BREAKING NEWS: Sandford quits daily, joins alt weekly team at Mountain Xpress

ASHEVILLE – Long-time Asheville Citizen-Times reporter and editor Jason Sandford announced today that he has resigned his job at the daily newspaper and will take his talents to the weekly Mountain Xpress in a move that has media mavens buzzing.

“I had a great run at the Citizen-Times and have many friends there. I’ll miss them,” Sandford said. “It was just time for me to move on, and Mountain Xpress offered me a great opportunity I just couldn’t pass up.”

“I also didn’t want to be the last rat off a sinking ship,” joked Sandford, who noted the massive changes rocking the beleaguered newspaper industry as it struggles to come to grips with the digital age of information delivery. He also noted C-T parent company Gannett’s report today that fourth-quarter earnings were down a whopping 31 percent.

Sandford said that in his new role, he’ll be working to help Mountain Xpress boost its offerings online. He’ll also be doing some reporting, editing and photography for the locally owned 32,000-circulation alt weekly.

Sandford said he’s excited about becoming a Mountain Xer. “There’s a creative energy and vibrance there that really attracted me,” he said.

Sandford said he’ll also be working with Mountain X Publisher Jeff Fobes to bring new energy to the Fund for Investigative Reporters and Editors, an Asheville-based non-profit aimed at promoting citizen participation and community-based media.

“It’s perhaps the aspect I’m most excited about. There’s tremendous potential and opportunity, especially here in Asheville,” he said, pointing to the variety of free weekly newspapers in Asheville, the independent radio stations in town and the growing number of bloggers in the region.

News about Sandford’s surprising move has been circulating since he turned in his two-week notice to C-T managers on Monday. Sandford kept mum while he worked on details of his move, but the newsroom rumor mill began working overtime. His managers caught whiff and promptly ordered him to pack his cardboard box, hand over his badge and get out.

“Fifteen years at the newspaper, and I didn’t even get a lousy sheet cake,” Sandford said with a laugh, adding that he was a little miffed. “You’d think they could have come up with a graceful exit for me, an employee who has given them some of the best years of my life.”

The disappearing act caught Sandford’s colleagues by surprise. Entertainment Editor Tony Kiss just shook his head in amazement.

“I’m too old for this,” Kiss said as he whisked his way into a local brew pub to ponder it all. “I wonder if it hurt when he had that Gannett chip surgically removed.”

Columnist and reporter John Boyle said he knew something was up.

“Sandford’s been growing his hair long for about six months, but I thought it was just a midlife crisis thing. I offered to let him borrow my thong and my deerskin drum, but he said he was fine. I knew that was bullshit,” Boyle said. “I hope he has fun with those granola-eaters across the street.”

Sandford came to the newspaper in 1993 as a reporter who had worked for the Elizabethtown, N.C., Bladen Journal, the Elizabeth City, N.C., Daily Advance, and the Florence, S.C., Florence Morning News before moving back to Asheville, the town he grew up in. Sandford graduated UNC Chapel Hill with a journalism degree.

Sandford interned at USA Today and left the Citizen-Times in 1998 shortly after Gannett bought the newspaper from regional media company Multimedia Inc. He spent two years in Germany working for European Stars & Stripes, a daily newspaper covering the U.S. military in Europe. He returned to the Citizen-Times and worked as a reporter, assistant city editor, business editor, health editor and most recently multimedia editor.

Over the past three years, Sandford has also become a well-known blogger at Ashvegas. Last year, readers of the Mountain Xpress voted his the “best local blog” in its annual reader poll.

Mountain Xpress offered little comment. Huffing a cig outside the newspaper’s Miles Building office, Managing Editor Jon Elliston just smiled and said, “Let’s do this thing.”