As the New Year begins, it’s a good time to reflect on what we accomplished last year and what we are looking forward to in 2024.
2023 was a busy one! We continued to cover stories and issues affecting the region and individual communities, as you will see from the year’s recap in this week’s issue. We reported on the ongoing grassroots efforts to save Sharon Hospital’s labor and delivery service; food insecurity and efforts to combat it; wastewater management projects; updates on the Pine Plains solar power project. Various community plans to address the local affordable housing crisis and homelessness made our pages.
We covered the local stories we love: school sports, student triumphs, business openings, profiles of local artists and community leaders. We recognized the passing of beloved community members and marveled at the contributions they made during their lifetimes.
We covered town meetings and elections across the region. A Pew Research/Knight Foundation study revealed that strong local news habits are closely associated with civic engagement, including voting in local elections and having a strong connection to community. We hope we help people realize that their individual efforts make a big difference at the local level.
We made changes to our editorial team. Maud Doyle became the Managing Editor of The Millerton News, and Emily Edelman our new Editorial Coordinator. Natalia Zuckerman joined our reporting team.
John Coston became our Editor-in-Chief. I joined The Lakeville Journal Company as Publisher in February. Roxanne Lee joined Mary Wilbur on our advertising team.
We revived our internship program. The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News were both blessed with outstanding contributions from these aspiring young journalists, among them Emma Benardete, a junior at Oberlin College, and Colleen Flynn, a senior at Marist College. We also helped some third-year students at Marist College produce an excellent short documentary film on the shortage of local EMS volunteers.
We held an informative “ice cream social” at the NorthEast-Millerton Library in September and have more events coming up in 2024.
To begin the New Year with a bang, we are pleased to announce the launch of the new Millerton News website. It is a significant milestone in our commitment to providing the best news and arts coverage of our communities, wherever/however you prefer to read it. This launch is just the beginning of our work to bring you an enhanced, free, online experience.
Our mission, however, remains the same: to help our readers make informed and inspired decisions through coverage of towns, governments and regional issues, and to help make our readers aware of this area’s rich cultural offerings.
Let’s look forward to a year in which empathy and kindness flourish. Let’s support our local entrepreneurs and businesses. Let’s imagine a year in which volunteering becomes matter of fact. Let’s renew our commitment to the environment.
Finally, many thanks to our readers. Your letters, emails and feedback remind us that journalism is not just about ink on paper or words on a screen.
Thank you to our advertisers and our donors for believing in the power of community-driven media. And thank you to our writers and photographers. We wouldn’t be here without you!
Sincerely yours,
Susan Hassler, Publisher
Dave Jones, owner and chief mechanic at Lakeville Auto. Laurie Fendrich
The board’s job was to find savings — it found a school to close instead