As local, weekly newspapers, the Connection's mission is to bring the news you need about your community, to advocate for community good, to share profiles that give insight to interesting people, to provide a forum for dialogue on local concerns, and to celebrate and record milestones and events in people’s lives and in the community.
We understand that local issues matter, from property values and taxes, to land use, to public services and safety, to quality schools, to teen driving, to fiscal responsibility. We know that it’s our job to let you know about fun things too, about the arts, parks, nightlife, festivals and celebrations.
Local people matter, too. We’re interested in the way our readers live, what they love about their homes and neighborhoods, their favorite pastimes, places and restaurants.
In addition to this edition of the Connection that is delivered to your home, we publish 17 additional weekly papers in Northern Virginia. We strive to deliver the most local information possible to each of our readers.
But our Web site offers the opportunity to read any or all of the hundreds of items we report each week. If you go to www.ConnectionNewspapers.com, you can browse our stories by community, see what’s new on any given day, or research past coverage of an issue. You can check out sports features for the region, or just your high school. There are some new developments on our site. Each week, you can download the print edition of any or all of our papers, identical to the printed paper including photographs, display ads and classifieds.
The classified, employment and real estate listings from our papers are also available in several different formats.
AT THE CONNECTION, we invite newcomers to the area and long-time residents alike to be a part of providing more reader input.
Let us know how we're doing, and let us know what is going on in your part of the community. If you have questions or ideas, call us or send us an email.
We invite you to send letters to the editor, or just to send an email letting us know about something you especially liked or didn't like about our coverage. We appreciate readers' ideas. If you see something that you think might be a story, or just something you wonder about, give us a call, or drop us a line.
We want to know if you have an idea for fixing traffic in your part of the world. We want to know if you've had a good or bad experience with local government. We'd like to hear your ideas about how to make things better, or just to hear what you have to say about things that should be different.
If you know of a person or an organization doing important work, something that might make a good feature story, let us know. We are looking for people to feature in our "Neighbor Question and Answer" section each week.
We want to know if someone in your family or your community published a book, became an Eagle Scout, raised money for a good cause, accomplished some feat like running a marathon or having art included in an art show.
We publish photos and notes of a variety of personal milestones and community events, including births, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, awards and obituaries.
We are also interested in events at your church, mosque, synagogue, community center, pool, school, club, etc. Email or mail us a photo and a note about the event. Be sure to include the names of all the people who are in a photo, and say when and where the photo was taken. If you want a hard copy of a photo returned, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and please do not send us anything that is irreplaceable.
We also publish notes about news and events from local businesses. Notes about openings, new employees, anniversaries are welcome. It is especially important to us to let people know about events ahead of time in our calendar of events. We appreciate getting notice two weeks ahead of the event, and we encourage photos. Events for our calendars should be free or at nominal cost and open to the public.
As independently owned newspapers, we can respond to our readers in a way that others cannot. If you e-mail me, or a community editor or reporter, you’ll hear back from us. If you call, I’m likely to answer my own phone, and any of us will return your call if you leave a message.
Call the community reporter Derek R. Johnson at 703-917-6458 or editor Michael O'Connell at 703-917-6459. Send mail to the Laurel Hill Connection, 7913 Westpark Drive, McLean, VA 22102 or e-mail south@connectionnewspapers.com.
In covering the issues, we strive to provide a voice for our readers.
I look forward to hearing from you.
— Mary Kimm, publisher, mkimm@connectionnewspapers.com
703-917-6416