WRAL Manager Takes Over As Head of Reesenews

John Clark, general manager of WRAL.com, the web presence of the Raleigh TV station, is the new executive director of the Reese Felts Digital News Project, at reesenews.org, a student-led experimental venture in digital newsgathering, dissemination and audience research in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Clark begins today at the digital newsroom, named for the 1952 alumnus who gave $4.1 million for the project.

Assistant Professor Don Wittekind had been in the job as an interim since the resignation of Monty Cook ’86 last November after Cook was found sending sexually related instant messages to a female student. Cook had left The Baltimore Sun, where he was a senior vice president and editor, to lead the project at its outset.

Reesenews broke the news of Cook’s indiscretion and resignation.

The site Clark helped build at WRAL had more than 1 billion page views last year, and it has won an Edward R. Murrow Award for best broadcast-affiliated website, the Editor & Publisher award for best local TV-affiliated website and a regional Emmy award for continuing coverage.

More online…

• New leader of Reese Felts Digital News Project begins July 1
  From The Daily Tar Heel
• Journalism Faculty Member Quits Amid Texting Allegations
  News report from November 2010