Greg Reilly
Greg Reilly will take over the New Canaan Advertiser as its editor next month when Joshua Fisher moves on to the new digital department of the paper’s parent company.
Reilly, who lives in Silvermine, has been the editor of Hersam Acorn Newspapers’ Stratford Star for the past two years. He previously published the periodical New Canaan Matters, from 2003 to 2005, which expanded into Local Matters, covering New Canaan, Darien, Norwalk, and Stamford. He is also a past president of Business Networking International’s New Canaan chapter.
Joshua Fisher
Fisher, who became the Advertiser editor in August 2012, will become Hersam Acorn’s audience development and engagement director, charged with growing the company’s digital presence across southwestern Connecticut and Westchester County, N.Y.
“New Canaan has been a truly special and challenging town to cover,” said Fisher, a graduate of St. Luke’s School in town. “This may be a small town but it’s an active town full of wonderful and interesting people. I hope our readers feel we have done a good job showing off the many sides of New Canaan in the paper and on our website. I will certainly miss many of the great people I’ve gotten to meet and work with over the past two and a half years.”
Hersam Acorn, has 13 local newspapers and dozens of local news and lifestyle websites in the area, including NCAdvertiser.com, which has grown to average more than 140,000 unique pageviews per month over the past year.
The Advertiser’s website, last year, was named the top weekly newspaper website by the New England Newspaper & Press Association.
“This is an exciting time for the Advertiser and Hersam Acorn,” Martin V. Hersam, the company COO, said. “Josh has done an excellent job as editor of the Advertiser just as he did as editor of The Darien Times before coming to New Canaan. He built both publications into digital powerhouses in their markets. He continues to use an innovative approach to building online audiences via creative use of content and social channels while upholding the highest standards of journalism our readers have come to expect… He will be tasked with using what he’s learned in Darien and New Canaan and deploying it across all of our news and lifestyle websites.”
Reilly is a Darien native who raised his three children in New Canaan through St. Aloysius School and New Canaan High School.
“I am truly honored to be working at the Advertiser, such a longtime leader for the New Canaan community and an important property for the company,” Reilly said. “With such a great team in place, I will work hard to maintain all of the excellent standards already at the Advertiser. And I look forward to helping the paper and its online properties grow, evolve and prosper in this era of digital print communications.”
The new editor learned the production, circulation and advertising sides of the business at a mom-and-pop publisher in Darien, he said. Reilly then became the editor and publisher at Times Mirror Magazines before becoming an advertising manager and publisher at The New York Times Co. Magazine Group.
“Greg joins a great editorial team in New Canaan with associate editor Aaron Marsh, managing editor Michael Catarevas and sports editor Dave Stewart,” Hersam said. “Greg has had a great run with us as editor of The Stratford Star and now he’s coming home to New Canaan. Greg also brings a wealth of national magazine publishing and sales experience to Hersam Acorn — something that will continue to serve us well.”
Reilly starts at the Advertiser today and will be at the newspaper’s weekly community coffee, Friday at 9 a.m., at the Historical Society. He will be working with Fisher on the next two editions of the paper to ease the transition. This Friday’s coffee, however, will be the last one led by Fisher.
“Greg is lucky to be inheriting such an impressive staff on Vitti Street,” Fisher said. “I am excited for the new challenges ahead. It’s been a privilege to work with the men and women who help create the Advertiser everyday online and every week in print. I am going to miss this place.”