On this day four years ago, the EastonCourier.news was born. The hyperlocal news site launched with a social gathering at the Easton Community Center on Leap Day 2020. No one could have imagined that the Covid-19 pandemic would change life as we knew it less than two weeks later. Schools, government buildings, businesses, stores, restaurants and almost all public sites shut down.
The Easton Courier chronicled the challenging times and established itself as a trusted news source. Fast forward to today, Leap Day, Feb. 29, 2024. Everything has reopened and life goes on, although in a new normal.
The original for-profit Easton Courier closed in 2018, two years shy of its 40th birthday, victim to changing times. Through a partnership with the School of Communications, Media & the Arts at Sacred Heart University and you, our readers, the new non-profit Easton Courier arose.
“Little did anyone know that Easton, Conn. could be a model for the nation,” Easton resident Cathy Alfandre wrote in an article about the Courier at four months old. “Since ‘going live’ on February 29 — four months ago today — EastonCourier.news has published more than 390 articles,” Alfandre wrote. “The new digital publication filled a hole in the local news landscape just before the Covid-19 pandemic drove a surge in demand for information, and as community newspapers have sharply declined nationwide.”
You can read the full article: “The New Easton Courier at Four Months: A Model for Innovative Community Journalism.”
For the Courier’s first birthday, the Sacred Heart University newsroom wrote, “At a time when thousands of community newspapers across the country have closed, Sacred Heart University has reopened one. The Easton Courier, which shut down two years ago, is now a well-read, nonprofit, online news site published through a partnership between the town of Easton and SHU.”
You can read the full article: “SHU’s Journalism Program Restores Town’s Local News Source.”
In the four years since its launch, the new Easton Courier has published over 3,000 articles and received 47 Excellence in Journalism awards from the Connecticut chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Many of the original staff remains intact, including James Castonguay, professor and director of SHU’s School of Communication, Media & the Arts; Ann Marie Somma, adjunct professor, who teaches the professional journalism course, Nancy N. Doniger, founding member and contributing editor; Joanne Kabak, adjunct professor and contributing editor; Keith Zdrojowy, SCMA’s studio manager and engineer; Rick Falco, SHU faculty member and photojournalist; and Taciane Batista, adjunct professor and business writer.
More than 60 student reporters from SHU have participated in the Courier project, and Joel Barlow High School students and numerous community journalists and correspondents have contributed to the mix.
We mourned the death of Jane Paley Price, an esteemed Easton Courier founding member and Easton resident, who died Nov. 12, 2023 of ovarian cancer. You can read more about her extraordinary life:
Obituary: Jane Paley Price, 76
Column: Remembering My Friend Jane
The Courier is delivered to your inbox and published online without charge. Please consider a generous donation to keep the Easton Courier Community Journalism Project going now and in the future. We can’t do it without you, Easton.
We ask that you support the Courier by making a donation at the link below or by using the QR code.
Easton Courier Community Journalism Donation Page
The Easton Courier Team
Note: For those who prefer to mail in their donation, please make checks payable to Sacred Heart University with Easton Courier in memo, and mail to University Advancement, 5151 Park Ave, Fairfield, CT 06825.
Sacred Heart University is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 private, non-profit university.
