Member News

Jill Williams, who joined the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2000 as features editor and has continued to take on ever-expaning roles, has been named the newspaper's deputy editor of features, sports and new initiatives.

Williams, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, will continue working with the features and sports reporting teams. In the new role, she will also focus on recruiting, mentoring, coaching and making sure the newspaper connects with the whole community.

Lainey Seyler, who has helped manage digital operations at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 2016, has been named the newspaper's deputy editor for audience.

Over the last six years, Seyler has worked in a variety of roles, quickly rising through the ranks to her current position. Most recently, she served as manager of digital operations. Her work provides readers with information via text, video, audio, online, social media, newsletter, print and more.

Rachel Piper, who has served as senior director of digital news at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 2018, has been named deputy editor of news, projects and investigations. Editor Greg Borowski, who previously held the position, announced the promotion last week.

In the new role, she will work to strengthen the Journal Sentinel's news reporting in Milwaukee and statewide — from daily beat coverage to short-term enterprise to deep-dive projects and investigations.

Brandon Reid, who has served as editor of the (Manitowoc) Herald Times Reporter since 2015, has been named editor of The (Fond du Lac) Reporter and Oshkosh Northwestern. Reid, who was named editor of The Sheboygan Press in September 2021, will now oversee newsrooms in Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Manitowoc and Sheboygan.

Before being named editor of Gannett's Manitowoc newsroom in 2015, Reid served as a content coach for watchdog reporters across the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and as editor of The Rock River Times in Rockford, Illinois, for 12 years.

Katy Macek, former editor of The (Fond du Lac) Reporter and Oshkosh Northwestern, has been named to a regional editing position with The (Appleton) Post-Crescent. Macek served as the editor for the Reporter and Northwestern since August 2022.

Macek, a Port Washington native, joined the Northwestern in June 2021 after previously working as an entertainment reporter and editor for the (Eau Claire) Leader-Telegram and as a city reporter for the Chippewa Herald. She graduated in 2015 from UW-Eau Claire, where she earned her bachelor's degree in journalism and worked on the school newspaper The Spectator. 

In a staffing reorganization that aims to put more reporters in the community to cover issues of local importance, APG publications across southern Wisconsin are moving veteran staff members who had been in managerial roles into senior reporting roles, the company has announced.

As part of the restructuring, Karyn Saemann, editor of The Gazette, will also serve as regional editor for APG-Southern Wisconsin, directing editorial operations for the groups five additional daily publications and its nine weekly print and digital publications. Other editors who assumed new leadership roles with APG-Southern Wisconsin include Madeline Westberg, Brian O’Connor and Tim Seeman.

Paul Gaier, who worked for two decades as an advertising director and publisher at several Illinois newspapers, has joined Adams Publishing Group as regional president for Northern Wisconsin.

Gaier began his newspaper career in Chippewa Falls, where his father was publisher, before leaving to attend college at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. Most recently, he served as general manager of Fond du Lac-based Action Printing since 2020. Prior to that role, he was regional vice president for a group of Illinois newspapers that included the Rockford Register Star and the (Peoria) Journal Star.

John Leacock, who started his career in 1994 at a Wisconsin newspaper, has been named interim business editor for the Albuquerque Journal, where he has served as a copy editor since October.

A native of Barbados, Leacock moved to Wisconsin after graduating from Columbia College in New York. He worked as an editor for Point Publications in Stevens Point and as a reporter for the Central Wisconsin Radio Network and Wisconsin Public Radio. In 1999, he joined the Wisconsin State Journal as a copy editor. He went on to serve as interim national foreign editor and assistant news editor before joining the Florida Times-Union, where he worked as a metro night editor and copy editor.

Former Wisconsin reporter Dave Newbart has been named managing editor of news for the Chicago Sun-Times. Newbart has been with the Sun-Times for the past five years, serving as the interim managing editor for the last 11 months and previously as the deputy managing editor, news and city desk editor.

He previously held leadership roles with the Chicago Reader and DNAInfo/Chicago. From 1993-1997, he worked as a reporter for The (Madison) Capital Times, where he covered the University of Wisconsin and higher education in Wisconsin and was the newspaper's lead reporter during the 1994 campaign for governor.

Former Milwaukee-based data reporter Kevin Crowe has joined The Washington Post as a data reporter embedded with the Climate team, the newspaper has announced.

Crowe, a bilingual journalist who for the last four years worked for the USA Today Investigations team, previously worked as a data reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, inewsource in San Diego and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.