I came to the Local in April 2024 as the business growth officer, a role made possible through the generous support of a Lenfest Sustainability Grant. It was an exciting opportunity, both for the Local and for me. I was hired to expand the Local’s reach into and service of Mt. Airy and Germantown, to engage with those communities in meaningful ways, and to expand the Local’s presence in Northwest Philadelphia. I applied for the job because these neighborhoods are woven into the fabric of my Philadelphia existence.  

My first job in Philadelphia was working on the Avenue in Chestnut Hill at Sanctuary, a long-since-closed spiritual bookstore and clothing shop. Later, I rented space at Kismet Cowork. I’ve worked, shopped and eaten in Chestnut Hill for 15 years and lived in Mt. Airy for 14 years before moving to Germantown, where I’ve been for the last year and a half.

Even after being promoted to publisher in July, the top of my organizational priority list includes serving the Northwest Philadelphia region as a whole, and expanding beyond the boundaries of Chestnut Hill into Southeastern Montgomery County. In the year I’ve been at the Local, I’ve met with community stakeholders, business owners, residents, and readers, and have learned a lot about how the Local is perceived; not only where we’ve excelled but also where we’ve missed the mark.

Perhaps the most significant miss was our Mt. Airy Local.

In 2020, when the Chestnut Hill Local first launched the Mt. Airy Local, the idea was to create differentiated print products: a Chestnut Hill newspaper and a Mt. Airy newspaper. These two distinct papers were supposed to serve the needs of each neighboring community. 

Unfortunately, intention never matched execution. Like most newspapers today, the Local has a limited budget and small staff. Producing two entirely different print products would have been costly, not to mention a logistical nightmare. Our freelance and staff writers do an incredible job of turning out deeply reported, award-winning journalism. To have confined their stories to either Chestnut Hill or Mt. Airy would have stretched our already thin resources. Also, it wouldn’t have served our audience.  

Readers in Mt. Airy, Chestnut Hill, parts of Springfield Township, Germantown and surrounding neighborhoods have overlapping interests. They want to know about political matters, zoning and development initiatives, crime, traffic calming, business openings and closings, and options for weekend activities. They want to read about the lives of their nearby neighbors, whether in one of Len Lear’s engaging features, a Maggie Dougherty masterpiece, or one of Tommy Tucker’s breaking news articles. They want to mourn the deaths of beloved community members and recall their trajectories through one of our heartwarming obituaries.

It’s not surprising that, as the Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy Locals took shape, they became nearly indistinguishable. Sure, we’d re-plate the front page and the inner pages, so Mt. Airy readers would see their own masthead and, sometimes, a Mt. Airy-specific crime report. But those minor changes weren’t enough to make each paper different. 

And our readers don’t want different. They want a sense of community. To borrow the tagline from our recent annual appeal, they see Northwest Philadelphia and nearby Springfield Township as “better together.” 

I’d like to thank those who provided the feedback that led to our decision to eliminate a separate printed Mt. Airy newspaper.

As of May 8, 2025, we’ll print under one masthead as the Chestnut Hill Local: Serving Northwest Philadelphia and Southeastern Montgomery County. While we briefly considered changing our name to be more expansive, we decided against it. We’ve been the Chestnut Hill Local since 1958 and we’re proud of our legacy and origins. Further, our website, email addresses and more are affiliated with our current name and other newspapers are called the “Northwest Local” and the “Local.”  

The path forward is clear. All subscribers to both papers will begin receiving printed editions with the new masthead starting Thursday, May 8.  

What does this mean for you? We hope to bring you an even better, more cohesive, more authentic product. We plan to expand our current print circulation and our printed newspapers will contain content that encompasses Southeastern Montgomery County and Northwest Philadelphia. We will also revamp our newsletter to include stories from throughout our service region. For readers who would like to explore news focusing on a specific neighborhood, we believe our website will serve as a valuable resource.

We’re excited to implement a change that will enable us to simultaneously expand our print reach and build value online. This is also a cost-saving measure for us, which means we can redirect resources to expand coverage and improve our marketing efforts. We want to serve more readers and serve our current readers even more effectively.

We’re grateful to the advertisers, funders and readers who offered their thoughts about ways the Local could improve. This change comes as a direct result of your feedback and I thank you in advance for your support and grace as we implement this transition. I look forward to learning how these print and digital changes enable you to better engage with your Northwest Philadelphia and Southeastern Montgomery County news. Please feel free to contact me at daralyse@chestnuthilllocal.com. 

Daralyse Lyons

Publisher