What’s community news without a communication
By Tim Marren
Monday, October 04, 2026



It’s not called your community newspaper for nothing.

In the two months I’ve been here as city editor I’ve met and talked to a number of great people. I’ve attended a few events, the best being the ARC of Orleans dinner and even joined the Chamber of Commerce as has been the tradition with past editors.

In doing all of that I’ve heard the same question asked over and over again: How do we get news in the paper?

At first I was surprised. You would think with the Journal-Register being the only game in town that people would be accustomed to coming down to 413 Main St. and dropping off their little tidbit of info or stopping to talk to a reporter.

That doesn’t seem to be the case.

So because of that I’ve decided to kick off my newly established weekly column — which will probably become a Thursday piece so it can run in both the J-R and the Albion Advertiser — with once again more information on our objectives.

One misconception out there is that we have dozens of reporters just waiting for phone calls and story ideas. That’s not the case.

We have two reporters.

Peter Jehrio is our Medina, Lyndonville, Ridgeway, Shelby and Yates reporter. He also covers the cops reports from the whole county, Medina and Lyndonville school boards and writes the weekly series entitled “Day in the Life.”

Kate Danna, our newest addition to the newsroom, covers the town and village of Albion, Holley, Kendall and the County Legislature. She’s also in county court Monday’s before she heads to either a town of Albion meeting or Albion school board meeting. Which begs the question, why would the town and school board meet on the same night at the same time? I think I know, but I’ll leave that for another column! Tack on the Holley and Kendall school boards along with the weekly feature “Pass It On” and Kate’s introduction to community journalism is chock full.

In the meantime we’re all grabbing any news from Barre, Carlton, Clarendon, Murray, Gaines, Kendall and Middleport.

Needless to say we have Peter, Kate and Mike “Mr. Journal-Register” Wertman, our long-time sports and community editor as a full staff.

Each Thursday they come up with story plans for the upcoming week. On there they’ll have everything from court coverage to cops coverage, budget meetings to band features.

But they’re still looking for news ideas.

If you have a story idea, call as soon as the idea hits you. If an event is planned that you want promotion of, call as soon as you know it’s scheduled. We get the same response with photographs. We would be happy to take a picture of your function, if we’re told far in advance of when it is.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Far too often people call and ask why we didn’t cover something and nine times out of 10 I tell them because the person planning called to inform us either the day before or just hours before. That can’t happen.

There was a situation a week or two ago where we got notice that Holley School District wanted to have a meeting with interested parents looking to help and provide input on how they could better, what else, communicate their district news. They could have started by giving out phone numbers of those involved and of the decision makers in the district.

Kate wanted to do more than a news brief and develop the event into a story so more people would attend, but was shutdown when she asked a district official for school board member numbers. This should have been easy, they’re elected officials and they’re name, address and phone numbers are public record. Finally one woman helped her with some comments and tried to get her in contact with some board members, but of all the people she called outside of that one woman, no one called back.

How’s that for communication.

I’m sure the Holley district is a great one, but why not lend a hand to a reporter when they’re going out of their way to publicize your event.

We’re here to report community news because we are the paper serving Orleans County, but we have to have better communication with the residents.

The reporters are out on the streets everyday working on stories. You’ll see them. If you bump in to either Kate or Peter, introduce yourself, ask for a card and then use it sometime.

Get involved with the newspaper. Make recommendations. Write a column. Submit a picture.

Whatever you do, help us serve you better by getting involved and opening the lines of communication.

Contact City Editor Tim Marren at (585) 798-1400 Ext. 2230 or [email protected].



Contact Us:

City Editor Tim Marren: (585) 798-1400 Ext. 2230

Medina Reporter Peter Jehrio: (585) 798-1400 Ext. 2226

Albion Reporter Kate Danna: (585) 798-1400 Ext. 2225

Sports and Community Editor Mike Wertman: (585) 798-1400 Ext. 2228




View Printable Story

Add a comment