The Person Behind the Tools

About Ron Jones

Ron Jones

Ron Jones

Emmy Award-winning anchor & creator of SmartRundown

The Story

Ron Jones is an Emmy Award-winning television news anchor with nearly three decades in broadcast journalism, currently anchoring evening newscasts in Atlanta. Before he ever sat behind an anchor desk, Ron served in the U.S. Army and then as a sergeant with the Oakland Police Department — experience that still shapes how he reports on crime, public safety, and the communities behind the headlines.

His broadcasting career has taken him from Northern California to Virginia, back to the West Coast, and ultimately to Atlanta, covering everything from crime to education along the way. Off camera, Ron teaches AI literacy to journalists and newsrooms across the country, helping the industry embrace new tools without compromising the craft.

He is married to his high school sweetheart, and together they are proud parents and grandparents.

Why SmartRundown

Here's what nobody outside a newsroom understands: the writing never stops.

You write the story for the show. Then you rewrite it shorter because the rundown's heavy. Then you rewrite it again for the web, because broadcast copy reads terribly on a screen. Then the push alert. Then three versions for social, each with its own rules. Same story, six formats, and the clock doesn't care that you're one person.

I've watched this grind wear down talented journalists for nearly three decades. Producers who came into this business to tell stories spend their shifts reformatting them instead. And the digital demands that got stacked on top of the broadcast workload came with no extra hands and no extra hours — just the expectation that it all gets done.

When AI writing tools started appearing, I tested them. Most were built by people who had clearly never seen a rundown. They didn't know what a VOSOT was, didn't understand why a tease can't give away the ending, didn't get that broadcast copy is written for the ear, not the eye.

So I built SmartRundown — tools that already know the job. They simplify scripts the way a good EP would, structure VOSOTs the way you learned on your first overnight shift, and turn air copy into digital copy without losing the story underneath.

The goal was never to replace the journalist. It's to give you your time back — so you can spend it on the part of this job that made you want it in the first place.

Credentials

ronjonesreports.com See how SmartRundown works