Editorial of March 6, 2025

Putting the Community Back Into the Newspaper

Our motto here at “The Freeman’s Journal” and “Hometown Oneonta” is “putting the community back into the newspaper.” Whether you read our hard-copy newspapers or subscribe to our website, AllOtsego.com, we believe it is important to not only cover the news of Otsego County, but also to provide a forum by which its residents can contribute their own views and expertise. We don’t just want you to read—we encourage you to participate.

To that end—back in the fall of 2022, as the company continued to rebuild and revamp following the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic—we sought to attract new reporters, columnists, and contributing writers. In December 2022, Jamie Zvirzdin—whose in-laws live in Richfield Springs—wrote an article titled “Morning Coffee Miracle: A Return to the Power of Local Community.” A month later, she submitted her first “Citizen Science” column, which went on to earn third place at the 2023 Better Newspaper Contest for Best Column, Division 3. Zvirzdin joined longtime favorites Terry Berkson, author of “Life Sketches,” who took second place for Best Column last year, and Richard deRosa, whose reflections up on Hawthorn Hill have been running in our papers for many years.

Monica Calzolari, Caspar Ewig, Dan Sullivan, and Teresa Winchester joined our “stable” of reporters, covering news in Oneonta, northern Otsego County, Richfield Springs, and the Butternut Valley, respectively. Staff writers have included two Cooperstown Central School graduates, Ted Mebust and Wriley Nelson, as well as Emily Hilbert and Sarah Roberts, both Cooperstown Graduate Program students.