After spending almost 15 years at The Herald News in Fall River, Mass., as a reporter and digital city editor, Will Richmond was named the editor of The Newport Daily News in 2018. During his time in Newport, Richmond has led an effort to increase The Daily News’ digital presence. A graduate of Syracuse University, Richmond lives in Warwick, R.I., with his wife Dyana and sons Max and Jake.
Will Richmond
Barbara Walsh
Barbara Walsh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked for newspapers in Ireland, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Florida. While working at the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Walsh reported on first-degree killer William Horton Jr. and Massachusetts’ flawed prison furlough system. The series changed state sentencing laws and won a 1988 Pulitzer Prize.
During her career at the Portland Press Herald in Maine, Walsh wrote in-depth series on families living in poverty, teen suicide, domestic violence and the lack of mental health care for children.
Many of her stories changed laws and earned national, state and regional awards. A few of them include the Yankee Quill Award, Anna Quindlen Award for Excellence in Journalism, Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, and the Dart Award for excellence in reporting on victims of violence.
Walsh recently began working for Pine Tree Watch, a non-profit journalism organization and wrote ‘Born to Drugs’, a four-day series on Maine’s opiate-dependent babies and their mothers.
She is also the author of an adult biography/memoir, August Gale: A Father and Daughter’s Journey into the Storm, and Sammy in the Sky, a children’s book illustrated by Jamie Wyeth. Walsh lives with her two daughters, husband and a Tennessee Coonhound on a lake in Maine.
Elizabeth Ritvo
Elizabeth Ritvo has more than 30 years of broad experience in complex commercial litigation and has also counseled and represented newspapers, television stations, publishers and other media in libel, invasion of privacy, access, prior restraint, First Amendment and copyright matters before state and federal trial and appellate courts. Liz has also served as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association for business and construction disputes.
Liz has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the area of First Amendment Law, was recognized as its 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” First Amendment Law in Boston and was named one of 2013’s Top Women of Law by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.
Sarah Betancourt
Sarah Betancourt is reporter who covers immigration for CommonWealth Magazine. Prior to joining Commonwealth, Sarah was a reporter for The Associated Press in Boston, and a correspondent with The Boston Globe and The Guardian. She has written about immigration, social justice, and health policy for outlets like NBC, The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, and the New York Law Journal. Sarah has broken stories like the cancellation of medical deferred action by USCIS, a protected status that allows sick children and their parents to remain and work in the US legally. She has also covered the connections between Massachusetts businesses and DHS, how databases are used by police departments to procure information on immigrants, and uncovered the spread of an infectious diseases in family detention centers, beginning in the Obama administration.
Sarah received a 2018 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for her role as researcher for ProPublica in the ProPublica/NPR story, “They Got Hurt at Work and Then They Got Deported,” which explored how Florida employers and insurance companies were getting out of paying workers compensation benefits by using a state law to ensure injured undocumented workers were arrested or deported. Sarah attended Emerson College for a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Communication, and Columbia University for a fellowship and Master’s degree with the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.
Josh Kovner
Josh Kovner covers child protection and social justice. He was part of the Pulitzer-winning team coverage of the Lottery shootings, and of the Pulitzer-finalist team coverage of the Sandy Hook school shootings. A story on a boy with autism, “Saving Evan,” won a national award. Kovner is an adjunct faculty member at the University of New Haven.
Saltzberg named ‘Reporter of the Year’
Martha’s Vineyard Times | January 15, 2020
MV Times reporter Rich Saltzberg has been named Reporter of the Year by the New England Newspaper and Press Association.
Saltzberg has been a full-time reporter for The Times for three years, and prior to that was a freelance writer for the newspaper. His coverage of the Steamship Authority and lead contamination in U.S. Coast Guard housing were among the stories he was honored for in this year’s competition.
The Reporter of the Year award will be presented at NENPA’s annual convention in Boston on Saturday, Feb. 8. Saltzberg’s win joins dozens of nominations the newspaper received in this year’s competition.
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January Obituaries 2020
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Richard F. Boyle
Helen MacKenzie
Richard Harriman Russ
Nancy A. Swank
RHODE ISLAND
Alberta F. Gardiner
Elizabeth “Betty” Goff-McCaffrey
VERMONT
None reported
Melissa Hanson
Melissa Hanson has been reporting at MassLive for more than three years, where some of her important work has included a series on hundreds of untested rape kits in Massachusetts and an investigation into the state’s reluctancy to release 911 call recordings. Melissa also reports on breaking news, the courts, marijuana and feature stories. She is an alumna of Suffolk University and previously worked at the Lowell Sun.