Published: March 11, 2008 09:29 pm            

GAZETTE: Carl Helbig named new publisher

Recent publisher at Messenger Post Newspapers

Carl Helbig was named publisher of the Niagara Gazette on Tuesday.

A veteran of the newspaper business, Helbig is looking forward to providing relevant, community-oriented news to readers.

“I’m huge on local news,” he said.

Helbig said he has spent a lot of time in Western New York and is happy to be returning to the area. He grew up in Penn Yan in the Finger Lakes region.

“I’m truly excited to be a publisher for a newspaper in what I consider to be home: Western New York,” he said. “I think there is opportunity here to truly be the voice of the community, to portray more positive things that are going on in the community and be a proponent for development.”

Helbig’s first management job was for USA Today in 1985. He later moved to Canandaigua to work as circulation director for the Daily Messenger. From 1993 to 1995, he worked as publisher of the Norwich Evening Sun, a daily newspaper based in Norwich.

He went to work as the general manager for Messenger Post Newspapers, a cluster of 10 suburban dailies in the Rochester area, before being promoted to publisher.

At the Gazette, Helbig said he looks forward to continuing the paper’s efforts to be the best source for local news in the community.

“We have to do the best job we possibly can covering all the things that are going on, right down to the neighborhoods,” he said, “to where you can’t find this news any place else except our newspaper pages and our Web site.”

A graduate of St. Bonaventure University with a degree in journalism, Helbig will be relocating to Lewiston. He has two daughters: Tiffany, a 25-year-old musical theater actress living in New York City, and Chantel, a 19-year-old sophomore at SUNY Geneseo majoring in elementary education and musical theater.

        

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