Hometown journalist brings new digital storytelling platform to Middle Georgia

When Kyle Dominy writes, the town seems to talk.

He’s a journalist at his core, an observer. 

His most talked-about recent work, headlined “Shopping Carts and Living at the End of Civilization,” was a column on the absence of the decent act of returning carts to the corral after finishing at the grocery store. For Dominy, it was part of one day in a small town that he thought spoke to kindness and caring for your neighbor.

“I'll take 30 seconds of my day and stretch it into 500 words,” Dominy said. “And the whole point is, yeah, I may be using my personal experience, but everybody has something they can relate to it. Just the daily inconveniences or the little moments that stick with you and just make you think a little bit deeper about life.”

His “The New Southern Dad” column is published in The Courier Herald, part of the Georgia Trust for Local News. It’s the paper of record for Laurens County, Ga., where the county seat is Dublin, a town of about 16,000 people.

Dominy’s connection with this community runs deep. 

“My grandparents got every single paper,” he said. “And that's kind of where my love of newspapers came from, was reading those papers growing up.”

He grew up in the county, and partly through journalism, came to love it enough to leave, move back, and build his family there.

“I can rest my head, plant my feet on the same ground that I grew up on. So I can pass that on to my family as well, my kids,” Dominy said.

Writing these columns is a labor of love for Dominy. But the real joy for him is the conversation. As The Courier Herald works to grow its digital storytelling, Dominy saw a podcast as a “natural progression.” To offer an engaging format for Courier Herald readers to learn more about community history and current events from local residents, he pitched his idea for the “Dublin: Slightly Off the Record” podcast through the National Trust for Local News’s News Innovation Sprint, supported by Google News Initiative. Dominy won a $5,000 grant to bring his idea to fruition. 

Dublin is proud of its history and focused on the future. The podcast will feature everyone from community historians to conversations with newsmakers and residents about current events. It  will also introduce subscribers to people whose names appear in the paper every day, but who readers don’t know much about. Dominy believes the podcast will allow the Courier Herald to reach new demographics and advertisers.

“I’ve always loved meeting people,” Dominy said. “Everybody has a story, and a lot of people don’t think they’re interesting … and then you’re able to show them you actually do have a fantastic story to share.”

Dominy believes free-flowing, but focused conversations can also continue to build community through journalism. For The Courier Herald, Dominy wants to bring that conversation to life.

“It gives them a human twist,” Dominy said. “They're not just the mayor signing off on this thing that you hate. This is a human being that has all kinds of different opinions and reasoning behind what they're doing.”

Dominy is both the journalist and studio designer, preparing and painting the newsroom’s new podcast studio for its first guests.

While it will continue to be true that when Kyle Dominy writes, the town seems to talk, with “Dublin: Slightly Off the Record,” he hopes the conversation sounds a little different, reaches new audiences and lasts well into the future.