Josh Barnett Named Director of Content for USA TODAY High School Sports

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Sep 24, 2014, 10:00 ET

MCLEAN, Va., Sept. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- USA TODAY Sports Media Group announced today that Josh Barnett has been named Director of Content for USA TODAY High School Sports, the nation's leading source for high school sports news and information.

Barnett, who has served as the Assistant Managing Editor for USA TODAY Sports Weekly, special publications and glossy magazines since July 2012, will continue in that role as he also assumes editorial leadership for high school coverage.

Prior to joining USA TODAY Sports, Barnett spent more than 12 years with the Philadelphia Daily News, including four years as Sports Editor and four as Executive Sports Editor. He previously also served as an assistant sports editor for the Syracuse Newspapers group and for the Utica (NY) Observer-Dispatch after starting his career covering high school sports for the Glens Falls (NY) Post-Star from 1994 to 1996.

"There are few people in the business who 'get' both the importance of strong community sports coverage as well as what readers want from a national perspective as well as Josh does," said Dave Morgan, president, USA TODAY Sports Media Group. "We're confident he'll bring great insight and vision to our coverage of high school sports at every level."

USA TODAY High School Sports, which recently introduced it's first-ever app for all mobile and tablet devices (available for free on both iTunes and Google Play), re-launched in August on USA TODAY Sports' proprietary digital publishing platform to optimize content experiences across all platforms, specifically mobile and tablet devices.

A major part of the USA TODAY High School Sports re-launch features new partnerships with leading-edge mobile innovators for video streaming (High School Cube) and crowd-sourced photography and content (Scoopshot) that now give USA TODAY High School Sports the potential to provide coverage from every high school sports event in the country.

As part of each partnership, USA TODAY High School Sports is working with its more than 120 local media brand partners, as well as its network of more than 5,000 school athletic directors, to introduce the partnerships to their respective school journalism curriculums to enable high school students to not only learn new, rapidly changing media techniques, but to also allow them to get real newsgathering experience.

About the USA TODAY Sports Media Group:
The USA TODAY Sports Media Group encompasses all sports initiatives across USA TODAY Sports and Gannett's more than 120 well-known local media brands. It also includes the sports photography wire service USA TODAY Sports Images; leading high school sports destination USA TODAY High School Sports; the social news hub For The Win, and the hundreds of sites within USA TODAY Sports Digital Properties such as TheBigLead.com and mixed martial arts site MMAJunkie.com, among others. USA TODAY is owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI).