New Pine Plains Herald hires Daisy Sindelar as managing editor

PINE PLAINS —  Getting its start in 2022 with the goal of providing the town with “a reliable local source of news and events listings,” the New Pine Plains Herald has recently taken a big step forward in hiring Daisy Sindelar as its managing editor.

Sindelar is a seasoned journalist with over 30 years of experience, having spent over 20 of those years at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), first as a reporter and editor, and then rising in the ranks to vice president and editor-in-chief, in addition to serving as acting president a number of times.

Stepping into the primary leadership role at the Herald, Sindelar has a number of objectives, hopes and approaches in mind to help the newspaper grow out of its nascency. One, however, remains intensely personal: Sindelar’s grandmother, Christine Crouch, lived on South Main Street, and Sindelar grew up coming to Pine Plains nearly every year of her life.

That connection to the community and the desire to play a role in contributing to its vitality are part of what drew her in. But an equal driver is her belief in the importance and legitimacy of the work of community journalism, and the way in which her international experience could provide useful perspectives on it.

“I’ve had an extraordinarily lucky life as a journalist, working in some of the most interesting places in the world where journalism and the right to free speech are perpetually under threat. That has been a life-changing experience . . .  I wanted to take what I had learned and apply it to my own country, which I think also has those needs. That work has always been personal.”

Describing a landscape of local journalism that has changed rapidly over the last 10 years, Sindelar spoke to the degree to which she believes the role of information partner within a community is one that, in large part, must be defined by that community rather than from the top down.

“If, in the past, an editorial board or a journalist sat back and thought, ‘What am I going to do for this week’s issue?’, it very often was their decision alone. I think what’s changed is that there’s an understanding that journalism really has to be a two-way communication between the journalist and between the community. I can’t decide in isolation what is important for the people of Pine Plains. I really need to hear from them what’s important to them, what’s relevant to them.”

Accordingly, the beginning weeks and months of Sindelar’s time as managing editor will focus primarily on listening to the community and trying to get a deeper sense for how best to position the Herald in that contributing role. However, some topics have already emerged as clear focal points for the community, including wastewater infrastructure, changes to the school district, and the proposed solar project installation near Pulvers Corners.

To Sindelar, coverage of such issues represents a fundamental objective for a newspaper: helping to chart and assist in understanding the course of change in the region.

“Like all small towns, Pine Plains is changing, and there are different opinions about whether that change is necessary, how quickly it should come, what the impact of the change is going to be. Creating a platform for conversation about those issues is what’s really exciting for me.

“I think there are fascinating, remarkable people who make up this community who perhaps haven’t quite found the best way for coming together and discussing some of those issues. I think a newspaper, or news product, really has to be an essential part of that conversation.”

As for where the Herald is headed next in physical terms, it recently produced a special print edition for the Pine Plains bicentennial, its first foray into print. But reflecting a mindset that strives to also look beyond the logistics of how best to deliver news, Sindelar expressed a primary goal to build the Herald into an organization where its role within the community is known and defined both by the people of the town and the newspaper itself.

“When someone in Pine Plains comes up to me and says, ‘I really enjoyed that article, it really answered questions for me,’ that will be the moment when I think the Herald is really a success. I don’t know how long that will take; it does take a while for new news ventures to find their footing and to really connect with the audience, but that’s what I’m looking for.”