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Ethan Genter is the news editor at the Vineyard Gazette. He has covered local government, the fishing industry, and tourism in coastal New England since 2014.
Michael Gagne
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Michael Gagne is a native of Woonsocket, R.I., who has been covering local government and education since 2012 in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Michael currently covers local government in the city of Danbury and the town of Brookfield in Connecticut for The News-Times/Hearst Connecticut Media. Before that, Michael was a reporter with the Record-Journal in Meriden, covering breaking news, local government, elections and schools, as well as pursuing enterprise stories. Michael was also a reporter for the Republican-American in Waterbury, as well as the Herald-News in Fall River, Mass. Michael studied journalism and political science at the University of Rhode Island.
Christopher Wheelock
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A long-time journalist, Christopher Wheelock got his start with Armed Forces Radio & Television after college. Seventeen years at CNN International brought exposure to major national and international stories, from 9/11 and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to natural disasters like the 2004 Asia tsunami and earthquake. Christopher’s local news experience includes stops in Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. His print and digital experience includes business writing and photography in Michigan. Business has always held a special place in his heart, as a former business owner and senior writer for one of CNNI’s top business anchors. He’s proudly married to a Michigander, loves cooking, anything outdoors and a fat stray. He and his wife are very happy to have made Maine their home.
Chris Larabee
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Chris Larabee has been a reporter with the Greenfield Recorder since mid-2021, where he covers the south Franklin County towns of Conway, Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately with a focus on community news. His reporting interests include the environment, science and the deep history of Franklin County, particularly in Deerfield. After graduating from Boston University, he joined the Recorder, where he has learned more about farms and culverts than he ever thought he would.Noah R. Bombard
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Noah R. Bombard is the communications director for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. Prior to that, he had a 26-year career in journalism, working as an editor and writer for various Massachusetts media outlets.
Bombard was most recently the senior managing editor of news at MassLive and was instrumental in helping to grow the outlet from a Western Mass.-based news site to a statewide operation with reporters in Springfield, Worcester and Boston.
Bombard started his journalism career as a reporter at The Item in Clinton in 1997 before joining Community Newspaper Company, where he served as managing editor of the company’s Northwest Unit, a group of 22 weekly newspapers. He went on to serve as editor-in-chief of Worcester Magazine before switching his focus to digital journalism as social media and web editor at the Eagle-Tribune and then digital editor at the Telegram & Gazette. He joined MassLive in 2014.
Bombard’s past recognitions at NENPA include being named 2004 serious columnist of the year (weekly division) as well as first place awards for a 2006 social issues feature story and a 2004 special award for coverage of a plan to close a veterans hospital in Bedford. He was editor of the Times & Courier when it was named 2006 newspaper of the year (weekly division). Bombard was also part of a team that won a 2013 Right to Know award from the New England Associated Press News Executives Association for a story exposing violations of the state’s public records laws.
He lives in Clinton, Mass.
Applications open for NH High School Student Journalism Award
The Brodsky Prize was established seven years ago by the late Jeffrey Brodsky and his father, Howard, to encourage innovation by student journalists. The $5,000 Prize is open to all high school students attending public, charter, or parochial schools in New Hampshire.
Judging criteria include a student’s journalistic initiative and enterprise, as well as what Jeffrey Brodsky called “a contrarian nature and out-of-the-box thinking.”
The deadline for applications is Saturday, April 20, 2024, at midnight.
Jeffrey Brodsky said of student journalism, “Working on the school newspaper was the most formative and meaningful high school experience for me — more than any classroom. It’s more important than ever for young journalists to push boundaries and to challenge authority, and they can start by using the power of their school paper just like the press in the professional world.”
The Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications, helps oversee the award program and provides one of the judges, Executive Director Laura Simoes. Longtime judges are Howard Brodsky, Jeffrey’s father, and Co-founder & Chairman of CCA Global Partners; Misbah Tahir, former Little Green co-editor, now a biotechnology finance executive; former NH Union Leader and Sunday News president and publisher Joseph McQuaid, and Leah Todd Lin, VP of Audience Strategy for NH Public Radio.
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:
Please respond to the following questions in essay format (up to 1000 words each).
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How will new media technologies change the future of news and information? What role have you played or could you play in that change?
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Solutions Journalism means rigorous reporting of responses to problems. How could you apply a Solutions Journalism approach to covering news in your community? (Learn more at https://loebschool.org/solutions-journalism-lab).
Please tell us how you would use The Brodsky Prize award to further your journalistic studies or efforts (up to 200 words).
Please submit three examples of your student journalism work, with at least two examples having been published in a school-run publication, having been used as part of your school’s communications, or printed/broadcast by a local news outlet.
More information on The Brodsky Prize, including past winners and the application, is available at thebrodskyprize.org.
Rich Saltzberg
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Rich Saltzberg is a freelance journalist who works in regional planning in Dukes County. He is a former reporter for the Martha’s Vineyard Times. Saltzberg is a two-time NENPA Reporter of the Year and a three-time first-place winner of the NENPA Right-To-Know award.
Dugan Arnett
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Dugan Arnett is an investigative reporter on The Boston Globe’s quick strike projects team. Since joining the team in 2021, his work has spanned a variety of subjects with a focus on government accountability, policing, and the criminal justice system. In 2021, he published a series of stories examining the ripple effects of the previous year’s national movement against police misconduct and brutality.
Arnett joined the Globe staff as a features writer in 2015 and later worked as a general assignment reporter on the paper’s Metro desk. Before arriving in Boston, he spent four years as a feature and metro reporter at the Kansas City Star.
Jenifer McKim
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Jenifer McKim is the deputy investigative editor at the GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. She is a multimedia reporter who focuses on social justice issues, including criminal justice, child welfare, human trafficking, and housing.
McKim’s investigations have earned numerous awards, including two national Edward R. Murrow Awards, a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, and the Freedom of Information Award from the New England First Amendment Coalition. She was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.
McKim also has worked as a staff reporter at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, The Boston Globe, The Orange County Register in Southern California, and The San Juan Star in Puerto Rico.
She serves on the board of the New England First Amendment Coalition and is a 2008 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
How AI is Revolutionizing News Production on March 23
The clatter of typewriters may be a distant memory, but the news industry is once again on the cusp of a major transformation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly making its way into newsrooms, promising to reshape everything from research and data analysis to content creation and audience engagement.
Are you wondering how AI will impact your day-to-day work? Will it replace your role, or become a powerful tool to enhance your skills and free you to focus on the most critical aspects of journalism?
This special focus track during the New England Newspaper Convention on March 23 is your invitation to explore these questions and more. We understand that the rise of AI can be both exciting and daunting. These sessions and resources are being presented to help you navigate the future of journalism.
Don’t be left behind. Join us as we delve into the transformative power of AI in journalism and discover how you can harness this technology to elevate your news production.
We recommend bringing a laptop to these sessions and registering in advance for the software programs mentioned in the session descriptions so you can follow along with the presenters.
Saturday, March 23, 9:00 am
Introduction to AI Tools
We’ve been using AI tools for years and haven’t even realized it. However, the influx of tools flooding the market in 2022 and early 2023 raises opportunities as well as ethical and legal concerns. In this combination presentation/workshop, Mike Reilley will approach AI with “cautious curiosity” and learn how to harness the tools to save you time and work. We’ll work with MidJourney and Adobe Firefly to create photo illustrations; basic editing tools; writing prompts and updates to tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and others. We’ll also explore some pitfalls of AI tools and the legal/ethical issues surrounding them. Participants will get a handout with links to tools and other resources.
Saturday, March 23, 10:30 am
Data Journalism Fundamentals
Mike Reilley will cover data scraping web pages with Google Sheets, and scraping PDFs with Tabula and PDFtoExcel.com. Building graphics with Flourish.studio. Before the session, participants should set up a free account at https://flourish.studio/. They also should download free Tabula software here: https://tabula.technology/. Participants will get a handout with links to tools and other resources.
Saturday, March 23, 2:00 pm
Two Revolutions in the Newsroom: Mobile Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence
In this presentation, Dr. Mario R. Garcia will discuss the challenges facing editors transforming their news operations to become mobile-first operations, while also ushering in Artificial Intelligence and the important role that it already plays in various aspects of gathering and creating content. Case studies and examples will illustrate the best approaches for incorporating the changes brought about by mobile first and Artificial Intelligence, the subject of Dr. Garcia’s newest book: AI: The Next Revolution for Content Creation (2024).
Curious about the entire schedule? Check out the links below to navigate the information about the convention and explore the sessions. Register now to lock in your spot and don’t miss this incredible opportunity to learn, network, and get inspired!
The New England Newspaper Convention is happening on March 22 and 23 at the Westin Waltham Hotel located at 70 3rd Ave, Waltham, MA 02451. Stay over and take advantage of our special room rate of $149 per night, with free parking. The room reservation rate has been extended until Friday, March 15, 2024.
There are several networking opportunities open to all attendees and honoring the best in the New England newspaper industry throughout the convention with our other ticketed events:
- Friday night – New England Newspaper Hall of Fame Inductee Dinner
- Saturday afternoon – Yankee Quill Award Honorees Luncheon
- Saturday night – New England Better Newspaper Competition Awards Banquet where the winners are revealed and celebrated.
We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions about the convention, please email info@nenpa.com.