InkBlots

Charlie Mitchell, longtime executive editor of The Vicksburg Post and a past president of the Mississippi Press Association, has been named Assistant Dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media at Ole Miss.

Mitchell will begin his new duties on campus Aug. 19, according to an announcement made to faculty Friday by Dean Will Norton.

He has nearly 35 years of experience as a working journalist.  He joined The Vicksburg Post in 1975 as a reporter.

He previously was an instructor in journalism at Ole Miss, returning to Vicksburg in 1986 to assume his current position.

“He led a group of journalism students from the University of Nebraska on a reporting trip to Johannesburg, South Africa two years ago,” said Norton, who returned to Ole Miss in 2009 after a long tenure as Dean of Journalism at the University of Nebraska. “The photo book produced by the students portrayed the challenges for emigrants from Zimbabwe.”

Mitchell earned his bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State and his law degree from Ole Miss.

Executives at the Post on Friday said no decision has been made on a successor for the top editor’s post at the daily newspaper.

The weekly Clinton News is folding Aug. 5, with its Gannett Co. sibling The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson taking over coverage of the community.

In a letter to readers, Clinton News President and Publisher Larry K. Whitaker said the expanded coverage of Clinton by the daily Clarion-Ledger is “something that the community has wanted for many years,” and will allow for more coverage of Clinton on the Web.

The Clinton paper was considered an edition of the Ledger and was not a full member of MPA. The Clarion-Ledger also publishes The Madison County Herald in Madison-Ridgeland, The Rankin Ledger and The Northeast Ledger.

Former Laurel Leader-Call business manager Stephanie Thornton has been sentenced to 10 years on charges of embezzling $36,000 from the newspaper.

The Mobile Press-Register will be the new print site for the regional edition of USA Today. Gannett chose to outsource the printing after a decision to phase out the print facility at the Hattiesburg American, itself now printed at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson.

A memorial service will be held Saturday in Englewood, N.J., for Donald V. Adderton, the former editor of the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville. Adderton died Saturday after a long battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 61.

Paul South has been named the new city editor of the Daily World in Opelousas, LA. He previously served as a managing editor for The Mississippi Press in Pascagoula.

Family members of the late S. Gale Denley, longtime owner and publisher of The Calhoun County Journal, attended the unveiling of a wall hanging at The MED July 14 honoring Denley for his efforts supporting work of the hospital throughout the region, but specifically in Mississippi.

Mississippi courts are joining others across the country in facing a new concern - how to address social media with jurors.

For decades, judges have instructed juries not to watch television, read newspapers or listen to radio. But with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace at people’s fingertips, social media is gaining a foothold in popular society, and judges are having to adjust.

The city of Tupelo and its newspaper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, will both mark 140 years in 2010.

The paper’s unique relationship with the North Mississippi CREATE Foundation was also recently profiled in Editor and Publisher magazine.

“In the scramble to find new business models for newspapers, some see charitable foundations as the way to keep newspapers afloat. But in what may be the poorest region in the nation’s poorest state, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal is one of the financial engines of a foundation that’s helping improve the lives of its readers…” Click here if you are an E&P subscriber to read the article.

The Gannett Company Inc. will consolidate print design and layout for all of its newspapers at five regional design centers, including one in Nashville.

The company said it plans to install a state-of-the-art editing and content management system at all of its print properties. The changes mean pre-press production of The Clarion-Ledger, Hattiesburg American and other Mississippi Gannett publications will be shifted to out-of-state locations.