When Lucy May and Dan Monk (Peaches ‘n Herb, as they were known at the paper) exited The Cincinnati Business Courier last week, the paper’s two (and only) Senior Reporters took a combined 31 years of reporting at the region’s leading business weekly with them, en route to new careers at a new digital start-up, WCPO Digital, fostered by WCPO-TV Channel 9.
“This is a way for me to do something completely new,” said Monk, a Western Hills native and graduate of The University of Cincinnati and Elder High School who joined The Business Courier in 1995.
Lucy May declined comment. She’s a Northern Kentucky resident who joined The Business Courier in 2000, after working for The Cincinnati Enquirer for four years. Lucy graduated from Scott High School and Northwestern University.
Lucy has opened up a new Twitter account at WCPO Digital, however @LucyMayCincy: http://www.Twitter.com/LucyMayCincy. Dan Monk’s new WCPO Twitter account (@DanMonk9) is: http://www.Twitter.com/DanMonk9.
Rob Daumeyer, Editor of The Cincinnati Business Courier, declined comment.
SCRIPPS COMMENT ADDED AT 15:37
“With the addition of Dan Monk and Lucy May to our team, we strengthened our engagement with the business community,” read a statement from Valerie Miller, Corporate Communications Director for E.W. Scripps.
“Their insight into local businesses, coupled with their vast experiences in covering the area’s business community for years, brings great value to our audience.
“They are trusted for their accuracy and respect for their thoroughness and fairness. Whether it is business, breaking news, weather, sports or local government, WCPO Digital intends to be the go-to source for the local audience that wants the best local coverage as well as advertisers who covet a large and engaged audience. We have the infrastructure in place to deliver high-quality original content on all platforms. This initiative embraces the mission of Scripps to ‘Do Well By Doing Good.’
“We want to play a pivotal role in improving our community through enterprise journalism,” the statement concluded. “You can expect more exciting developments in WCPO Digital that will get your readers – and all of Greater Cincinnati – talking.”
Oddly enough – or not – The Business Courier, specifically reporter Jon Newberry (@newberry_cinbiz) just recently wrote about WCPO Digital two weeks ago, in its Jan. 18, 2013 edition. To wit:
“The digital initiative will create content that will be in addition to stories generated by Channel 9’s television broadcasts, according to a source. WCPO officials didn’t respond to requests for more details. The new digital project, to launch in April, will be the first of its kind by Channel 9’s parent E.W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP), the Cincinnati-based media company that also owns kypost.com. That site is a vestige of its Cincinnati Post and Kentucky Post newspapers that shut down in 2007 when a joint operating agreement with the Enquirer expired.”
There doesn’t appear to be a separate WCPO Digital website.
One of Monk’s first stories, a Question and Answer with former Procter and Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, is running under the headline of “Digital Cover Stories” on the main WCPO website: http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/money/business_news/lafley-qa-former-pg-ceo-talks-corporate-strategy-in-new-book.
There is a “Web Team” listed on the WCPO web site, which lists Monk (but not May, who was just having her phone installed this morning) as well as Alyssa Dailey, Kareem Elgazzar, Sarah Beth Hensley, Brian Mains, Kevin Osborne and Casey Weldon.
Unlike the WCPO TV reporters, the WCPO Digital Web Team doesn’t list member profiles on the WCPO website, so let’s roll with LinkedIn and/or Twitter, shall we? (click on the names):
(no LinkedIn profile for Kareem) – on Twitter he’s @ElgazzarBLVD, or http://www.Twitter.com/ElgazzarBLVD
Sarah Beth Hensley
(@BDMains on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/BDMains)
Cincinnati PR 
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