__________________________________________________________________________

August 21, 2025

Washington County Explorer Launches as Go-To Weekly Newsletter for Local News and Updates

Press Release from NYVT Media

NYVT Media is proud to announce the launch of the Washington County Explorer, a newly reimagined weekly newsletter delivering essential news, updates, and events directly to readers' inboxes across the region. The newsletter evolves from the Washington County Free Press Email Edition, which began earlier this year after the retirement of the Washington County Free Press print newspaper.

With the recent retirement of the Free Press E-edition as well, the Washington County Explorer ushers in a new era of digital-first local journalism. All news content will now be published on NYVTmedia.com and carefully curated each week into the newsletter, ensuring subscribers never miss what matters most in their communities.

Each edition of the Washington County Explorer features a comprehensive mix of breaking news, community updates, local sports coverage, police reports, special features, and messages from local advertisers. Readers will also enjoy a community calendar of upcoming events and a weekly weather forecast to help them plan ahead. “We’re excited to continue serving Washington County with timely, trusted, and relevant news in a format that meets our readers where they are—online,” said Mark Vinciguerra, president and publisher at NYVT Media. “The Washington County Explorer is more than a newsletter; it’s a vital connection to the stories and events that shape our region.”

The newsletter is free to receive, but readers must subscribe at https://www.nyvtmedia.com/pages/wcfp-email. New editions are sent weekly, offering a thoughtfully curated roundup of everything happening in and around Washington County.

__________________________________________________________________________

June 20, 2025

Legislative Wrap-up 2025

By Diane Kennedy,
President, New York News Publishers Association

The state Assembly gaveled out shortly after midnight Tuesday, following the Senate, which adjourned last Thursday. With that, the 2025 legislative session has come to an end. For newspapers, it was a very successful session overall.

1) Thanks to the strong advocacy of Governor Kathy Hochul, the Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Tax Credit, enacted in 2024, was expanded to ensure that individual newspapers under group ownership will each be eligible for the maximum refundable credit of $300,000 per year for each of the three years of the program. With the final legislation now in place, Empire State Development will finalize the regulations governing the program, likely sometime this summer. The credits apply to the 2025 tax year, so newspapers will be able to apply in early 2026. NYNPA will work very closely with ESD to ensure that our members are up to speed on the application process.

We will also continue to advocate for a funding stream for not-for-profit newspapers.

2) Unfortunately, the budget also enacted revisions to the state's auto-renewal law and created a new law governing algorithmic pricing. Although we joined with other business groups to urge changes to the legislation, no changes were made before the budget bills were passed. The algorithmic pricing law, which will take effect in July, requires disclosure to consumers when a business uses their personal data to set prices. The auto-renewal law, which will take effect in November, creates operational difficulties for subscriber-based businesses like newspapers and magazines. We will provide our members with additional materials regarding compliance requirements as we obtain them. We will also continue to advocate for changes to both laws when the legislature returns in January.

Related legislation proposed by Attorney General Tish James to revise the state's consumer protection laws passed both houses in the final hours of session. The bill was significantly improved at the request of business groups prior to enactment. We will be sharing enacted legislation with our company legal experts to determine whether we need to advocate for changes when the bill is sent to the Governor.

3) The News Media Alliance drafted legislation on our behalf which was designed to enable news publishers to be notified when AI developers have accessed their content. We worked with the broadcast industry, including public broadcasters, to push hard for the bill to be enacted, but as the Senate session entered its final hours, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, in response to opposition from Microsoft and other tech companies, blocked the bill from coming up for a vote.

4) We engaged in discussions over a sweeping personal data privacy bill with its Assembly sponsor, Consumer Protection Committee Chair Nily Rozic, to help craft legislation that would govern the collection and use of consumer data without risking harm to the news industry. A non-identical version of the bill had been introduced in the Senate, but the Assembly bill appeared to be more viable. In the end, it did not reach the Assembly floor, but we expect to continue to work with Assm. Rozic and her staff.

5) In January, the Legislature expedited passage of legislation to govern the collection and use of consumer health and wellness information. The bill, sponsored by Assm. Linda Rosenthal and Senator Elizabeth Krueger, would create a regulatory risk for news publishers which serve content to readers based upon their searches for health or wellness information. The bill has yet to be sent to Governor Hochul for her consideration (bills can be sent until the end of the year). It is unlikely the Governor will veto the bill, which is designed to protect womens' reproductive health data, but we will request that she require the legislature to pass amendments in 2026 to avoid compliance risk to news organizations for common and non-invasive use of reader search data.

6) We worked with a coalition of press organizations to support passage of a bill to preserve journalists' access to police radio communications when law enforcement agencies encrypt their communications. The bill, sponsored by Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris and Assm. Karines Reyes, passed both houses on June 5. It has yet to be sent to the Governor for her consideration. We will advocate for the Governor to sign the bill into law over the likely objections of some police unions.

7) Legislation to enforce FOIL deadlines, which had been shepherded through the legislative process by Reinvent Albany and a coalition of good government groups, passed both houses of the Legislature in the final days of session. We engaged with Assembly leadership to help the bill across the finish line.

8) We worked with Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assm. Jeff Dinowitz to craft legislation to update the Anti-SLAPP law we were able to enact in 2020 in order to address some areas of misunderstanding regarding applicability in the court system. That legislation did not move this year, and the Senate bill sponsor is expected to win election to Manhattan Borough President this year, so we will seek a new sponsor and try again in 2026.

9) Working with the New York Law Journal and New York Press Association, we derailed legislation by Assm. Patrick Burke and Sen. Elizabeth Krueger to remove the requirement that newly formed Limited Liability Companies publish a notice of formation in two newspapers in the county in which they are formed.

10) Legislation to impose costs and restrictions on businesses which use plastic packaging, which could have affected the use of newspaper polybags, failed to come up for a vote in the Assembly. We urged bill sponsors Sen. Pete Harkham and Assm. Deborah Glick to add an existing exemption in Environmental Conservation Law for newspaper delivery bags to the proposed legislation, but the legislators were not receptive. I expect they will try again to enact their bill in 2026.

I would like to recognize all of you who attended our meeting with the Governor and legislative leaders in March, and to all of you who made calls to advocate for our legislative program. Many thanks also to the News Media Alliance for supporting us with legal expertise and legislative trouble-shooting on many items of legislation. Most of all, I’d like to thank our longtime lobbyist, Frank Nemeth, for his work on our behalf. His connections in state government and his enthusiasm for newspapers are largely responsible for our success.

______________________________________________________________________

May 2024

Legislative Session Update

By Diane Kennedy,
President, New York News Publishers Association

The New York State Legislature is expected to adjourn in early June, and it promises to be a very busy few weeks, with a number of major bills in play that would impact newspapers.

During the first part of the legislative session, the big news was enactment of the Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program, which passed as a component of the state budget, thanks to support from Gov. Kathy Hochul. The legislation, which had been sponsored at our request by Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assm. Carrie Woerner, will provide a refundable tax credit of up to $25,000 per employee when the funding stream begins in January. A total of $90 million will be available over the course of three years. In the meantime, we will be actively involved in the regulatory process at Empire State Development Corp. to shape implementation of the credit. The final legislation offered ESDC a great deal of leeway over how the credit will be administered. The legislation left out not-for-profit news organizations, and we intend to patch that oversight in a new piece of legislation.

One other item which was included in the state budget at the last minute is less positive. The legislation, which took effect upon enactment of the budget, relates to the use of digital manipulation to generate misleading video or audio used in political campaign messaging. The new law would create a risk of litigation by candidates in the event that a news organization publishes digitally created audio or video content that is found to be “materially deceptive.” We are supporting corrective legislation which was drafted by the New York State Broadcasters Association to place responsibility on the creator of deceptive video or audio messages. In the meantime, we urge you to be cautious when publishing video or audio provided to you that relates to any political candidate, whether in the course of reporting or in the context of paid advertising. The legislation enables a candidate who is targeted by such digital messages to sue a media outlet that “knowingly” publishes the message without labeling it as deceptive or making a good faith effort to determine its accuracy.

We are also actively involved in lobbying efforts on a number of other matters:

• We have been working with the News Media Alliance and legal experts from our member companies to help shape legislation that is intended to protect minors from addictive social media feeds. Although we have been reassured that the news media is not the intended target of the legislation, vague definitions in the bills could result in liability for news entities that serve content to readers.

• Assemblymember Patricia Fahy is working to pass legislation that would require newspapers and magazines to publish a label on any published materials containing text or photo that was produced using generative artificial intelligence. We met with Assembly legal staff to express our opposition to the legislation, and to provide court decisions demonstrating that the legislation would be unconstitutional.

• The New York City Police Department has been in the process of encrypting its radio channels to block outside monitoring of its communication by the public and the press. We have been working with a coalition of press organizations for well over a year to persuade NYPD and the NYC Council to provide press access to most police radio channels, without success. We believe many other police agencies will follow suit, and we are supporting state-level legislation sponsored by Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Karines Reyes to guarantee continued press access to scanner traffic.

• Sen. Hoylman-Sigal is sponsoring legislation that would enable the parents or guardians of minors to prohibit photography of children in public places under certain circumstances. At our request, the Senator has amended his bill in an effort to avoid creating liability for journalists, and we will continue those discussions.

• We are working with an array of good government groups to enhance the Freedom of Information Law and Open Meetings law and are optimistic that some of the bills under discussion could pass by the time the legislative session ends in June.

Please contact me at any time if I can answer any questions, or if you have suggestions for legislation we might pursue to help newspapers.