New editor for News Of The Area newspaper group

EVE Nesmith has been named Editor of News Of The Area, the family-owned independent local newspaper group.

The News Of The Area (NOTA) media group publishes eight local newspapers across the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions: Port Stephens, Myall Coast, Dungog, Gloucester, Camden Haven, Port Macquarie, Nambucca Valley and Coffs Coast.

Ms Nesmith, a former Fairfax journalist/trainer/editor, former NSW and Federal political staffer and now Urunga resident said she felt a burst of butterflies when she saw the advertisement saying NOTA was looking for a new editor.

NOTA owner Michael Wright said Ms Nesmith’s experience and understanding of the communities served by the newspaper group made her the ideal choice for the role.

“When this position became available, it was so important to have the right person behind the desk and in front of the community as their NOTA editor,” Mr Wright said.

“Eve is so experienced, and she also has so much localised knowledge in each community.

“Even in the first month since starting, it’s clear Eve has quickly settled into what she knows and loves.”

Ms Nesmith is “delighted to be back in print journalism”.

She is passionate about regional news and believes that, for these communities, media should be both a window to the world and the voice of the local people.

“It is NOTA’s job to ensure that people in our regional communities have access to the information, debates and decisions that shape the places where they work, live and play,” she said.

“It is also NOTA’s job to channel people’s questions, seek out answers, and, where necessary, take action to amplify and promote the voices of the community.”

Communities without newspapers lose cohesion, she believes.

“They often lose their unity and sense of pride,” she said.

Ms Nesmith said it had been proven that people in communities without newspapers also disengaged with democracy and showed less interest in their local governance.

“Those communities are then left without a watchdog,” she said.

From her early days as a cadet reporter to all manner of editorial roles across newspapers, Ms Nesmith has channelled her personal, emotional reaction to news.

“I don’t do the objective ‘bearing witness’ thing well at all,” Ms Nesmith said.

“I’m a fighter; a campaigner. I am confident that I’m decidedly average and, if I have a strong reaction to   something, others probably will too.”

She has a passion to share the stories of love, altruism and triumph, to support those who rally against ugliness, injustice and dishonesty and “to respect readers enough to simply give them all the facts and let them make up their own minds”.

After almost a quarter of a century in newsrooms and coaching countless interns and cadets, Ms Nesmith has a head full of acronyms that help make the essentials stick.

In a nutshell, good journalism starts with ABC.

“A is for accuracy. Above all else, content must be accurate. Facts: check them, then verify them from another source if possible,” she said.

“B is for balance. Ensure all sides of an issue are covered.

“And C is credibility – speak to people who are positioned as experts or have lived experience.

“Be mindful of Vs when people talk to you. Are they saying this stuff because they have a vested interest? Are they looking for vengeance? Can you verify what they are saying?”

Ms Nesmith is passionate about regional journalism.

She worked at the Newcastle Herald for almost 20 years, then served as the Lower Hunter editor for Fairfax and headed the daily Maitland Mercury newspaper and weekly papers The Lower Hunter Star, Cessnock Advertiser and Gloucester Advocate.

She also spent time as a training executive at Fairfax which, after purchasing Rural Press, had more than 140 sites across Australia and New Zealand.

“I was constantly on the road, or in the air, off to coach and train photographers, journalists and editors in newsrooms around the country – including Port Stephens, Port Macquarie, Nambucca and Coffs Harbour,” Ms Nesmith said.

Now an established resident of Urunga with her husband Johnny and youngest son Angus, Ms Nesmith lives a fulfilling life with tendrils of connection throughout the community.

“We moved up from the Hunter Valley in the middle of COVID,” she said.

“Angus is at Southern Cross University studying nursing, and he plays first-grade rugby union for the Coffs Harbour Snappers.

“My beloved stepmother Toby, who most recently lived in Dungog, came up to Coffs to be with us and lives downstairs in her own self-contained space.”

Her two elder sons are identical twins.

“My eldest son Miles is a registered nurse and lives at Gladstone with my beautiful granddaughter Elsie.

“My son Jack lives here in Coffs Harbour and is a small engine/motorcycle mechanic. He has given me two wonderful grandsons – Clinton and Patrick.”

Fittingly for an Urunga dweller, where a diverse avian community flourishes, Ms Nesmith is a bird lover – “especially native raptors”.

She is currently bonded for life with a once-wounded pigeon.

“I scooped him up off the pavement in Coffs CBD a couple of summers ago and treated him for pigeon fly and bird pox, which took a long time,” Ms Nesmith said.

In reacclimatising him she began to take him out for walks, expecting him to take wing at any moment.

“I totally forgot that he’s likely a homing pigeon,” Ms Nesmith said.

“He’s not going anywhere, except for a lovely long fly to places unknown for the first half of every day and then back home to coo seductively at me from the front verandah for hours on end.”

When Ms Nesmith joined NOTA, she joined an established publishing company, founded by Mr Wright in 2014 with one newspaper in Tea Gardens.

That company now has eight mastheads.

As NOTA grew, Mr Wright’s wife Rochelle, joined the company full time in 2020 taking on the general manager role.

“While the big companies have been closing newspapers down, NOTA presses on launching new editions,” Ms Nesmith said.

“I’m now learning to do things the NOTA way. It’s a business model that works, and it’s keeping newsprint and local journalism in the lives and homes of tens of thousands of readers.

“I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to play a role in that essential service.”

By Andrea FERRARI