on our website, but I am managing the daily content of the internet content, overseeing the team that ensures that our websites sing and our home site offers exactly what they need.
I am still learning a lot while deciding in the role, but I promise that I am constantly working to become better in distributing the best product possible for an audience it needs.
My journalism career emphasizes
In my reporting days in Lynchburg, Virginia, I covered the fraud in a local credit union and a lawsuit of commercial secrets involving a former employee of a nuclear contractor (and neighbor of my future mother-in-law, though this has never appeared in the Christmas Party Cul-De-Sac).
I am more proud of the two major projects I did in my last year at Nashville Business Journal: a tracking of two-piece data series and predicting the patterns and impacts of genre in the city of rapid developing music, and a five-month investigation into the city of restaurants (centered in Ohio, after, after, after, after. punishes, bright.
I also covered the Business side of predators in the Stanley Cup final in 2017, which included my biggest journalism work: a quiz entitled “Is Ikea A Product? That I am angry to report it no longer seems supported by the NBJ website. Maybe if the jackets keep their season alive, I will try the sending readers.
I love the movies
Out of work you will mostly find me playing with my nearly 4-year-old, a master who aspires to Taekwondo who also loves Disney princesses, often strange but dependent on youtube shows that may be melting her brain but give me a break, and simply being the most delightful girl around. My husband – a former journalist who became wise and now works in the lucrative world of nonprofit development – and I certainly have our full hands.
I’m almost always listening to a podcast, and if I’m not, it’s just because I’ve burned throughout my downloads. My favorite show is empty control because I’m Eleanor Kennedy and I love movies. (Empty? Thank you! You will only realize that if you hear podcast – which one should.)
I am a local hoosier, though Indiana is often upset to claim the northwestern part of the state where I grew up playing softball and making a high school debate. I come from a long line of journalists, many of whom are in the Hall of Journalism fame in Indiana, and one of them, my grandmother, may have been the first female editor of the daily student of Indiana (or so the family going). The college took me to Virginia, then work led me to Tennesses. Then about six years ago I persuaded my husband to make the movement north.
I hope to call home Midwest for a long time if the sending readers help me continue to prove that the wrong interviewer about the value of a daily newspaper and my place in it.
Eleanor Kennedy can be reached on ecennedy@disChatch.com.