Souza to bring award-winning talent to The City Wire

Award-winning business reporter Kim Souza will join The City Wire in mid January to lead the web publication’s coverage of business and politics in Northwest Arkansas.

The City Wire, re-launched in November 2008, is a news website that covers business, politics and culture in the Fort Smith region, and will soon expand to Northwest Arkansas and include more statewide business and political news. More than 685,000 visited the website between Nov. 1, 2008 and Dec. 30, 2011, and logged more than 4.456 million pageviews.

“I look forward to the new opportunities and new methods to provide business coverage of the complex Northwest Arkansas economy,” said Souza, who will be the news editor for The City Wire in Northwest Arkansas. “Online journalism is certainly the future for the industry, and I’m glad to be an integral part of The City Wire’s expansion.”

The City Wire’s new format is scheduled for a late January-early February launch in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas metro areas.

Souza is a Texas native and earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Texas at Tyler. Souza had an extensive background in finance before spending six years as a classroom teacher in east Texas and Fort Smith.

Souza covered education for the Southwest Times Record (Fort Smith) between 2000 and 2001 before returning to the classroom to teach Spanish and journalism at Fort Smith Christian School, now Union Christian Academy.

She moved to Northwest Arkansas in 2005 and has worked as a business reporter for the Morning News and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. In 2011, she was chosen by management to complete the company's leadership training program.

Her areas of coverage include agriculture, banking and finance, real estate, poultry-food processing and trucking.

AWARD WINNING WORK
“We are proud to have one of the most respected and hard-working journalists in Northwest Arkansas join The City Wire. She is certainly an accomplished reporter who will be a leader for us as we expand,” said Michael Tilley, president of TCW Media.

Souza has won more than a dozen state and national awards for her reporting. Most recently she garnered first and second place for business coverage among large daily publications by the Associated Press Managing Editors Association of Arkansas in 2010. She also won third place for business reporting in 2010 by the Arkansas Press Association. In 2009, Souza was honored with two national awards, finishing first in business and first in enterprise reporting on the real estate industry by the National Federation of Press Women.

Souza is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and Society of Professional Journalists. She is also a member of the Springdale Chamber Leadership Group 17.

She and husband Chip Souza have been married for 29 years and live in Bella Vista. They have three grown sons and one daughter-in law, all of Northwest Arkansas. Their first grandchild, Brooklyn Grace, was born Nov. 3.

THE CITY WIRE ADDITIONS
Souza is the fourth person announced to join The City Wire in the past 60 days.

Arkansas newspaper veteran Cyd King will join The City Wire on Jan. 9 to lead the web publication’s arts and entertainment coverage in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas metro areas. Daelene Brown began Nov. 7 as the business manager for The City Wire, and has 16 years experience in human resources and office management. Debbie Foliart, retained on Nov. 14 to support sales and leadership development for The City Wire, has more than 30 years in the newspaper industry.

As part of the expansion push, The City Wire editor and co-owner Michael Tilley has been promoted to TCW Media president, and Patricia Brown has been named the chief operations officer.

The City Wire staff and freelancers also includes:
• Adam Brandt, restaurant critic
• Amanda Carson, freelance writer
• Ruby Dean, freelance writer and photographer
• Jennifer Douglas, technical support

• Tyler Fink, technical support

• Roy Hill, freelance writer

• Luke Hobbs, freelance writer
• Linda Kaufenberg, freelance writer and photographer
• Peter Lewis, movie and music reviews
• Shayne McKinney, technical consultant

• Jake McTyre, web and technical support
• Aric Mitchell, freelance writer-news and sports
• Joel Rafkin, freelance writer and photographer

• Brittany Ransom, freelance writer and photographer
• Chris Rushing, freelance writer-sports


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