The Patriot

Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Lifestyles

Owens [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Matt McColl Dianne Owens, an FMU alumna, is editor of the (Marion) Star & (Mullins) Enterprise.

Dianne Owens, editor of the (Marion) Star & (Mullins) Enterprise and an FMU graduate, said she always has had a strong sense of curiosity.

That endless curiosity helped her become a journalist.

"My favorite thing about (being a reporter), is that you get to ask perfectly good strangers questions that are none of your business and then go tell everyone what they said," Owens said. "And then, on top of that, you get paid for it."

Owens said she always has held close the idea that journalists can have just as much impact as people who hold public office.

"I always thought that, as a journalist, you have just as much of a potential to impact peoples lives as elected officials," she said.

As a high school student, Owens was sports editor for the school's yearbook. From there, she became editor of Francis Marion's first student newspaper, The Campus Crier.

"I went from Francis Marion to the University of Alaska Anchorage, where I worked at my first daily (newspaper), the Anchorage Daily Times," Owens said.

She said that just as her career began to take off, her husband's military service began to interfere with her success.

It became obvious that his unpredictable deployments would not allow her to plant roots in any particular place.

"You're moving around the country all the time, and with that, you're moving from job to job, so that really strains your work (life)," she said. "You have to start over just about every time you go somewhere."

Owens finally found job stability when she was hired by the (Florence) Morning News in 1989 as region editor. In that position, she said she had the freedom to write and produce her own stories.

"It was the absolute best job in the world," she said. "I was able to write a column that would run about twice every week, and I was able to do a lot of opinion pieces and stuff like that."

She took the experience she gained at the Morning News and molded it into an effective management strategy she continues to use in her current job.

Owens also found herself on the cutting edge of a new form of journalism - convergence, which is the combination of all forms of mass communication.

"Well, what happened with the industry, and is still happening, they called it 'symmetry' or something like that, and now they call it 'convergence,'" Owens said. "All of the newspapers are owned by large corporations. Whether it's a big daily or a small weekly, it's going to be published in the same way - through the Internet, broadcast and newspapers, as well."

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