EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been corrected to reflect the correct spelling of Mr. Earley's name and the name of the paper where he works.

Award-winning Australian journalist Dave Earley visited Cape Girardeau last week as part of a U.S. media tour.

Earley, 33, of Brisbane works as homepage editor for the The Courier-Mail and received the 2012 Rising Star award for community newspapers of Australia.

Earley was awarded $10,000 to tour community newspapers in the United States and Canada and attend the Local Media Association Conference in Atlanta. Earley visited the Southeast Missourian to see what community newspapers do in various aspects of the business. He met with editors, designers, writers, sales people and others.

Earley said he enjoys working with community newspapers and that he "likes the small-town connection."

"Community newspapers tell community stories and enjoy close relationships," Earley said.

Small-town newspapers are "able to engage with more people personally," he said. "People feel more ownership with a community paper and the editors are able to become the voice of the paper."

Earley said he also sees social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, bringing the relationships between community newspapers and the people closer.

"With social media, papers can know the communities more and tap into local issues," he said.

Earley said community newspapers face a number of challenges and opportunities. Audience expectations will only increase as the number of places where they can get their news from also increases, he said. That will cause papers to be more intentional with community engagement.

"It is important to give people information and let them know what is going on in their world," Earley said.

Earley said he had a job lined up working online media for a paper before he graduated. Earley has also worked with online journalism schools, commercial television stations and a number of community papers.

Earley was born in South Carolina and lived there until his parents returned to Australia when he was 4. He said he returned to the United States in his 20s to "travel, work, play rugby and bum around."

Earley said he holds dual citizenship in the United States and Australia. He visited St. Louis, New York City, San Francisco and Toronto.