I am William H. "Bill" Hobbs and I live in Franklin, Tennessee.
I am a highly experienced journalist and commentator who has extensive experience as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor and in editing and publishing news online. I work in the University Marketing and Communications office of Belmont University, where I do a variety of public relations and press relations work, maintain two Belmont-related news weblogs, and assist faculty members in setting up blogs.
I was born near Philadelphia, Pa., and attended K-12 public schools on an accelerated college-prep track. I studied history and political science for three years at David Lipscomb University in Nashville, then served as a legislative aide in the Tennessee state legislature before transferring to Abilene Christian University in Texas to complete my B.A. degree in Journalism. My wife, Anna, and I have two children - a daughter, Chelli, age 5, and a son, Bennett, born September 4, 2002.
I also currently do a variety of freelance writing and editing and am currently accepting business book editing projects. I am a senior editor of Corante.com, a technology business news weblog, and am a contributor to collaborative political news weblog PolState.com. My reporting experience includes many years covering business and public policy for newspapers and magazines, and covering general news and the police-crime-courts beat, as well as writing political commentary, and helping launch two Internet-based news distribution companies. I also have served as a magazine editor, and vice president of an Internet news database company.
My email address is bhhobbs-at-comcast.net. You may email me for additional contact information. Substitute the @ symbol for the -at-. I'm trying to avoid my email address being harvested by the automatic spammers.
A litte more info:
I am a senior editor for this technology news web site. I helped launch this company, which provides electronic news feeds for business and organization web sites, and provides research tools and information services like this to businesses and consumers.
Before all of that, I was a writer for and then assistant editor of a monthly entertainment magazine called New Country, a monthly magazine for country music fans. That gig started in February 1994 and ended in June 1996 issue. The magazine shut down due to financial difficulties a year later. Before that, I was a regional general assignments reporter for The Tennessean, a reporter for the Nashville Business Journal (where I covered a variety of business beats including real estate, healthcare and economic development). A long time ago, I was a reporter for the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, and the Abilene Reporter News.
I've also been - and continue to be - a prolific freelance writer and editor. I have been a freelance writer and editor either part-time or full-time since 1993. I have a large and varied portfolio of freelance work for various newspapers, magazines and trade journals. I write extensively on business topics, and have also done a large amount of music and entertainment-related writing.
I did extensive editing work on the second edition of the book Paying With Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing, to be published in 2003 by MIT Press, and recently edited an as-yet-unpublished book on the how corporations can better manage the human factor in the mergers and acquisitions process.
I wrote a weekly column from January 2001 to May 2002 on business, public policy and economic issues for Nashville City Paper, and have made numerous radio and television appearances in connection with the column. I've posted a complete list of links to all of my City Paper columns on my weblog.
I wrote extensively for Business Nashville magazine, recently renamed Nashville Post, from September 1993 until a couple years ago, covering topics ranging from healthcare, transportation and economic development to technology, ecommerce, real estate and the music industry. I also wrote a lot of articles for Nashville Life magazine, a sister lifestyles publication. And I wrote extensively for In Review, a Nashville weekly newspaper, from May 1997 through November 2000 when two unrelated things happened: It ceased publication and I got married
I've also served as a press assistant for a mayoral candidate, authored two comprehensive guides to Nashville for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, and have been a contributing writer to two books, MusicHound Country: The Essential Album Guide (Visible Ink Press, 1997 ) and the Country Music Foundation's Encyclopedia of Country Music (Country Music Foundation/Oxford University Press, 1998). And I've written country music record reviews for the St. Petersburg Times, and articles for trade publications as diverse as Amusement Business, Plastics News and Plants Sites & Parks.
At Abilene Christian University, I was an editor of the The Optimist, the student newspaper. At David Lipscomb University, I majored in American history and also served as a legislative aide during the 1985 session of the Tennessee General Assembly
If you are interested in my portfolio, email me!
CLICK HERE to go back to my weblog.
posted by Bill Hobbs 2:52 PM