We’re excited to announce that Allison Brown has joined our company as a community editor/reporter for the CITYSunTimes. Brown will be focused on improving our product and content in Carefree, Cave Creek, Scottsdale, Phoenix and surrounding areas.
Brown most recently worked as a staff writer at Times Media Group, where she focused on producing content for the Foothills Focus newspaper. She has grown to understand and appreciate the unique, western lifestyle of the Carefree, Cave Creek and north Scottsdale areas. Journalism is her passion. Brown graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in December 2020 and relocated to Arizona upon graduating. If you have news tips you’d like to share, she can be reached at abrown@orourkemediagroup.com.
The CITYSunTimes, coming up on its 20th anniversary in December, hasn’t had a designated reporter resource since 2008 and this move follows a series of activity and investments since our original acquisition of the CITYSunTimes mid-year 2020.
In September 2020, we launched a new website and e-edition of the CITYSunTimes to better serve our readers and advertisers. The increased engagement with communities has been impressive with over 20,000 monthly users and email subscribers.
In September 2021, we hired Kelly Mixer, an experienced editor and journalist, to help launch a hyper-local news website from ground zero in Queen Creek. Mixer has done an amazing job and the audience growth in just one year has been fantastic – 23,000 monthly users, 19,000 Facebook followers and 7,500 email subscribers and growing fast. Google “local news in Queen Creek” or “breaking news in Queen Creek” and you’ll notice that our Queen Creek Sun Times ranks near the top of the search results! We are currently recruiting to add a full-time reporter to expand our local news coverage in Queen Creek. If you have news tips or press releases to share, please send to news@queencreeksuntimes.com.
In May, Mixer was promoted to managing editor in Arizona and this job assignment includes oversight of the CITYSunTimes editorial team. We have big plans in the works to grow our digital audience in our CITYSunTimes communities and beyond. Although our approach here will be somewhat different to what we do in Queen Creek, at the end of the day it’s still about producing community news and useful information for our readers and online users.
Jenifer Lee, who has handled page design/layout and ad design for the CITYSunTimes for the past 20 years, has recently come onboard as a full-time employee – creative services manager. Lee is a top-flight designer, does a lot to support the CITYSunTimes communities and will be helping us expand here in Arizona, especially with the print and design business.
I just wanted to provide a brief, brief overview of my company. O’Rourke Media Group is a fast-growing digital advertising and hyper-local, community news publishing company. We’re family-owned and currently operate in six states with a full-service digital agency and 24 publications and hyperlocal websites. We have established ourselves as a top-performing, full-service digital agency in the communities we serve and with many customers outside of our core market areas as a result of referrals. Digital revenue is increasing at a rapid pace, we have excellent customer retention and amazing talent leading the way when it comes to strategy, sales execution and campaign fulfillment.
My family and I recently relocated to the Greater Phoenix area, which means our company headquarters is now here also! We’re thankful for all the support from our advertisers and readers. Our local team works hard every day to improve upon what we do, and we have aggressive plans to expand our local news and advertising business into many more communities out here.
"It's an exciting time to be a part of O’Rourke Media Group as we continue to grow here in Arizona," Mixer said. "I can't wait to share more this weekend at the 18th Annual Valley Publicity Summit, presented by the Society of Professional Journalists at Barrett, The Honors College at ASU's Tempe campus."
