Hot Off the Press: Town Tribune Makes Its Debut in New Fairfield

Ellen Burnett, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Citizen News, sold the newspaper last week to two of her employees:  Kate Mattiace and Marylou Schirmer. In a statement made to the Town Tribune, Ms. Burnett said, “I chose to let go – to have Kate and Marylou take on full responsibility -- in the last few months, anticipating that I would be selling the paper.  Not a day goes by that I didn’t think about the paper.”

Ms. Mattiace, previously an Editor for the New Fairfield HamletHub, started working for the Citizen News four years ago as a reporter before moving to Associate Editor.  In her role as Associate Editor, she assisted Ms. Burnett in her editorial duties, reviewed copy, and managed the paper’s writers and reporters. She now takes over Ms. Burnett’s role as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. 

Ms. Schirmer started at the Citizen News eighteen years ago and has worked side-by-side with Ms. Burnett from the very beginning.  She started in the front office and became Editorial Coordinator before taking on her role as Advertising Director. Ms. Schirmer stated, “having been with the CN for so many years, I have witnessed first-hand the newspaper’s relevance to our two towns. It is a community paper unlike any other. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to continue that tradition and to see our hometown newspaper live on.” Both Ms. Mattiace and Ms. Schirmer credit their close personal and professional relationship with Ms. Burnett for having set them up to make the transition to Co-Publishers a smooth one.

Besides the obvious name change from the Citizen News to the Town Tribune, Ms. Mattiace and Ms. Schirmer have some other improvements coming down the pike in the coming months such as a Facebook page, a website, the ability to accept credit card payments, and their main focus, digital production. “Our newspaper is one of the last remaining papers in Connecticut that produce our pages via paste up. Everything is old school – the waxing machines, laying out our pages on boards – we are very excited to take the next step with the newspaper because we know it will give us some breathing room to make more improvements based on our readers’ and advertisers’ feedback,” said Ms. Mattiace.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to continue to serve the communities of New Fairfield and Sherman.  Our shared goal is to improve the paper to ensure it can continue to survive and provide local news and advertising to the residents and service providers in our community,” said Ms. Mattiace and Ms. Schirmer in a joint statement.