(SPENCERTOWN, N.Y.) – Seth Rogovoy will moderate a panel discussion about digital media at Spencertown Academy Arts Center on Saturday, March 7, at 2pm, part of the Academy’s Conversations with Neighbors series.

“The Impact of Digital Media in Our Region” will feature a panel of local media professionals, including Enid Futterman, founder and editor of IMBY; Brian Mahoney, editorial director of Luminary Media; Carole Osterink, founder and editor of The Gossips of Rivertown; David Scribner and Marcie Setlow, editor-in-chief and publisher, respectively, of the Berkshire Edge; and Seth Rogovoy, editor and publisher of The Rogovoy Report.

“With digital press taking over, news about our community is delivered in an instant. How has that changed how we communicate and interact? This is an opportunity to find out from the folks on the front lines,” says Lisa Bouchard Hoe, chair of the Spencertown Academy Conversations with Neighbors Committee. “We are excited to be bringing together for the first time all these local media luminaries on one stage. Attendees will have a chance to get up close and ask questions of their favorite personalities and find out what really goes into the publication of online media.”

A longtime music and arts critic, Seth Rogovoy is editor and publisher of The Rogovoy Report — an online magazine of cultural and critical news and observations, also available in the form of a weekly e-newsletter. Seth’s weekly cultural commentary can be heard every Friday on Midday Magazine on WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network. Rogovoy the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) and The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music (Alqonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2000), is also a contributing editor at The Forward and a regular contributor to Chronogram. From 2004 to 2010, Rogovoy was editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Berkshire Living, a perennially award-winning regional lifestyle and culture magazine that served the greater Berkshire region of western Massachusetts, eastern New York, and northwestern Connecticut. For 16 years prior, Rogovoy was an arts writer and music critic at the Berkshire Eagle.

Enid Futterman is co-founder (with John Isaacs) and editorial director of IMBY, a hyperlocal network of websites for citizen journalism and community networking. Prior to the launch of IMBY, she was co-publisher (with Isaacs) and editor of OURTOWN, a quarterly print magazine. Futterman is also an acclaimed librettist and the author and photographer of Bittersweet Journey: A modestly erotic novel of love, longing and chocolate (Viking).

Brian K. Mahoney began working as a freelance writer after graduating from SUNY New Paltz in 1996. In July of the next year, he was hired as features editor of the then-fledgling arts and cultural publication, Chronogram. Promoted to editor-in-chief in 1998, he has overseen editorial operations at ever since, directing Chronogram Media’s vast empire of print and digital content engines — including Rural Intelligence, which Chronogram Media acquired in the summer of 2019.

Before starting The Gossips of Rivertown blog in 2010, Carole Osterink had a career in educational publishing that spanned two decades — first as an in-house editor for publishing houses and later as a freelance designer and writer of learning materials. The Gossips of Rivertown has grown to be a widely read and highly regarded source of hyperlocal news, history, commentary, and reporting on the events, intrigue, troubles, and triumphs — both current and historic — that happen in Hudson, N.Y.

David Scribner and Marcie Setlow co-founded The Berkshire Edge in 2014 to provide in-depth local news reports and features, perspectives on the arts, wide-ranging commentary, and a comprehensive calendar of events — all written, illustrated, and, in some cases performed, with wit, intelligence, insight, and humor. Their online publication now receives some 84,000 unique visitors per month. They also publish a companion print magazine called BerkshiresCalendar.com. Before starting The Edge, Scribner served as editor-in-chief of the Berkshire Eagle and the Middletown Press, as well as news editor and reporter at the Berkshire Record. Setlow has been developing, selling, and managing media projects for decades. As president of Setlow Media Inc., she and her associates consulted on project development, marketing, fundraising, and promotion for a broad range of distinguished clients, including WNET, WGBH (Boston), MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Scholastic Productions, Sesame Workshop, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and more.

Admission is $20 general admission, $15 for members, and free for youth under age 18. Tickets are available at www.spencertownacademy.org (advance purchase recommended).

Spencertown Academy Arts Center Conversations with Neighbors is an occasional series designed to spark neighbor-to-neighbor conversations and celebrate the richness and diversity of the Columbia County community. Housed in a landmark 1847 Greek Revival former schoolhouse, the Academy is located at 790 State Route 203 in Spencertown, New York. For more information, please visit Spencertown Academy Arts Center or call 518-392-3693.