The annual New England Newspaper Convention will be held March 22-23, 2024 at the Westin Waltham Hotel, Waltham, MA.
We aim each year to tackle the most important challenges our industry faces and we are excited to announce the program of live sessions that will address these issues and provide training and resources to make your publication a success!
Plan to join hundreds of industry professionals for exceptional training and networking, and catching up with friends and colleagues.
We will be providing 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!
If you have any questions about the event please send an email to NENPA Executive Director, Linda Conway at L.Conway@nenpa.com.
Stay over and take advantage of our special room rate of $149 per night, with free parking. The room reservation rate is valid until Friday, March 15, 2024.
Adriana Lacy is an award-winning journalist and consultant based in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Adriana Lacy Consulting, a successful digital consulting firm that specializes in helping businesses expand their digital audiences. She is also an adjunct lecturer in the journalism department at Brandeis University. Adriana has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree for her creation of Journalism Mentors, a platform dedicated to advancing early-career journalists through mentorship and paid media opportunities. With a wealth of experience at prominent media outlets such as Axios, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, Adriana’s expertise and dedication to innovation have earned her a reputation as a respected figure in the industry. Her academic background includes two bachelor’s degrees from Penn State University in African American Studies and Journalism, as well as a master’s of science in Digital Audience Strategy with distinction from Arizona State University.
Dan Kennedy is a professor of journalism at Northeastern University, a nationally known media commentator, and a 2019 winner of the Yankee Quill Award. In addition to “What Works in Community News,” he is the author of two other books about the future of news: “The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age” (2013) and “The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century.” His blog, Media Nation, is online at 
In a journalism career that spanned more than three decades at The Boston Globe, Ellen Clegg held a variety of senior editing positions in the newsroom and directed Globe Opinion from 2014 to 2018. She is co-founder of an independent nonprofit digital news site, Brookline.News, which serves a community of 65,000 people on the border of Boston. She and Dan Kennedy are co-authors of What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts and The Future of the Fourth Estate (Beacon Press). Clegg is also author / co-author of two books, ChemoBrain (Prometheus Books, 2009) and The Alzheimer’s Solution (Prometheus Books, 2010, with Dr. Kenneth Kosik).
Bill Ostendorf, president of Creative Circle Media Solutions, has helped redesign more than 750 print publications and more than 1,000 websites. He has served as a strategic consultant to hundreds of media companies on three continents. A popular speaker at industry seminars, he has led more than 2,500 workshops in 23 countries on a wide range of topics.
Charles St. Amand joined Suffolk University’s Communication & Journalism Department as its Practitioner in Residence in July 2018 after working 31 years in community journalism, most recently as editor of the Sentinel & Enterprise in Fitchburg, Mass. A 1986 graduate of Suffolk University, he began teaching journalism part time at Suffolk, his alma mater, in 2000. He is vice president of the New England Society of News Editors’ Board of Governors.
Dr. Mario R. García is Senior Adviser on News Design and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. He is also CEO/Founder of García Media, a global consulting firm. He has been involved with the redesign and rethinking of more than 750 publications in 120 countries, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He came to the School of Journalism as the Hearst Digital Media Professional in Residence in 2013. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is AI: The Next Revolution for Content Creation. He continues to work with newsrooms across the world. He has been involved with The Poynter Institute’s EyeTrack Research since its start, including the EyeTrack: Tablet. His awards include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for News Design, The Journalism Medal of Honor from the University of Missouri for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 2015, Mario became the recipient of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Charles O’Malley Excellence in Teaching Award. People Magazine mentioned him among the 100 most influential Hispanics in the United States. He received his PhD from the University of Miami. Today, Mario is totally engaged in mobile-first storytelling and artificial intelligence, and the transformation of news and information across digital platforms.
Jeff Potter has been working in and around newspapers since 1983 and, for more than 15 years, has edited and designed The Commons (
George Brennan receives the award for his long legacy of dogged accountability reporting, fearless crime reporting, sharp editorials, keen management, and patient mentoring of young journalists. He devoted 38 years to the pursuit of journalism and excelled at effectively holding public officials accountable, earning numerous awards. His wide influence in inspiring and mentoring young journalists has had a broad impact on New England journalism.
Izaskun Larrañeta is being recognized as not only a leader in journalism but also as a community advocate. She has a deserved reputation for being a careful listener, and in her leadership roles, she has made the reporters of The Day better listeners, too, as well as being more attuned to the viewpoints of people who are rarely the subject of news coverage. She has been a leader in helping reporters and editors understand the issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and has been a critically important bridge to the growing Hispanic community of Southeastern Connecticut. She has been a role model and a mentor to women and members of minority communities who might otherwise hesitate to choose a career in journalism.
Edward Miller will receive the Yankee Quill Award for the impact he has had on local journalism. In his 30-plus years of experience in journalism and publishing, he founded two independent weekly newspapers, taught writing at Harvard and Sarah Lawrence College, and has authored several books, including one on how to produce a small newspaper. His latest project is the creation of the Provincetown Independent which he helped establish after the demise of many local newspapers on Cape Cod.
Mark Pothier earns the Yankee Quill award for decades of dedication to the betterment of journalism and his commitment to his community. He began his career at the Old Colony Memorial, where he spent 14 years developing the weekly newspaper into one of the most honored and admired weeklies in New England. Mark is best known for his two decades at the Boston Globe, where he was charged with overseeing all coverage by the Globe’s business staff. He was part of the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning team that covered the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath. He retired from the Globe after 22 years and started a news outlet, the Plymouth Independent, with a small group of residents as a solution to the deterioration of local news coverage in their community.