The Chapel Hill News is replacing long-time editor and publisher Ted Vaden with Brenda Larson ("business development analyst for The News & Observer's community newspapers") who will also act as the publisher of the Cary News. The loss of Vaden is bad in itself, but replacing him with someone who is not from Chapel Hill and won't be focused on Chapel Hill sounds like a disaster to me. I hope I'm wrong!
Before joining The N&O, Larson was director of new product development for York Region Newspaper Group, a group of Canadian community newspapers north of Toronto. In addition, she served as editor-in-chief for seven newspapers in that group, which is owned by Metroland.
Larson also will become publisher of The Cary News, another N&O community newspaper, and will split her time between Cary and Chapel Hill.
