Longtime right hand man Ernie Paulson has landed his dream job, moving up to become news director at KARK and KLRT in Little Rock.
He replaces his old boss, Austin Kellerman, who in February became director of digital content for parent company Nexstar Media Group Inc.
A former reporter at KARK, an NBC affiliate, Paulson had been assistant news director since May 2012, when he moved back to Little Rock from the same position at KNWA/KFTA in Fayetteville. Kellerman moved to Nexstar’s operation in Irving, Texas, the Dallas area where Kellerman grew up.
Paulson, who will also direct the news team at sister station KLRT, Fox 16, said Little Rock has come to be his home.
“I am excited and honored to get the opportunity,” Paulson told Arkansas Business as accolades from co-workers and industry colleagues poured onto Twitter, Facebook and the airwaves. “We have a great team of journalists. I started at KARK as a reporter in 2000 and have spent a total of 13 years working in the Little Rock TV news market. My wife is from Arkansas and both of my kids have grown up here. This is truly a dream job for me.”
Paulson moved to Little Rock from California to take the KARK reporting job in 2000 and worked his way up to anchoring before leaving in June 2006 to become an anchor/reporter at KFOR/KAUT in Oklahoma City. He took the assistant news director’s job at KNWA/KFTA in September 2009.
Justin Acri of KABZ, the Buzz, turned to Twitter to call Paulson a “great newsman who cares about what matters to Arkansas.” The job, he wrote, couldn’t have gone to “a better or more deserving guy.”
Hilary Hunt, a weekend anchor at KARK, tweeted that she was “thrilled to keep working under awesome leadership!”