The City Wire adds staff, features

The City Wire continues to expand its presence in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas areas with staff additions, new features and new reports designed to provide timely news, data and society info for the growing readership base.

The City Wire, re-launched in November 2008, is a news website that covers business, politics and culture in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas regions. News on The City Wire also includes statewide business and political news. More than 839,000 visited the website between Nov. 1, 2008 and April 30, 2012, and logged more than 5.185 million pageviews.

The City Wire is a news source that cuts through the clutter of bank robberies, house fires and meth busts to deliver timely, detailed and accurate business, political and arts & entertainment news.

The City Wire also formed and continues to benefit from content partnerships with KFSM 5News, Little Rock-based Talk Business and Fayetteville-based KUAF 91.3 FM.

RETURNING SUPPORT
Lady Jane Cohen, a media executive with more than 21 years of sales and marketing experience, has rejoined The City Wire on a part-time basis to assist and provide leadership in the growing sales effort.

Her work in the two metro areas includes sales for radio, television and as an advertising agency director of client services. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington. Cohen has garnered several awards of recognition from the Dale Carnegie Sales Course and Fort Smith Advertising Club and others.

Cohen worked with The City Wire in 2010 and was recruited to return and help Patricia Brown, chief operating officer for The City Wire, manage the expansion of advertising opportunities.

“Lady Jane certainly brings a vast amount of experience and wisdom to not only the revenue side, but to the entire operation. It’s an understatement to say we were pleased when she agreed to a second round with The City Wire,” Brown said. “The City Wire is more than just an advertising platform. Using a wide range of innovative methods, we connect businesses and other organizations with key demographics to get results. Lady Jane is a good fit with our approach.”

WEB, REPORTING TALENT
The City Wire hired Jake McTyre in January to lead technology development efforts. McTyre, the TCW technology manager, was instrumental in the design of the new web platform and is presently working on a mobile application.

McTyre earned a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, and worked for several years as a web designer. He was the primary developer of the first two versions of The City Wire, and was a leader in building the newest platform.

Aric Mitchell also joined The City Wire in January as a news reporter and high school sports contributor to The Varsity Wire.

Aric Mitchell graduated from Arkansas Tech University in 2000 as an English major. While living in Russellville, he freelanced for the Russellville Courier and expanded his freelance writing career to a variety of other electronic and print publications.

Mitchell also taught English and speech communication at the high school level for two years and worked four years at the legal publishing arm of Wolters-Kluwer Law and Business.  

“McTyre has proven to be a web wizard who always seems to find a way to make the impossible possible, and Mitchell has maturity beyond his years in terms of reportorial skills and good old-fashioned story telling,” said Michael Tilley, president and managing editor of TCW Media.

More recently, Kris Marvin and Ashlee Milton also joined The City Wire on a part-time basis. Marvin, who lives in Northwest Arkansas, will support the sales and marketing effort in that region. Milton will work in The City Wire’s Fort Smith office to support advertiser and reader relations.

NEW FEATURES
• The Arkansas Home Sales Report
The unique Arkansas Home Sales Report, presented by Fort Smith-based Westark Plumbing, captures home sales data in the state’s 14 most populated counties among the state’s four largest metro areas contained primarily within the state — Central Arkansas, Fort Smith area, Jonesboro/Northeast Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas. The report, which records closed sales, accounts for between 70% and 75% of total Arkansas home sales.

The report is managed by TCW Media, and is the only independent analysis of Arkansas’ residential real estate market.

“A leading indicator of economic health in almost any area is the home sales market. We’re proud to be able to provide our readers with advanced data on this important sector,” Tilley said.

• Fort Smith, Northwest Arkansas Legislative races page
The City Wire offers a quick link to those interested in keeping tabs on the Arkansas Legislative races in the two metro areas.

With a Presidential race unlikely to matter in Arkansas and looming lackluster match-ups in all four Congressional races this fall, a real focus for the 2012 political news cycle will be the outcome of the state legislative races.

There are 11 State Senate primaries — five on the GOP side and six on the Democratic side. In the House, there are 22 primaries with 14 in the Democratic column and eight in the Republican column.

These primaries will set the stage for the fall elections when Democrats aim to hold or build on their 54 House seats and 20 Senate seats, while Republicans target the magical majority numbers of 51 in the House and 18 in the Senate. At this juncture, either party could prevail.

Link here to the page.

• The City Wire Photos
The thousands of photos posted by The City Wire each year are now available for purchase. The City Wire has contracted with Photo Merchant who will handle the production and shipping. Link here for access to the photo page.

• Dow Now? and stock market box
The “Where’s the Dow Now?” contest gives The City Wire readers a chance to prognosticate on the quarterly direction of the stock market and possibly win a little cash for yourself and a favorite charity. The concept is simple.

Readers provide the closest guess as to the quarterly closing number of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The best guesser wins $150 and the charity of their choice will also collect $150. At the end of each fiscal quarter, The City Wire will profile the person with the winning entry AND the associated charity.

• Bloomberg News
The City Wire is now posting Bloomberg News articles to provide readers several stories a day about key developments in national and international business and politics.

• Advertisers Index
A simple but practical index of advertisers allows The City Wire readers a quick review of the companies using the web platform to reach our growing audience.