Two editors at the Daily Journal (Franklin) have been promoted as the newspaper’s parent company grows.
Daily Journal editor Scarlett Syse has been named group editor and will help guide the news operations of four newspapers owned by Home News Enterprises.
Assistant managing editor Michele Holtkamp is being promoted to editor of the paper.
Holtkamp started her career at the Daily Journal as a reporter in 2001 and has been working as assistant managing editor for news since September 2003.
Senior reporter Annie Goeller will step into the assistant managing editor position.
“Home News Enterprises is fortunate to be in a position where we have talented journalists who are ready for the challenges ahead,” said Chuck Wells, publisher of the Daily Journal and other HNE South Group newspapers. “We are committed to providing our readers with compelling local content in print and online.
“Combined, Scarlett, Michele and Annie have decades of experience covering Johnson County, telling the stories of the community and explaining a range of government issues,” Wells said.
Syse, who joined the Daily Journal in November 1999, will help guide news and design at the Daily Journal, The Republic (Columbus), The Seymour Tribune and the Brown County Democrat.
She has led the Daily Journal through significant changes and community events and issues, including the flood of 2008. Under her leadership, the paper won HSPA Foundation’s coveted Blue Ribbon, the top prize among Indiana newspapers of all circulation sizes.
Her staff has won numerous writing, design and journalism excellence awards, including honors for investigative reporting and community service.
She developed the newspaper’s first website and guided a series of new initiatives in the paper.
These include the Where They Stand candidate pages; Brave Hearts, a section chronicling the journey of breast cancer survivors; and design changes.
Syse served as the Daily Journal online editor for a year before being named editor in September 2000.
She has nearly 30 years of newspaper experience, having worked as a reporter, city editor and editor.
From 1985 to 1999, she worked at The Shelbyville News, serving as editor from July 1993 to November 1999.
A graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., she serves on the freedom of information and newsroom seminar committees for the Hoosier State Press Association Foundation and is a member of the board of directors of Indiana Associated Press Managing Editors and the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
Holtkamp began her career at the Daily Journal shortly after graduating from Indiana State University in Terre Haute. She started at the newspaper as a reporter focusing on Greenwood city government.
She has won dozens of reporting and newswriting awards, including Story of the Year across all Indiana newspapers for her work documenting the ongoing investigation into a missing Greenwood teen.
As assistant managing editor, she has directed the news content of all local stories and worked to explain government spending and initiatives, question public officials and hold them accountable and tell the stories of the community.
Goeller joined the newspaper as a reporter in 2005 and has covered multiple topics, including county government, property taxes, the economy and health care issues. She graduated from IUPUI.
