Tricia Johnston

I think people make the difference, whether you’re in an organization or you’re in a community. Everyone I’ve met has just been so positive about Goshen. They see the good in Goshen, and they want to talk about it and they want to make sure it’s accessible to everybody, and that everybody benefits from all of the good things the community has to offer. I’ve been so impressed by the generosity of spirit of everyone that I’ve met.

I’ve been in Goshen about seven months now. I came here to work at The Goshen News. I just found a place to live, so I’m a resident.

My family is in Cleveland, so I wanted to stay within relatively easy driving distance. This was perfect. It’s the kind of market that I’m used to – a community newspaper with a vibrant downtown area and proximity to some larger metro markets. It’s kind of like the best of both worlds. So here I am.

We have such a great team of people throughout the organization. One of the first things that was on my plate when I got here was to fill some gaps that we had. I was thrilled when Roger Schneider, who’s just a gem for this community, agreed to take on the full-time role of being the editor. And then we found someone to come in and help him in that role as our news/night editor, taking care of the daily business of getting the paper out. That gives Roger time to be more forward-thinking so we can plan some of the content we want to create and deliver to the audience.

The day-to-day is so busy. It has to get done because you have to put a paper out the next day, but that does cut into the time to be more thoughtful and forward-thinking in terms of, ‘What are the issues here and what are the discussions we should be having as a community?’ To that end, we have a really strong team of reporters. These are people who have been in journalism, who understand this community, and who are really out there trying to find the stories that matter to our readers, and let people who may not be familiar with Goshen understand what this community is all about.

On the business side, we have a sales team that works really hard to help their customers get their message in front of the right audience. We have a broad array of tools that let them do that. We have more than just the daily paper. We have a huge digital platform; we have anywhere from 150,000 to 170,000 unique visitors coming to the site every single month. Our audience is more than just the people who pick up the paper, and our product is more than the paper we’re printed on.