Robert Michelin, Michael Lyle join JRC Connecticut newsroom staff

Two Quinnipiac University graduates have joined Journal Register Co.’s newsroom staff in Connecticut.

Robert Michelin

Robert Michelin has been hired as a member of the Breaking News Team at the New Haven Register, responsible for editing and producing local, state and national news coverage for JRC’s three daily newspaper websites and mobile platforms in Connecticut and managing social media accounts.

He was previously a high school sports reporter for the Star-Ledger and NJ.Com in New Jersey, and before that covered local news for The Daily Voice in Westchester County, N.Y.

Michelin graduated from Quinnipiac in May 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in print journalism.

At Quinnipiac, he was sports section editor for the Quad News. He also worked as an intern for the Torrington Titans Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League team in 2010, and as an election night correspondent for the Associated Press.

Michael Lyle Jr. has been hired as a staff reporter for The Middletown Press.

Michael Lyle Jr.

He was previously a reporter for WQUN radio in Hamden, a production assistant for ESPN Radio in Bristol and an overnight news anchor at WTIC radio in Farmington.

Lyle is a four-time winner with of Associated Press Broadcasters Awards for his work with WQUN.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a master’s degree in journalism from Quinnipiac.

Michelin can be reached at rmichelin@nhregister.com.

Lyle can be reached at mlyle@middletownpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @Lyle308.

JRC Connecticut welcomes new reporters

Four new reporters have joined the staff of Journal Register Co. newspapers in Connecticut.

Ryan Flynn and Jessica Glenza have joined our newsroom at The Register Citizen in Torrington.

Alex Gecan has started work at The Middletown Press.

And Neal McNamara has joined the staff of the New Haven Register.

Ryan Flynn

Flynn is a recent graduate of Southern Connecticut State University, where he served as sports editor of the Southern News. He also worked as an intern in the sports department of the Connecticut Post in Bridgeport.

He’ll be covering the Litchfield area for The Register Citizen and Litchfield County Times. Follow him on Twitter @RyFly12.

Glenza has worked for the past year and a half as a reporter for the Cortlandt Daily Voice in New York.

She is a summa cum laude graduate of the State University of New York in Purchase, where she received the Mike McKnickle Exellence in Journalism Award.

Jessica Glenza

She’ll be covering Torrington schools and courts for The Register Citizen. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaGlenza.

Gecan worked most recently as web editor for Renaissance Publishing in Metairie, La. He is a former intern for The Trentonian in Trenton, N.J.

Alex Gecan

Gecan holds a bachelor’s degree in history and art from Tulane University in New Orleans and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, where he trained at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.

He’ll be covering the city of Middletown for The Middletown Press. Follow him on Twitter @Stunati0201.

Neal McNamara

McNamara is a former New Haven Register reporter and editor who is returning after working as a reporter and editor in various parts of the country, including as a reporter for the Anderson Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Indiana, and Federal Way Mirror in Federal Way, Wash., as a news editor for City Pulse in Lansing, Mich., and as a content editor and marketing manager for ChefTools.Com in Seattle, Wash.

He is also a graduate of the State University of New York in Purchase. He is covering the city of Milford for the Register. Follow him on Twitter @Neal_McNamara.

Protecting journalists is about protecting democracy, open government

Basic health and safety is something we should be able to take for granted arriving for work each day.
We expect no less for the reporters, photographers and editors who help us bring you the news each day.
So it is with great concern that we call attention to the assault of a young reporter outside the Middlesex County Courthouse in Middletown on Monday. She was there just trying to do her job – reporting on a bomb threat at a local school that sparked fear and chaos in the wake of the mass shooting last month in Newtown.
For that, she was shoved to the ground, from behind, and had to be taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Connecticut State Police have since arrested the father of the young man accused in the bomb threat case and charged him with assault.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time something like this has happened to a journalist in The Middletown Press. In fact, it happened earlier this year on that same sidewalk when someone shoved one of our photographers, grabbed her camera and spit on her. She was there to cover the case of a local man accused of stabbing alpacas at a local farm a sex assault trial.
It’s been a difficult and at times scary few months for our journalists in Connecticut. We were working around the clock, under makeshift conditions, and out in the darkness and rain to keep readers connected to emergency information during Hurricane Sandy.
And then we confronted something a million times worse in covering the Newtown shooting and the funeral after funeral that followed for victims who reminded us of our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Our reporters and photographers press on in the face of insults, constant second-guessing and critique, and anger from those who do not want a light aimed at their situation.
The Journal News, a daily newspaper across the border in New York, recently hired security guards to protect its journalists from death threats in the wake of its decision to publish a list of all gun permit holders in its coverage area.
Media organizations are far from perfect, and much has been written questioning the wisdom and rationale behind that newspaper’s gun list. But we’d urge people who speak up for gun rights from a “keep government power in check” standpoint to reflect on our country’s most powerful weapon against unlimited government power. It’s the free flow of information about what the government is doing – the kind of work our journalists in Middletown do in covering the police and courts, and although arguably misguided in this case, the Journal News’ use of the Freedom of Information Act.
We applaud the Connecticut State Police for taking the assault on our reporter seriously on Monday and making an arrest. A crime was committed, of course, and they did their job to enforce the law. But they also recognized, implicitly, that reporter’s place alongside police, prosecutor, judge and defense attorney in the process of delivering justice and protecting the public’s interest.

A newspaper company comes together to cover Newtown

There will be a lot more to say – at some point – about what has been both the worst and best week of our careers in journalism. Our main concern right now is to make sure that the rest of the story of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and its aftermath is told. That’s going to take quite some time, and quite a bit more effort and resources. And to make sure that the people on our team, after nine days of interviewing witnesses to unspeakable horror and covering 6-year-olds’ funerals, are dealing with their own grief and trauma.

But I wanted to pause and take note of how remarkable it was for us to see our entire company come together to help us cover this story. More than 100 journalists have been involved in the New Haven Register’s Newtown coverage over the past week, including 55 reporters, 17 photographers and 10 main editors on the ground in Connecticut contributing to our coverage. A number of Register reporters and editors worked straight through from first word of the shooting Friday morning to the editing of the story about the final funeral eight days later.

Digital First Media sent 29 reporters and eight photographers from 17 different daily newspapers in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado and Connecticut, including a team of six from the Denver Post, six from the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania and five from the Lowell Sun in Massachusetts.

The company’s national news office, “Thunderdome,” sent five reporters, five editors, two web producers and a video specialist, and devoted more than a dozen others to help from afar on editing, web production, data and interactives.

And throughout, we had access, advice and assistance from company leaders who’d unfortunately done this before.

Jim McClure, editor of the York Daily Record and East Region editor for Digital First, organized the influx of support from out-of-town journalists for us and was on the ground in Connecticut drawing on his experience covering a 2001 machete attack on a Pennsylvania elementary school. Photographer Tom Kelly IV of the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., came with experience covering the Nickel Mines Amish elementary school shooting in 2006.

Helping at our makeshift newsroom just outside of Newtown this past week was Mike Topel, national editor at Digital First Media’s Thunderdome office in New York. He helped lead the AP’s coverage of Columbine in 1999.

Frank Scandale, Digital First’s vice president of print production, helped lead the Denver Post’s Columbine coverage as metro editor. He offered advice from afar and then arrived in New Haven mid-week to help plan a special print edition encapsulating more than a week’s worth of coverage for the Sunday newspaper.

And we were also able to turn to Denver Post Editor Greg Moore, who led intense coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting earlier this year, and Digital First Editor-in-Chief Jim Brady, who was leading WashingtonPost.Com during the Virginia Tech massacre.

 

Connecticut’s sacred cows a target as new columnists debut this week

Susan Campbell will kick off a new daily lineup of featured news columnists when The Register Citizen and The Middletown Press unveil redesigned print editionson Wednesday. And no topic is off the table.

Susan Campbell (Photo by Chion Wolf/WNPR)

Campbell developed a strong reputation in her years as a reporter and columnist at the Hartford Courant for seeking to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” As a new weekly columnist for our daily newspapers in Torrington, Middletown and New Haven, she’ll have free rein to go after the things she feels are harming Connecticut politics and society and to celebrate some of the bright spots.

Her debut column tackles “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” and what she sees as the religious right’s increasingly militant attempt to enlist congregations in political activism.

Campbell will be followed on page 3 and online each day by similarly strong voices.

Norm Pattis (Photo by Arnold Gold/New Haven Register)

Always outspoken and frequently controversial Connecticut defense attorney Norm Pattis will write on Thursdays, and doesn’t hold back in his debut column about Antonin Scalia and his “originalism” philosophy of interpreting the Constitution, calling it an “ideological hoax.”

The work of Terry Cowgill, a familiar face to The Register Citizen’s readers in Northwest Connecticut, will be featured on Fridays.

Columns by Sarah Darer Littman, a novelist and former securities analyst, and Heath Fahle, policy director for the Yankee Institute and former executive director of the Connecticut Republican Party, will alternate on Saturdays.

Ann DeMatteo, newly named managing editor of The Middletown Press, who as a cancer survivor shares others’ stories of inspiration and overcoming adversity, will write on Sundays.

Susan Bigelow, a librarian, author and former operator of the CT Local Politics website, will write on Mondays.

And Andy Thibault, a former Hartford Courant and Register Citizen editor, Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission member and investigative reporter, will write on Tuesdays.

The addition of Cowgill, Littman, Fahle and Bigelow are part of an expansion of our partnership with CTNewsJunkie.Com. Since March, we’ve carried its excellent coverage of Connecticut state government and politics, and are happy to be extending that relationship now to their team of columnists.

‘Digital First’ puts some focus on improving print

The company that operates the New Haven Register, The Middletown Press and The Register Citizen in Torrington is called “Digital First Media,” but on Wednesday, it will unveil a significant investment in improving its newspapers’ print editions.

Our dailies in Middletown and Torrington have been redesigned to incorporate modern typography, better organization and pages that allow photography and advertising to stand out.

Bucking the trend, it will mean a net increase in page count in Middletown, and the addition of a number of new features at both papers.

This includes investment in a new seven-day lineup of featured Page 3 news columnists, including popular former Hartford Courant columnist Susan Campbell and controversial and thought-provoking Connecticut defense attorney Norm Pattis.

Digital First used in-house talent – Tiffany Grandstaff and Alex Fong of the San Jose Mercury News – to develop the redesign.

Former Bergen Record editor Frank Scandale, in a newly created position of vice president of print production, is spearheading the rollout of the new design across Digital First’s 74 daily newspapers. Torrington and Middletown were chosen to go first.

The company’s newly launched “Thunderdome” operation in New York is providing some national news and feature elements of our redesigned page lineup, freeing staff in Connecticut to expand local news content.

The new design will come to the New Haven Register early next year, as the process is expanded to accommodate larger dailies. Around the same time, we expect to unveil the company’s long-awaited new website design. It is also being developed in-house by staff at the Denver Post, which recently wowed the newspaper industry with a new iPad app design that will also soon be coming to our dailies in Connecticut.

While there is no denying the declining trend in print newspaper readership and advertising, we can do a better job serving the users of print who remain. If that slows the decline and provides us with a longer runway to a digital future, even better.

It’s also interesting to note that the last significant change in the design and content of the print edition of The Register Citizen or New Haven Register, for examples, took place before personal use of the Internet was commonplace.

We are long overdue for print editions that reflect their curative role and position in the 24-hour news cycle.

New position to focus on Freedom of Information reporting

Journal Register Company newspapers in Connecticut took another big step this morning toward building their newsrooms around the key areas of breaking news, community engagement and investigative and in-depth reporting.

Viktoria Sundqvist

Viktoria Sundqvist has been named to the newly created position of Investigations Editor at The Register Citizen and The Middletown Press.

She’ll have a particular focus on use of Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act – using it in her own reporting, advocating for consistent enforcement of the law across our coverage area, and teaching reporters and readers how to use it effectively.

The role was inspired by the work that Mike Donoghue has done with the Burlington Free Press in Vermont in integrating Freedom of Information Act requests into his newspaper’s reporting. In the process, Mike and his colleagues have improved government and law enforcement transparency and strengthened the law itself by using it often and training public officials in openness.

In addition to reporting, Viktoria will be writing about open records and open meetings topics on her “Open Records Connecticut” blog and @ctfoi Twitter feed.

Her role will also include taking the lead on local reporting that plugs into investigative and enterprise projects led by Journal Register Company partners, including Pro Publica and the Associated Press.

Viktoria has served as editor of The Middletown Press the past three years, and before that was managing editor of The Register Citizen, giving her exposure to the issues associated with both coverage areas.

John Berry, online editor at the Times Herald in Norristown, Pennsylvania, is taking over as editor of The Register Citizen and The Middletown Press. Ann DeMatteo, a veteran reporter and bureau chief at the New Haven Register, has been named managing editor of The Middletown Press, and will be responsible for day-to-day news operations there.

Viktoria’s appointment is the second phase of an investment in investigative and in-depth reporting that started last December with the creation of a new investigations editor position at the New Haven Register, filled by Michelle Tuccitto Sullo, and a new beat dedicated to “explainer”-style and “fact check” reporting.

Journal Register staff win 65 Connecticut SPJ awards

Journal Register Company staff were honored at the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists 2012 awards ceremony Thursday night for their digital first coverage of Hurricane Irene, the trial of triple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky and a spike in New Haven’s murder rate.

In all, JRC staff took home 65 awards, including 27 first place honors, up from 56 awards, with 20 in first place, last year.

The New Haven Register’s first place award for Online Spot News Reporting happened from a makeshift newsroom in reporter Alexandra Sanders’ apartment in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

The New Haven Register swept SPJ’s Online Spot News Reporting category, winning first place for team coverage of Hurricane Irene. Because the Register building was without power in the hurricane’s aftermath, the best reporting came from a makeshift newsroom set up in reporter Alexandra Sanders‘ apartment.

The Register won second place in the same category for its coverage of the trial of triple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky, which featured daily live tweeting from the courtroom, instant SMS alerts of the verdict and live video of reaction from defense attorneys, prosecutors and the victims’ family.

The Register won first place in the Online In-Depth Reporting category for the “New Haven Homicides Report,” a blog created by William Kaempffer and Chris March that maps every murder that happens in the city, profiles the victims and tracks updates on when arrests are made and court appearances are scheduled.

The Register’s year-long coverage of racial profiling allegations against the East Haven Police Department, led by Mark Zaretsky and Susan Misur, also took home a first place award, for Best General Reporting Series, newspapers over 50,000 circulation.

Mara Lavitt won first place for Best News Photo in the over 50,000 circulation category.

Mara Lavitt

Ed Stannard won first place for best single General Reporting story for “Sins to confess? Catholics, there’s an app for that.”

Donna Doherty won first place for Best Arts & Entertainment writing in the over 50,000 circulation category for “Breaking down Bergman.”

Sports Editor Sean Barker won first place for Best Sports Column for newspapers with over 50,000 circulation for a tribute to late Register sports columnist Dave Solomon, who was killed in a car accident last year. Solomon himself posthumously won second place in the Best Sports Column category for a piece about New Haven coach Jim Wolf.

The Register led JRC papers in Connecticut with 20 awards in all, including 9 first place honors.

The Register Citizen and Middletown Press received 7 and 6 awards, respectively.

Register Citizen sports writer Kevin Roberts won first place for Online Sports Feature, while Editor Rick Thomason was  honored with a first place business writing award for a piece on manufacturing in Torrington and several second and third place awards for editorials and column writing.

Jonetta Badillo

Middletown Press reporter Jonetta Badillo won first place in the under 18,000 circulation daily newspaper category for Best General Reporting Series for her coverage of the fate of the Powder Ridge ski area.

JRC weekly newspapers won 18 awards, including 5 – all by Jimmy Zanor for sports writing – at the Shoreline Times.

At Housatonic Publications in New Milford, the Litchfield County Times took home 6 awards, the Housatonic Times, 4, and Passport magazine, 3.

They included first place awards by Jack Coraggiofor Best Sports Feature and Best Business Reporting. Kathryn Boughton and Alice Tessier won first place honors for column writing.

Charles Monagan

JRC’s Connecticut Magazine dominated awards in the magazine division, with 14 total, 7 first place.

Editor Charles Monagan, who won his first SPJ award in 1972, picked up a first place honor 40 years later for Best Magazine Editorial.

Joan Barrow won first place honors for Photo Layout and Non-Page 1 Layout.

Patricia Grandjean won first place for Magazine Feature Writing and second place for General Reporting for a magazine.

The entire list of JRC’s winners follows. The complete Connecticut SPJ list can be found here.

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JRC Connecticut newspapers win big in Local Media Association contest

Journal Register Company newspapers in Connecticut have won 33 awards in the 2011 editorial contest of the Local Media Association, formerly known as the Suburban Newspapers of America.

The New Haven Register was among the top daily newspaper winners with 15 awards, including 2nd place in the country for Best Sports Section and first place in the country for best reporting on local education.

The Litchfield County Times was among the top weekly newspaper winners in the country with 8 awards.

Journal Register Company beat out all other newspaper companies with 102 awards total.

Click here for the full list of awards.

Click here for a slide show of award-winning photos from our Connecticut staff.

The full list of winners from JRC Connecticut:

- 1st place, Best Coverage of Local Education, New Haven Register. Reporting by Abbe Smith.

- 1st place, Best Column Writing, New Haven Register. “Inspirations” column by Ann DeMatteo.

- 1st place, Best Headline, New Haven Register. “Pain in the Gas” by Mheegan Rollins.

- 1st place, Best Sports Photo, New Haven Register. “Yale football” by Arnold Gold.

- 1st place, Best Feature Photo, New Haven Register. “Essex Steam Train” by Peter Casolino.

- 2nd place, Best Sports Section, New Haven Register. Sports Editor Sean Barker and team.

- 2nd place, Best News Photo, New Haven Register. “Hurricane Irene” by William Kaempffer.

- 2nd place, Best Continuing Coverage, New Haven Register. “Interstate 95 project” by Ed Stannard.

- 2nd place, Best Feature Series, New Haven Register. “The Good Fight” by Jim Shelton.

- 3rd place, Best Headline, New Haven Register. “Hello, Good Buys” by Mheegan Rollins.

- 3rd place, Best Photojournalism, New Haven Register.  “Hurricane Irene, the Day After,” by Peter Casolino.

- 3rd place, Best Environmental Coverage, New Haven Register. “Zombie Dump” by Ann DeMatteo.

- Honorable Mention, Best News Photo, New Haven Register. “Bike Man in Snow” by Peter Hvizdak.

- Honorable Mention, Best Feature Photo, New Haven Register. “Snow Graphic” by Melanie Stengel.

- Honorable Mention, Best Feature, New  Haven Register. “When Politics Seeps into Breast Milk” by Sandi Shelton.

- 1st place, Best Special Section, The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT: Forging Tomorrow’s New England Experience)

- Honorable Mention, Best In-Depth Reporting, The Register Citizen

- 2nd place, Community Service Award, Middletown Press (Shovel Brigade)

- 2nd place, Best Wildcard Product, The Register Citizen (Every Town Has a Green)

- 2nd place, Best Arts and Entertainment Coverage, Middletown Press

- 1st place, Best Entertainment-Lifestyle Section, Litchfield County Times (Passport Magazine)

- 2nd place, Best Entertainment-Lifestyle Section, Litchfield County Times (LCT Magazine)

- 2nd place, Best Special Section, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Opinion Column, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Local Business Coverage, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Sports Photo, Litchfield County Times

- 3rd place, Best Environmental Coverage, Litchfield County Times

- 3rd place, Best Editorial Writing, Litchfield County Times

- 2nd place, Best Sports Section, Housatonic Times

- 2nd place, Best Column Writing, Housatonic Times

- 3rd place, Best News Photo, Housatonic Times

- Honorable Mention, Best Entertainment-Lifestyle Section, Housatonic Times

- 2nd place, Best Editorial Writing, Westport Minuteman

New Haven Register, other JRC papers in Connecticut, partner with CT News Junkie

I’m pleased to announce that Journal Register Company’s newspapers in Connecticut will be partnering with online Connecticut Statehouse news website CTNewsJunkie.Com to supplement our coverage of state government.

We’ll be using CT News Junkie’s articles in our print editions throughout the state, which include the New Haven Register, Middletown Press and Register Citizen, and linking to CT News Junkie’s coverage online.

This will free some of our reporters to focus more on in-depth and unique coverage of statewide issues that are presently under-covered by a shrinking Statehouse press corps.

Earlier this year, for example, we announced that reporter Mary O’Leary would be focusing on more in-depth “explainer”-format coverage and “fact check” reports.

Christine Stuart

And state politics and government reporter Jordan Fenster will be taking a lead role on our previously announced “Citizens Agenda” project, a new approach to covering political campaigns that’s based on the issues most important to our readers instead of “the horse race.”

CT News Junkie has been led since 2006 by editor and lead reporter Christine Stuart, who has developed a reputation as one of the hardest-working journalists covering the Capitol.

Prior to joining CT News Junkie, Stuart was a local news and politics reporter for the Journal Inquirer of Manchester. Previously, she covered education, transportation and the Capitol for the Hartford Advocate.