It’s been roughly a year since the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun was purchased by Student Publications, Inc. (which happened in February 2024).
In that timeframe, we’ve launched a new website, started work with a new layout team based more locally, as well as moved over to new email addresses for staff of the newspaper. A majority of those transitions have gone exceptionally well and most people did not realize too much of a change.
One of the things many of you have seen is that we’ve had help with reporting with our intern, Joel Kellar, especially during the busy festival coverage this summer. During the fall semester, Joel has done a lot more work with the Solon Economist.
We’ve also been able to bolster our coverage on state and government news, drawing on the excellent reporting from The Daily Iowan on those issues that impact many in these communities that the newspaper hasn’t had the time or resources to report on before.
We’ve also had many student photographers who have been helping us to cover Mount Vernon and Lisbon high school sporting events this season, which has allowed the news editor to focus solely on the news portion of the paper and be at more events locally.
There have also been discussions this winter semester on more help and coverage coming from a few more classes at the college this semester. This past Monday, students from the University of Iowa were getting a brief tour of the towns of Solon, Mount Vernon and Lisbon to highlight our area city hall locations and school board meeting locations. Those same students will be meeting with representatives of area school boards in February to help them get better understanding of the issues facing schools and how to best report on school board meetings, and some of those students will help with potential enterprise reporting (more in-depth stories on topics important to the community) or help with the coverage of city council and school board meetings.
“We are proud of the work we’ve done in our first year owning the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun,” said publisher Jason Brummond. “In 2025, we’ll have even more student journalists providing supportive coverage with interns, students in journalism courses, and Daily Iowan staff. I’m excited to see what we will accomplish this year.”
We’ll definitely have more to report in a few weeks as well, news that we’re embargoed on until early February, all positives for these newspapers and the goals of giving students opportunities to learn and work in real world news environments.