ITHACA, N.Y. — A group of former editors, reporters, and friends of The Ithaca Journal, dismayed at the loss of reporting staff at their former paper, have thrown their support – to The Ithaca Voice.
“We lived through the glory years of great local reporting in Ithaca,” said Philip Lerman, former city editor of the Ithaca Journal. “There were more than 25 reporters, photographers, and editors when we started at the Journal. We were saddened to see reports that the Gannett Company had cut the Journal staff down to one or two reporters. We felt that we had to do something.”
The group has started a fundraiser to help support The Ithaca Voice, a local independent online journalism site.
“We feel that the Voice is starting to do the aggressive, important reporting that The Journal used to be known for,” Lerman said. “This kind of reporting is vital to a community like Ithaca, and we want to help them in any way we can.”
The group of more than a dozen alumni of the Ithaca Journal includes:
- Caroline Miller, former IJ city and editorial page editor, who went on to be editor in chief of New York and other magazines;
- Jeffrey Frank, former IJ reporter and editorial page editor, who later became deputy Outlook editor at the Washington Post and a senior editor at The New Yorker;
- Carol Eisenberg, former IJ reporter, who went on to report for Newsday, and edit at Politico and The Washington Post;
- Deborah Schoch, former IJ reporter, who became an environment and health writer at the Los Angeles Times;
- Philip Lerman, former IJ city editor, who went on to become national editor of USA Today and to produce TV’s “America’s Most Wanted.”
Staffers from the former Rochester Times-Union, sister paper of the Ithaca Journal, have also joined the fundraising efforts.
Donations can be made at bit.ly/ithacajournalalumni; Individual donations up to $1,000 will be matched dollar-for-dollar by NewsMatch, up to a cap of $20,000.
For more information, contact Philip Lerman at 301-656-3511 or lerman.phil@gmail.com.