Sarah Hartley, the head of online editorial at MEN Media, has taken the decision to leave the business for an as yet unnamed new challenge.
Her departure robs the group of a respected figure in the local digital community and marks the end of the popular Mancunian Way blog, which has been operated out of the Manchester Evening News for the past two years.
Although on her own blog Hartley likens her personal experience of leaving the group, which she has worked at for the past eight years, to "a scene being played out up and down the country" (seemingly referring to the raft of job losses in the industry) it appears she has left of her own volition.
She told How-Do that it was "a hard decision to make" but one that had essentially been made for her as "the opportunity presented to me was just good to miss."
Hartley
Of this she would only go as far as to reveal that "from mid-June I will be working full-time on an exciting new web project" and that in the meantime she would be involved in consultancy training work.
Hartley joined GMG in 2001 as the content editor and publisher for the digital side of the regional division, before moving up to take the role of head of online editorial in 2005.
In that time she has has helped the group launch a raft of regional websites (including the MEN site itself, which was previously part of ManchesterOnline) and collect a host of industry awards - these include winning the best daily newspaper site from the Newspaper Society in the first year of the MEN's online launch (2005) and electronic news site of the year 2007 from the Newspaper Awards.
Commenting on her time with the firm Hartley said she had "thouroughly enjoyed" her tenure and had "been proud to be a part of this city's thriving digital community."
Speaking of some of the achievements that stood out for her she noted that "helping to increase engagement with the community" had been key.
Challenging times for the MEN
She continued: "One of my first initiatives was to allow user comments onto individual stories - this was quite unusual back in 2001 when most news sites hived off their UGC to separate forums - and more recently the opportunities offered thanks to Web 2.0 tools have really advanced that - the blogging platform, the Flickr groups and Twitter activity being prime examples of the more networked approach to collaborative journalism which I've found so rewarding."
On the subject of the Mancunian Way blog itself she exclaimed: "I have loved every second of it.
"My co-bloggers - Paul Robinson and Adrian Slatcher - provided a great balance to what I could bring to it as a professional journalist with their in-depth knowledge and contacts across the techie and digital arts communities.
"We've received a lot of feedback from users over the past 48 hours (since it was revealed that it was the close) and all three of us will continue to participate in the city's digital scene going forward."
She concluded by adding that she wanted "to wish everyone remaining at MEN Media all the best for the future in these difficult times."
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