Lucy Lannigan

Reporter

Journalism has taken me all over the southeastern U.S. It’s brought me to Florida coasts ravaged by hurricanes, neighborhoods trapped within Louisiana’s Cancer Alley and sidewalks marked with the footprints of Civil Rights activists in Albany, Georgia.

Journalism has seen me in church services and council meetings in rural towns, outside the chainlinked fences of immigration detention centers and in the passenger seats of rusty tractors on generational farming land.

Now, this unpredictable field has delivered me to coastal Georgia where I’ll be diving into the region’s explosive growth and chronicling the impacts to the communities within this region.

My name is Lucille Lannigan, and I’ll be serving as the region’s growth and development reporter for Morris Multimedia, encompassing papers in Bryan, Bulloch, Effingham and Liberty counties.

Andrea and I have decided that in our newly formed dynamic duo, I’ll be the Superman to her Batman. Jokes aside, I like to think I approach my journalist role like Superman would. My moral compass points me into the direction of truth, justice and hope. I have a strong sense of optimism in humanity, despite my job often bringing me face-to-face with harsh realities.

For me, journalism, especially the local and regional kind, is a call to service and a commitment to selflessness and compassion.

I spent the last two and a half years writing for The Albany Herald in Georgia’s southwestern corner. I wrote pretty much everything from stories about health care, agriculture, gun violence, rural politics, small businesses, industrial decline and more.

This role saw me named as one of the Georgia Press Association’s Emerging Journalists for 2024. I earned awards for my business, enterprise and feature reporting and helped our paper gain a general excellence title. But my proudest accomplishment is that while I showed up for my community’s hardest days, I also showed up for its wins.

I developed connections and heard stories I’ll carry with me for a lifetime. I helped southwest Georgians reclaim a bit of their identity beyond what state or national media made it out to be.

I’m here in coastal Georgia to listen and learn and to write stories that the community feels seen and informed by. This is the first time that Morris Multimedia has attempted a regional reporter position.

They recognized the need for someone to answer crucial questions that coastal Georgians may have about the growth that surrounds them. And I’m grateful that they trusted me to take on this new position.

My inbox is open at llannigan@ morrisnews. com.

While I’m a new reporter, I’m also a new Richmond Hill resident! I’d love to hear from you – your concerns, your story ideas, your wants, your needs and your wins.

Lucy Lannigan is Morris Multimedia’s Regional Growth and Development reporter. Reach her at llannigan@ morrisnews.com. Editor’s Note: While Lucy is rightfully Superman, the managing editor is clearly Batman because she hates corruption and violence, is very intelligent, and looks sharp in black pantsuits.