The Southeast Missourian has named Matt Sanders as the newspaper's managing editor.

Sanders previously served as co-managing editor with Chris Harris, who recently resigned for personal reasons. Before his promotion to co-managing editor, Sanders was the content editor for semissourian.com.

Sanders first came to the Southeast Missourian as the arts and entertainment editor in 2004. Before that he was a reporter at the Dexter Daily Statesman. Sanders is originally from Bloomfield, Mo., and has a bachelor's degree from the mass communications department at Southeast Missouri State University.

"Matt has proven over time to be a serious journalist who cares deeply about fairness, accuracy and online content," editor Bob Miller said. "He's a hard worker who knows the ins and outs of local news, politics and internal operations."

In addition to Sanders' new role, Lucas Presson has been named assistant managing editor. Presson has been the editorial page coordinator, but now his duties have expanded to the oversight of several feature pages, including the weekly Good Times section. He will also help coordinate some online operations.

James Samons was hired to become the arts and entertainment reporter for the Southeast Missourian. He will handle the organization of Friday's SE Live section.

"We'll certainly miss Chris and everything she brought to the Southeast Missourian, and she left on wonderful terms," Miller said. "But we have fine, talented people to fill in her roles. James knows the entertainment scene very well, and Matt and Lucas are already stepping up to the challenge."

As part of these changes, Miller will have a bigger role in the content of editorial pages and content.

The changes took effect March 5.