(This story first appeared in the Bennington Banner on July 12, 2017.)
Greg Sukiennik is now the managing editor of New England Newspaper Inc.’s Vermont newspapers, the Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer and Manchester Journal.
Sukiennik, 47, has been editor of the Manchester Journal since October. He began work in the new position on July 3.
“I am humbled, honored and excited by the opportunity to lead all three of our Vermont newspapers,” Sukiennik said. “Our ownership’s goal is creating the best community newspapers in America, newspapers that love and serve their communities and uphold the First Amendment. I am confident that our talented, committed newsroom professionals in Bennington and Brattleboro will continue to do great things and produce newspapers worthy of readers’ loyalty and trust.”
Day-to-day operations of the Banner and Reformer newsrooms remain unchanged, according to Sukiennik. Keith Whitcomb Jr. and Mark Rondeau continue as the local editors in Bennington, and Robert Audette and Melanie Winters as the local editors in Brattleboro.
“Greg’s experience and background as a reporter and editor in local news with our organization and as a reporter for The Associated Press make him perfectly suited to take on the role of leading our Vermont newsrooms,” said Kevin Moran, executive editor and chief content officer of New England Newspapers.
Sukiennik will continue his involvement in the Manchester Journal, with frequent visits to Bennington and Brattleboro. As a result, Moran said the company will hire another journalist to work at the Journal.
Publisher Alan English said “it’s great news for the communities we serve to add Greg’s strengths across the network.”
The position of Vermont managing editor was eliminated under corporate ownership in 2015, but the organization’s new, local owners are bringing the position back, according to Moran.
A 1993 graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Sukiennik is a veteran reporter and editor who worked for the Vermont newspapers’ sister publication, The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for five years as a reporter before continuing on to The Associated Press in Boston and to ESPN.com in Bristol, Connecticut.
His career includes awards for coverage of the PCB crisis in Pittsfield in the late 1990s, from a series on the potential cleanup and reuse of the contaminated General Electric Co. industrial site to the discovery of PCB-contaminated fill in city parks and residential properties.
Moran said personnel have been added to the Vermont newsrooms in the past year under local ownership, which returned in May 2016, including a reporter at the Reformer, a calendar editor for the newspapers, and reporters in Bennington and Brattleboro who report cooperatively with VTDigger and The Commons.
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