STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS: Welcome New Associate Editor Lisa White

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 3, 2014 12:00AM

So I spent part of my New Years Day going over Chicagoist's 2013 traffic numbers and calculating averages as I'm wont to do in the quieter moments when we aren't worried about time stamps, dead periods during the work day and typos and vacillated between "Holy shit!" and "those numbers are exactly where we should be as the site enters its tenth year."

And then I reminded myself that Chicagoist debuted in May 2004 and I began saying "Holy shit" to myself again. This site has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six to seven years and 2013 saw some of the largest numbers in its history, much of it propelled by the writing and nose for news of Samantha Abernethy. Her departure in August left a major void that required someone special to fill; someone with a good sense of humor, smart writing and a solid instinct for what our ever-growing readership will find interesting.

We've found that in Lisa White. Over the past few weeks Lisa has proven to have all those essentials we were looking for and more and I knew from the moment I first started working with her she was the ideal candidate to replace Sam. Readers of Gapers Block will be familiar with Lisa's work there, where she helped spearhead that site's coverage of Pitchfork Music Festival. Lisa also brings a positive energy that is infectious and ideas for celebrating Chicagoist's 10th anniversary that I pray we can bring to life this year. She's the shot in the arm we've needed after a very trying final few months of the year and with Jim Kopeny, Jon Graef and an amazing mix of veteran and newer staffers the future looks bright for us in 2014.

Welcome aboard!