On Wednesday, May 29th the Cincinnati Campus of  The Ohio Center for Broadcasting welcomed guest speaker, Michael Monks, Creator, Editor & Publisher of  The River City News.

Michael’s dream in broadcasting, after graduating from NKU, was to some day be a media entrepreneur. Originally thinking that would be in movies that would take him to LA or NYC, he actually started here locally in the Cincinnati market. He produced the news with 700WLW, then made the transition to television as a Senior News Producer with Fox19.

Michael felt that  local news reporting of smaller River cities was under-served, and wanted to showcase those stories while working for the larger news reporting companies. When those stories were consistently overlooked, Michael decided to branch out on his own and create The River City News.

Michael’s vision for The River City News is for it to be the home for all reporting on all Northern Kentucky River cities that stretch across our region: Covington, Bellevue, Newport, Ludlow, Ft. Thomas, etc.

RCN began first as a blog and has now blossomed into a full scale website, updated multiple times a day with over 15,000 readers. Content provided are all the top stories in the River Cities focusing on local business, crime, sports, schools, music etc. As time has passed many of his stories are now picked up and covered by the larger news companies, both locally and nationally.

Expansion is next. Growth is inevitable. Michael is now at a turning point. The RCN has recently moved from Michael’s home to a professional office space in the back of a local coffee shop. His focus is now to make the news reporting for RCN multi-media based by adding podcasts and news video links that are created on-site highlighting a different, but balanced, perspective.

Many of the stories that RCN reports have come from leads that people send him via Facebook, Twitter, phone calls, letters, social events, and actual personal visits to his home. With his desire to see all NKY River Cities covered, means his leads have compounded daily showing he must expand. RCN is growing.

As a result, our communities are better of because of it.

Thank you, Michael. We are grateful for your hard work, time, and talent. Much Success!

In the ever changing world of media, the  idea of how news is shared has changed drastically. As a student with The Ohio Center for Broadcasting, hands-on, technical training means you not only learn the broadcasting industry in the traditional sense, but learn to embrace “the new media” as well.

If you have questions about our program, or would like to schedule a tour, click here!