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 in 2021 and remained part of that program until 2024, when she became a regular staffer; 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. You’ll find earlier coverage of those departures here.
In Tuesday morning’s newsletter to subscribers, publisher Rich Wallace wrote the following:
Some of you may have noticed recent newsroom changes. Molly Hughes joined us a couple of weeks ago as our new deputy editor, (you may have seen her excellent story on the first generative AI mental health chatbot to show clinical results in a published trial). Sophia Langlois, who was an intern, is now a full-time staff reporter. Liz Sauchelli has been promoted to Community Editor. She'll be handling letters to the editor, so she's the one to send yours to. And with a retirement and a couple of departures from the newsroom we're actively working to hire several new reporters to increase the number of reporters covering our community, to support and extend our dedication to original and reliable coverage of the Upper Valley. Stay tuned, and thank you for your support! And as always, please let me know any suggestions you have for our coverage.
Note: The original version of this story had the wrong start date for Alex Driehaus’s stint as a Report for America corps member. It’s been updated with the correct information.
