By The Talon Staff
The Talon is thankful to have many great supporters working with us, including our adviser and editor Doug Spoon, who runs the Menifee 24/7 and Murrieta 24/7 news websites with his wife Kristen.
Menifee 24/7 was launched on Nov. 1, 2004 by Menifee resident Steve Johnson, an internet entrepreneur and computer programmer. He created Menifee 24/7 as a site to report and promote local news he felt wasn’t being covered by regional daily newspapers. As interest in the website grew, Johnson added a Menifee 24/7 Facebook page in 2010.
In 2013, Johnson sold Menifee 24/7 to Spoon, who was already a veteran journalist at the time, and sales manager Shelli Stovall. Today Spoon runs the site with his wife Kristen and a small staff of freelancers. Since the Spoon’s took over Menifee 24/7, its Facebook followers have increased from 6,000 to 41,000. The website averages 40,000 unique users and half a million page views per month.
Menifee 24/7 has been Spoon’s “semi-retirement” project after a 35-year career as a newspaper sports writer and editor and a 12-year tenure as a journalism instructor at Cal Poly Pomona. As a sports journalist, Doug covered the 1984 Summer Olympics and multiple events including the World Series, Super Bowl and NBA Finals. He was a beat writer for the Dodgers in the 1980s and USC football and basketball in the 1990s. He served as advisor for the Cal Poly student newspaper from 2004-15.
Since 2015, he has served as advisor to MSJC’s student-run newspaper, The Talon. He has a great interest in genealogy and has written a book about the history of the Spoon family.
Menifee 24/7 and Murrieta 24/7 report on local news stories. You can see their stories on their websites: menifee247.com and murrieta247.com.
