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By Joyce Westner Jan. 4, 2024
Thanks to generous donations from the community, Winchester News has hired Nell Escobar Coakley as part-time editor. A Malden resident, Coakley is already familiar with Winchester, having been a reporter for the Winchester Town Crier, a newspaper started by Bill Cummings back in the 1990s. She worked as a managing editor for Gannett, the parent company of the Winchester Star, and was deputy director of Massachusetts State News, but like many of their reporters and employees, Coakley was laid off in 2022.
In addition to working for Winchester News, Coakley is also helping a group in Medford start a newspaper. Winchester Board of Directors President Tara Hughes says, “Nell Coakley is used to becoming part of a community and reporting on what that community needs and wants to know. We are excited about this hire and hope Winchester will feel the same.”
“Nell was highly recommended to me by people I trust in local news,” says Winchester News Board Member Emily Costello who served as the Winchester Star’s editor. “I later learned she covered Winchester for the now-defunct Town Crier. So she knows the job and the community and I have high hopes for her work.”
Coakley can be reached by sending an email to editor@winchesternews.org, which also goes to Joyce Westner.
