The Valley News newsroom as it stands right now. It will shrink by one after Friday, when Marion Umpleby leaves.
The Valley News has lost another longtime journalist. Alex Hanson, a former local-news reporter, feature writer, features editor, and editorial-page editor who first joined the newspaper in 1999, left after the Aug. 7 issue. His departure comes on the heels of six previous exits by newsroom veterans since late last fall. And one more departure is on the way, as culture and food writer Marion Umpleby prepares to leave.
The newsroom’s ranks did get a boost recently with the arrival of reporter and deputy editor Molly Hughes, a 2024 Worcester State University grad who moved on to journalism school at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, then to a teaching stint at Bradley University in Peoria, IL and, in March this year, a reporting position at public radio station WCBU in Peoria. She left that in July to take up her new position.
Hanson’s exit from the paper will leave it with four journalists who arrived before last year: longtime photographer James M. Patterson; calendar editor and community-affairs reporter Liz Sauchelli, who started there in 2012; photographer and multimedia producer Alex Driehaus, who began as a Report for America corps member at the end of 2023; and reporter Clare Shanahan, who started up in September, 2024. Reporters Michael Coughlin Jr., Alex Ebrahimi, and Sofia Langlois began in 2025—as did Umpleby, whose last day at the paper will be this Friday, Aug. 21.
Among the departures, the Valley News has lost veteran reporters Jim Kenyon and John Lippman to retirement, while former managing editor Geoff Hansen now works for corporate owner Newspapers of New England. Former news editor Nora Doyle-Burr shifted over to VTDigger, but others—including former editor Matt Clary, Alex Hanson, and longtime photographer Jennifer Hauck, left with no publicly declared plans in place. Umpleby, the latest to go, plans to freelance (including for the Valley News) and to work with her parents at Umpleby’s Bakery and Café in Hanover.
As was the case when Daybreak reported on the first waves of departures back in July, publisher Rich Wallace hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the newspaper’s plans.
