Photos for Headline Surfer / Top Left: Pat Rice, shown from a pic on his LinkedIn page, 'retired' from the Daytona Beach News-Journal near the end of December after 12 years as the editor of the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The editor's position had gone unfilled for nearly seven months before his replacement eas introduced on Wednesday in a story in the News-Journal. Dunbar also was named editor of the St. Augustine Record and will oversee both newsrooms. The two papers are owned by Gannett.
Headline Surfer graphic / The locator map at left shows the distance between the two newsroom operations -- a distance of about 54 miles by car and close to an hour's commute each way, depending on traffic congestion, construction, and crashes (due to a lot of speeding motorists) - far from a pleasant commute.
By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A new editor has been named to manage the daily news operations of the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the St. Augustine Record, both under the ownership of Gannett/USA Today.
John Dunbar, 58, was touted in a story posted online Wednesday in the n News-Journal as "an award-winning editor with more than 25 years of experience and a focus on investigative journalism."
Dunbar was introduced to staff members of both papers at the News-Journal office in Daytona. He was quoted in the story as being eager to cover news in the Sunshine State, having graduated with a bachelor's degree in mass communications from the University of South Florida in Tampa and having worked his first reporting jobs, including time as an investigative reporter at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville in the late 1990s, though no specifics on how long he worked at the Jacksonville newspaper or other news outlets from back in the day.
“It’s a fabulous news environment,” Dunbar was quoted in the promo story as saying of the Sunshine State. “There are a million stories to cover, and I am excited about coming home. Even though I’m not an actual native, I spent some very formative years here (in Florida) and I always enjoyed it, always loved it.”
According to the News-Journal story, Dunar arrived the day before from Memphis, Tenn., where he had worked as editor of enterprise and investigations at the Daily Memphian, described as a non-profit local news organization. How long he worked there wasn't stated in the story, but he had spent three years at the Bloomberg Industry Group, which eas described in the story as "a specialized reporting unit focusing on topics including government, law, and taxes. And that it there that he "helped start and build that organization’s investigative and data team."
The story wasn't clear of his time at Bloomberg coincided with 14 years, including two as CEO, spent at the Center for Public Integrity, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom in Washington, D.C. The story noted Dunar's work there "included investigations about money in politics and the impact of the Citizens United decision on the funding of elections. He also created a project investigating all 50 state legislatures and ran coverage focused on the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown."
Dunbar does have an impressive pedigree as an editor and reporter, described in the story as having created or supervised work that has won awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, Investigative Reporters & Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Online News Association, and the George Polk Award for Business Writing among others.
Besides what was described among his key priorities of "good accountability journalism," a continuing push for digital readership and subscription growth was also mentioned in the story.
That progress, Dunbar emphasized wholly dependent on generating local content that's generated solely by the Daytona and St. Augustine dailies under his direction.
“It’s writing about things that people really care about that they can’t get anywhere else,” Dunbar said. “It’s the way we cover it, hopefully from a substantive level, that will drive digital growth.“
It wasn't clear if he'll set up shop in Daytona, the larger of the two print papers.
Dunbar replaces Pat Rice, who was editor of the News-Journal for 12 years, arriving in Daytona from Panama City and retiring in December. Rice touted himself as an award-winning journalist too but he was clearly a glad-hander to the power elite primarily through the Daytona Chamber of Commerce and the senior administration of Volusia County.
A Wisconsin native, Rice moved to Florida in 2004 where he was hired as editor of the Northwest Florida Daily News in Fort Walton Beach, a job that he described as evolving into a role as director of content for the Daily News, the Panama City News Herald, and eight weekly newspapers in the Panhandle region. On the eve of his retirement, Rice patted himself on the back saying the paper had become a "public trust" due to what he described as a hands-on management style.
In reality, Rice was a "glad-hander with business insiders in Daytona and senor administrators in Volusia County government who he counted on for taxpayer-supported advertising and marketing that was murky at est - all too often writing stories that catered to the Big 3 Daytona insiders - Lesa France Kennedy, lead exec with the multi-billion dollar France Family of NASCAR/Daytona International Speedway, J. Hyatt Brown, a millionaire in his own right and chairman of the Boar5d of Brown & Brown Insurance, and Mori Hosseini, a luxury home builder with ICI Homes and a net worth close to half a billion.
Rice never held outlandish politicians like Sheriff Mike Chitwood and former Daytona Police Chief accountable such as his blatant lies about the circumstances of a speeding ticket he received 17 days after he was sworn in as sheriff in 2017. Likewise, Volusia County's Heather Post, who blatantly lied to the voters about her past illicit drug use on the eve of her 2016 campaign for the county office after an aborted career in law enforcement, has not been held accountable for the News-Journal.
“A newspaper is really a public trust,” Rice said. “You can be owned by a company or individual, but I have always felt it’s a public trust to do the right thing for the community. A lot goes into that."
Headline Surfer won journalism awards for reporting on those incidents with Chitwood and Post. To date, the readers of the News-Journal have never been told the truth about either politician's untruthfulness. And despite Rice's chumminess with the Speedway Headline Surfer has won journalism awards for the past eight years for its coverage of the Daytona 500 race.
The News-Journal hasn't won anything for coverage of the Speedway or its races.
About the Byline Writer: Henry Frederick is a member of the working press and publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7online news outlet he and his spouse, Sera King, associate publisher, launched in 2008, that serves greater Daytona Beach, Sanford & Orlando from Lake Mary, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed 115 award-winning bylines in print & online. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism in 2019 from Full Sail University. He was a breaking news reporter (cops & courts) for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, 1996-2004; and before that cops & courts for The Journal-News/Gannett Suburban Newspapers in West Nyack, NY, 1989-1995. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and embedded in the George Zimmerman murder trial, Frederick has appeared on national crime documentaries such as Discovery ID, Reelz, & the Oxygen Network series "Snapped." His AWJ: