SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN NAMES NEW MANAGING EDITOR

The Southeast Missourian has named Heidi Nieland Hall as its new managing editor.

Hall, a weekly columnist for the newspaper and a former staff writer, replaces Joni Adams, who is now Web master at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

Hall, 30, has 13 years experience in the newspaper industry which should be a benefit to the newspaper's readers, said Editor R. Joe Sullivan. Two of the news organizations she worked for -- Gannett and Tribune -- are considered some of the best in the country, he added.

A managing editor oversees the day-to-day operations of the newspaper, making sure that news is "competently covered" and accurate so that readers get all the news they expect from a daily newspaper, Sullivan said.

Having been both a resident of the region and a former reporter, Hall is "familiar with the people and the areas that we cover and can incorporate that into the decisions she makes," Sullivan said.

Hall said she hopes to improve the content of the paper and make it more pertinent to readers' lives. The job lets her "affect news coverage for people I know in an area that I love," she said.

She began her career in Southeast Missouri, working at the Sikeston Standard-Democrat and later the Southeast Missourian. In January 1997, she began work at the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, where she covered county government and education. She returned to the Southeast Missourian on Wednesday after a year at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., covering education issues in a school district that serves nearly a quarter-million students.

She was a finalist for the Green Eyeshade Award in 1999 for a project on race relations in the Florida Panhandle. The award was presented by the Atlanta Society of Professional Journalists and covers entries from the southeastern United States. She was named "Best Humor Columnist" in 1996 by the Missouri Press Association.

During Hall's career, she has had an opportunity "to learn a lot of skills and gain ideas that she will bring to Cape Girardeau," Sullivan said.

Readers likely won't see any drastic changes to the newspaper but will see more of a focus on news than before, Sullivan said. For a variety of reasons in the past, the news department has been involved with special projects and activities both inside the company and in the community, and hasn't always focused primarily on news. Now the news department will be able to focus more on news coverage under Hall's direction, Sullivan said.

Hall, a Sikeston, Mo., native is married to Jamie Hall, formerly of Bertrand, Mo. He returns to the newspaper as design and graphics editor.