Weston Today publisher and editor Edward (Ted) Craft spoke at the Kiwanis Club of Weston meeting on Saturday, January 18, 2025. Ted recapped the history of Weston’s digital news publication, which is coming up on its seventh birthday at the end of January. Ted created Weston Today to address the news desert created when The Weston Forum, a weekly broadsheet published on Thursdays, ceased publication.

As far as Ed can tell, the last Weston Forum print issue was on January 4, 2018. A week later, on January 11, 2018, Hersam Acorn Newspapers announced the closure. Weston Today launched on January 31, 2018.

Hersam tried a sort-of regional paper, the Aspetuck News, to replace the Weston, Easton, and Redding papers. The Aspetuck News lasted only nine months. Hersam later sold the four papers to Hearst, who apparently weren’t interested in the Weston, Easton, and Redding papers.

Ted took questions from an appreciative Kiwanis audience on a variety of content covered since the birth of Weston Today, how Weston Today’s editorial policy maintains objectivity in reporting and guides authors of letters to the editor and guest essays, the potential and impact of artificial intelligence, and challenges and opportunities for local journalism in the coming years.

Juan Negroni contributed to this article.