Digital Editor

Ridder will help lead efforts to optimize and grow digital content and educational programming across all AHCJ platforms. He will also play a crucial role in the website redesign project. Ridder comes to AHCJ from the SmartNews app, where he served as the editorial content manager. There he covered breaking news and helped manage the company’s social media on Twitter and Instagram, achieving steady audience growth throughout 2022. He also performed regular quality assurance checks to ensure articles appeared correctly. Ridder previously served as associate editor for The Appalachian Voice where he wrote about protecting endangered bats, the Appalachian pipeline resistance movement among other topics. He also played a key role in the redesign of the publication’s website.