A panel of distinguished editors from three of the primary sources of local news in Lake of the Woods will participate in a roundtable discussion about community media at the Feb. 16 meeting of the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club.
Dick Hammerstrom, local news editor of The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg; Jeff Say, community editor of The Star Exponent in Culpeper; and Jeff Poole, managing editor of the Orange County Review in Orange will talk about how they make the decisions that result in what we know about state and local issues, especially politics.
The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, in the Lower Level of the LOW Clubhouse. As always, guests are welcome.
The newspapers represented by the panelists all circulate in Lake of the Woods and cover issues affecting this community. The panelists will respond to questions from the audience after their presentations.
Dick Hammerstrom is responsible for coordinating political coverage for The Free Lance-Star, including local, state and national elections and the Virignia General Assembly.
He also is involved in open-government activities and serves as the chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee of the Virginia Press Association and vice president of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
Before coming to Fredericksburg in 1997, Mr. Hammerstrom worked at newspapers in Martinsville and Roanoke in Virginia and Charlotte, N.C.
Jeff Say has worked in the newspaper industry for 12 years, beginning as a small-town sports editor in Clarion, Pa. He moved to Culpeper about seven years ago, working first as a sports reporter at the Culpeper Star-Exponent. Say was promoted to sports editor in 2006 and became community editor in 2007 and now leads a newsroom of six journalists.
Mr. Say lives in Culpeper with his wife, Sarah, and their 20-month-old daughter, Mady.
In addition to being managing editor of the Orange County Review, Jeff Poole is the group managing editor for community newspapers in Orange, Greene and Madison counties.
He has been working on newspapers since his grandfather took him on a photo shoot when he was five years old. His grandfather, uncles, mother and father all owned, operated, printed, wrote for or otherwise worked for newspapers, so his career path was largely predetermined by the time he earned his bachelor of arts degree in English from Mary Washington College.
He has been the editor of the Review, his hometown newspaper, for nearly 16 years and accumulated more than 40 Virginia Press Association awards in writing, photography and design.
The Free Lance-Star is published seven days a week by the Free Lance-Star Publishing Co., a privately held company. Its paid circulation is about 41,675. The Star-Exponent and the Orange Review are both owned by Media General, a public company operating primarily in the southeastern United States, based in Richmond. The Star-Exponent is published seven days and week and has a paid circulation of about 5,738. The Orange Review is published weekly on Thursdays and has a paid circulation of about 4,733.
More information on the newspapers the editors represent is available by visiting these Web sites:
- The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg
- The Star-Exponent, Culpeper
- The Orange County Review, Orange