During the past few months, you might have noticed a few names have faded away from the Advocate-Messenger, our location has changed and our newspaper has been a little smaller than in the past. Not all of these were planned, or will be the norm moving forward.

Just like in most businesses, hiring new staff has been challenging. Since last November, we have been looking for a reporter at the Advocate-Messenger, and recently started a nationwide search for a new editor. Our plan has always been to fill these positions, but we have had trouble finding the right person.

You will be introduced to several new faces at the Advocate-Messenger and Bluegrass Newsmedia in the next several weeks. We have filled our production directors’ position in our Winchester office in the last month. We also promoted Warren Taylor to associate editor, and he will oversee Winchester Sun, Jessamine Journal and Harlan Enterprise.

In his first few weeks in charge, Warren has hired a new reporter, Matt Cizek, to fill his former position at the Sun, and he also hired a summer intern for the Jessamine Journal. We will be looking for a permanent reporter at Jessamine Journal.

In Danville, we have brought in a new Regional Editor, John Reitman, who will oversee all seven newspapers for Bluegrass Newsmedia. Jared Darwish is our intern for the summer, and we are still looking for a permanent replacement for our open full-time reporting position in Danville/Stanford.

Kevin Foster started two weeks ago with us in our marketing department and has been training to help our local business owners with their marketing needs. Next week, we will be introducing our new Regional Ad Director, Jeff Kuerzi, who will also be based in Danville.

One of his first jobs will be to recruit two more marketing consultants to help cover the Danville and Jessamine markets. You will also notice that the Advocate-Messenger has moved to 461 South Forth St. We had planned on moving because the building we had was too big for our needs, but we thought it would be in July.

The hospital was very gracious and let us stay until the end of our lease, but the location we now occupy was available, and it made sense to move sooner than later. Yes, we are working on a sign and hope to have it soon.

Why is any of this important to you, our valuable reader? In my two years of leading Bluegrass Newsmedia, my goal has been to be as transparent as possible. Yes, we have been short-staffed. Yes, some of our functions are outsourced to create efficiencies, eliminate redundancy, and save money.

I want everyone to know that the Advocate-Messenger is doing well and is looking for reporters, freelance writers, freelance photographers and marketing consultants. We are here to cover our community and inform the reader of all that is going on in the community. We will have staff come and go, but that does not change our commitment to delivering the news that matters to you.

In the next few weeks, we will have articles published on all of our new staff, and I encourage you, if you have questions or comments, please reach out to us. If you have concerns or want to tell us we are doing a good job, please let us know. I can always be reached at 859-469-6400, and if I’m not available, I will call you back.

We encourage people to submit news tips and letters to the editor. We love when people in the community reach out to us with story ideas and information about what’s going on in the community. Please email editor@amnews.com or go to the “Services” menu at the top of our website, amnews.com, to submit tips.

What else can you do to help the Advocate-Messenger? Subscribe. You can subscribe to our print edition or our website, amnews.com. A digital subscription is less than 25 cents a day. For all of you that subscribe or pick up a copy from one of our dealers, we thank you for your support. To those of you who have not yet done so, please consider subscribing to your hometown paper.

Thank you,

— Kevin Smith

Regional Publisher, Bluegrass Newsmedia