The Overlook: Community Journalism for 6 Catskills Towns 🗞️

[00:00:00] Noah Eckstein: In 2020, Northwestern University did a study that said, quite famously in the journalism industry, that two newspapers were dying per week in the United States.

[00:00:14] Brett Barry: That rate is now closer to 2.5 newspapers per week, and if we are to believe what Walter Cronkite told us, that journalism is what we need to make democracy work, then we may be in serious trouble. On a positive note, and in defiance of that trend, the Catskill region just gained a newspaper, and on today's podcast, you'll hear from Noah Eckstein, editor-in-chief of The Overlook, serving six communities in the Catskills. Stay tuned...

[00:00:47] Campbell Brown: Kaatscast is supported by The Mountain Eagle, covering Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie Counties, including brands for the local region such as The Windham Weekly,Schoharie News, Cobleskill Herald, and Catskills Chronicle. For more information, call (518) 763-6854 or email mountaineaglenews@gmail.com; and by Briars & Brambles Books, the go-to independent book and gift store in the Catskills located in Windham, New York, right next to the pharmacy, just steps away from the Windham Path, open daily! For more information, visit briarsandbramblesbooks.com or call (518) 750-8599.

[00:01:29] Brett Barry: I met up with 28-year-old Noah Eckstein, the Overlook's inaugural editor-in-chief, in a small white room in Woodstock, New York, not just any small white room.

[00:01:40] Noah Eckstein: I'm Noah Eckstein, editor-in-chief of The Overlook, which is a new nonprofit news outlet that serves Woodstock, Saugerties, Hunter, Hurley, Shandaken, and Olive, and right now we are in Woodstock, New York, at the old Bob Dylan White Room, which supposedly, according to folklore of this place, Bob Dylan wrote Masters of War, Mr. Tambourine Man, and many other songs. He was living in Woodstock for a while, and he rented this space to get away from his young family to write.

[00:02:17] Brett Barry: This very room.

[00:02:18] Noah Eckstein: This very room, yes, sometimes I like to conjure the spirit of him, but I'm reminded that he's not dead.

[00:02:28] Brett Barry: Maybe he'll stop in?

[00:02:29] Noah Eckstein: Yeah.

[00:02:33] Brett Barry: So tell me about this new venture, Overlook. How did it come about, and who's behind it?

[00:02:38] Noah Eckstein: So Overlook is a nonprofit news outlet. It started when Scott Widmeyer and Jackie Kellachan got together. Jackie is co-owner of the Golden Notebook Bookstore. Scott has lived here for over 15 years, and he comes from communications and was deputy press secretary to Jimmy Carter's second campaign, and they came together and realized that this area, the Overlook region, these six towns, were not receiving robust coverage when it comes to just journalism and local governance coverage. They formed a board, and they held focus groups to really understand what was missing, what people wanted, and they then hired me. I came on board part-time in October of '24, full-time at the beginning of 2025. We launched in February, February 13th, and we're going as a weekly, so our board is mainly concerned with, you know, just overseeing the nonprofit, overseeing what we do, and fundraising. There are many wonderful people on the board. Alexis Gelber, who is a professor of journalism at NYU; Lisa Phillips, who's a professor of journalism in New Paltz; Peggy Barmore, who's a wonderful education reporter; Peter Cherukuri, who worked with Politico; Mark Land, who used to be deputy editor of The Saratogian; Amy Scheibe, who is very active in Hunter and the Catskill Mountain Foundation, and so, yeah, these are just a group of people, community stakeholders, leaders who are coming together, trying to put their efforts and resources and money behind local journalism.

[00:04:23] Brett Barry: So you mentioned six communities: Hunter, Hurley, Olive, Saugerties, Shandaken, and Woodstock.

[00:04:32] Noah Eckstein: Yep.

[00:04:33] Brett Barry: How were those towns identified as places that needed local journalism presence?

[00:04:38] Noah Eckstein: I think a lot of that came from the early focus groups that Jackie and Scott held with the communities, and it was also a conscious effort on where we could make the most impact. It's sort of this idea of the Overlook region, you know, standing on top of Overlook Mountain, looking around, what do you see? Right now, this is like where we really see we can make the most difference and connect these communities to each other in a deeper way.

[00:05:06] Brett Barry: What is the local journalism scene in the Catskills, and how does this fit in?

[00:05:11] Noah Eckstein: I think the Catskills, compared to other parts of the country, the local journalism environment is pretty robust. You know, there's Hudson Valley One, there's Chronogram, The Mountain Eagle, but I think we're trying to do something a little different, dig a little deeper, bring on people with experience in investigative journalism, so while there is coverage, I think what we're trying to do is build a team that can provide consistent, robust coverage that is really holding the powerful to account and ensuring that we're meeting that First Amendment, Fourth Estate role that journalism, you know, is for.

[00:05:57] Brett Barry: Not a lot of investigative journalism in the Catskills. Is that something that sets you apart?

[00:06:01] Noah Eckstein: As we grow, I think our lane could very well be investigative when it comes to the news. I'm trying to move us away from minute coverage of meetings, so if a zoning board meeting might not require a 600-word story, but it could be a truncated, distilled version of what happens in 100 words, then just having a journalist go there, they are building connections, having interviews for something that is a longer-term story.

[00:06:34] Brett Barry: So right now it's updated once a week. How do readers access it?

[00:06:37] Noah Eckstein: Readers can access The Overlook at www.theoverlooknews.com. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you can subscribe. It's free to receive. We also have Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky [@theoverlooknews], which we post sort of the biggest stories of the week, and we'll continue growing those platforms as sort of a more of a back and forth between what we're doing and the audience.

[00:07:06] Brett Barry: The Overlook was organized as a nonprofit. What are the benefits of that structure, and particularly for a news outlet, is that unique?

[00:07:15] Noah Eckstein: In 2020, Northwestern University did a study that said, quite famously in the journalism industry, that two newspapers were dying per week in the United States. That number, most recently, they updated it in 2024 to 2.4 newspapers, so the idea that a newspaper could be a nonprofit has sort of formed as a resilient model, particularly with this umbrella organization called The Institute for Nonprofit News, which currently is our fiscal sponsor. They provide insurance lawyers, a community of people to bounce ideas off of, discounts on health insurance, and payroll. They really help news startups get started, and eventually in the next six to eight months, we'll be our own incorporated nonprofit, but still considered under the umbrella of INN, so now that we've started publishing, we're applying to grants. There are a lot of foundation grants. There's reporting specific grants, so, for example, the Shady Dump as it's colloquially known around here, that story is an environmental story that we could apply to some environmental reporting grants to cover that story.

[00:08:32] Brett Barry: That's a lot of work to find story-specific grants.

[00:08:35] Noah Eckstein: Yes, yes, so that's a big part of my job at this point, is delegating, is finding people who can spearhead some of that work, but I have a lot of experience in grant writing as well.

[00:08:48] Brett Barry: Why is local journalism in such dire straits? What's changed, and how does the nonprofit structure protect you against those factors?

[00:08:59] Noah Eckstein: So, yeah, okay, what we'll... I'll start with the first part of the question: what's changed? It used to be every town had a local paper. It was dropped off at the corner store. It was dropped off, you know, on your driveway. There was a local paper, the national paper got dropped off, and that was the source of truth that was before social media, before the internet—that is what people really clung to to stay in the know of what was going on. So much has changed with social media, particularly with Millennials and Gen Z. I don't know a Gen Zer who is subscribing. I'm sure they're out there, but largely from what I'm seeing on social media is... Gen Z is not subscribing to paid news. There's so much content online that it's overwhelming, and young people feel satiated in terms of what they need to know based on the few paragraphs of news that they get accompanied by a photo on social media.

[00:10:08] Brett Barry: I know a lot of older people who aren't going to pay for news either, which is unfortunate, but go ahead.

[00:10:14] Noah Eckstein: Do you, do you, would you say that those people were people who used to have subscriptions to newspapers and would read print?

[00:10:22] Brett Barry: Yes, and then there are, you know, traditional online components of newspapers that have paywalls that a lot of people refuse to get through that paywall. They would rather just read the headline and see if anybody else could summarize it for them, which is unfortunate because obviously everything costs money. Journalism is not cheap.

[00:10:42] Noah Eckstein: Yeah.

[00:10:43] Brett Barry: Sending people out in the field and paying their salaries.

[00:10:45] Noah Eckstein: Sure, and I get it. People are busy. They have a lot that's going on in their lives. Things are not easy, and a lot of times national headlines can seem so jarring and scary that it makes people [for their own mental health] want to shut that off.

[00:11:05] Brett Barry: And also, years ago you had your one or two newspapers. Now through social media, you see headlines from newspapers all over the country, so no, I probably don't want to pay for a subscription for every newspaper headline that I see online just to read that article.

[00:11:20] Noah Eckstein: Exactly.

[00:11:20] Brett Barry: Something comes through from The Washington Post. I don't know if I want to subscribe. It's not my community.

[00:11:27] Noah Eckstein: Yeah.

[00:11:27] Brett Barry: So we're exposed to more news than we would have before—more options more opportunities—but to subscribe to all of those would be ridiculous as well.

[00:11:38] Noah Eckstein: Yeah, but that's one thing with The Overlook. We are free. We, you know, completely plan to remain free with no paywall, which I think is huge. There's no barrier to accessing what we do, and we're finding ways to include younger people in the creation of the news. We have, who will be joining us soon, a high school correspondent who will be our eyes and ears in high schools. They're the next generation of journalists and of active citizens, and there are so many interesting national news stories that affect local kids in our area. One of them is when TikTok was banned and shut down for like 36 hours, a lot of young people went over to a social media called Rednote.

[00:12:25] Brett Barry: Right.

[00:12:26] Noah Eckstein: And they're still on it, and what does that mean? What, you know, what does that mean for kids at Onteora? So yeah, we're trying to find ways for young people to be included and for us to also make The Overlook something that young people want to read and go to as something that they view as critical for their news diet, which is going to take some time. You know, most of the people that have shown early support to us are, you know, 40+, and that's a constant conversation I'm having with our board is how to make The Overlook something that young people want to read.

[00:13:04] Brett Barry: Was it difficult to find reporters to cover this area?

[00:13:07] Noah Eckstein: Yes, yes, we're still actively interviewing and talking to reporters. A big part of my job right now is trying to convince retired journalists who live in this area to write a story a month, do an investigative piece, or do an environmental piece. There are a lot of younger people who are interested, but with a new startup with young people, it sometimes takes a lot of editing and mentorship and guidance, which I'm very open to, but with the weekly schedule, it becomes a little difficult as we're building our team, so anyone who's listening to this who wants to contribute, please, please reach out.

[00:13:47] Brett Barry: So you, as the founding editor-in-chief, are shepherding these stories.

[00:13:51] Noah Eckstein: Yeah.

[00:13:52] Brett Barry: Tell us a little bit about your background in journalism and how you found yourself here.

[00:13:56] Noah Eckstein: Yeah, so I grew up in New Jersey. I always wanted to be a journalist. My grandmother was a refugee of the Spanish Civil War and came to this country and started cleaning apartments in New York City, and she remembers hearing Edward R. Murrow on the radio, and that's how she learned to speak English, and she always instilled in me a desire to tell stories, that telling stories is a way for people to recognize a deeper, compassionate version of humanity, so from the time that I was like 12 years old, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. When I was 14, I was an intern at the New York Post in this iPad-only newspaper called The Daily, and when I went to high school, I started a weekly news program on our high school TV station called Noah's Noggin, which was very, very fun to produce, and kids loved it, and I would have people on, and we would have interviews.

[00:15:09] Brett Barry: That high school news show also helped put Noah on a path of investigative inquiry that serves as a guidepost for The Overlook.

[00:15:18] Noah Eckstein: Yeah, so Noah's Noggin was quite controversial in the town that I grew up in, in Kinnelon, New Jersey, which was a small, very white, conservative town, and so I would bring on students with disparate viewpoints to share their thoughts in the spirit of journalism that I once had on the three Muslim students who were in the school who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I had them on, and the school vice principal and principal ran up to the recording studio and stepped in front of the camera and didn't allow that to get aired, which always stuck with me, and it still sticks with me in terms of the fact that good journalism and journalism that seeks a diversity of perspectives sometimes people don't want that, but that is even more reason why it's important to protect the First Amendment, Freedom of the Press, and to do our job. I went to college in the U.K. I did my undergrad and master's in London, studied journalism and U.S. history to get an international perspective on U.S. coverage and U.S. journalism, and yeah, after that I worked for a bunch of different places: Semafor Regional Outlets, The Daily News in the city, The New York Times, and then during the pandemic my partner and I moved to the Hudson Valley and just have been working and living up here as journalists, and this is a dream come true for me. I mean, to run a news outlet with a team of people that are so thoughtful and compassionate and really looking to make a difference, the bones and the structure for sustainability and deep impact are there to be a part of something that's so fresh and so exciting and forward-looking and trying to make a real difference in the community is really a dream come true for me.

[00:17:23] Brett Barry: Okay, so as of this interview, you're just two issues in.

[00:17:26] Noah Eckstein: Yep.

[00:17:27] Brett Barry: What have you learned so far about covering this corner of the Catskills, and have you changed tack at all, even at this early stage from where you started?

[00:17:39] Noah Eckstein: So what I can say is that in terms of stories, there are so many stories. I think for one day I was worried, like, will there be enough to cover, and that's not a concern at all, so really we haven't changed course in any way. It's just finding dedicated, talented, independent journalists that can help us cover all that's going on.

[00:18:04] Brett Barry: So it seems like maybe there are more stories coming in than you can cover?

[00:18:06] Noah Eckstein: Yep.

[00:18:07] Brett Barry: How do you determine what gets the focus? Is that your, I would imagine that that comes out of Noah's Noggin?

[00:18:14] Noah Eckstein: Yes, yeah, so I think we're still very much in this phase one where we are making connections, building trust with our community and readers, and building out what we can cover. It comes with time. I think in three weeks, the amount that we'll be able to cover is much different than what we started with, and so we're just excited that the response from readers has been so positive and that people have been yearning for something like this and are willing to volunteer their time to help us, you know, get this going because it's going to take these communities coming together to support us for this to be sustainable, you know, sending news tips, sending letters to the editor. We very much view The Overlook as, like, a living, breathing town square that is in constant communication with the town and the people that we cover, so it's not like we're this hierarchical thing in a vacuum. Our focus is really community-driven journalism.

[00:19:20] Brett Barry: Are you concerned at all that being based kind of in the heart of Woodstock, Woodstock will drive most of the journalism? What kind of efforts are you making to make sure that those other five towns that are in your mission are covered adequately? Because there's always a lot of news in Woodstock, I feel, but you know, as you said, those other five towns need coverage.

[00:19:40] Noah Eckstein: Yeah, I mean, I think we're doing a good job already of sort of spreading out coverage, but it's a matter of continuing to cultivate dedicated writers who can cover the towns, but we also have to cover the bases with Woodstock and Saugerties. I mean, we're looking at it as trying to cover it all at the same time, but until we bring on more writers, we have to focus on Woodstock. As we grow, you know, I'm very interested in partnering with the historical societies in each of these towns to produce interesting historical features of what came before because a lot of times people who move into these towns, they don't know so much the history of what has happened and their sense of place within the community where they're entering it, so I think The Overlook can help with ensuring that new neighbors just understand what's going on, but also what came before. It does take a village. Again, the bones are here for this to be sustainable, but we hope that people who read and who subscribe and who hear this feel like they can be a part of this too, whether it be through an internship, through pitching a story, you know, or writing a story. Yeah, we're interested in finding ways for a diversity of members of these six towns, community members can engage, regardless of their background or, you know, where they come from.

[00:21:24] Brett Barry: You can read and subscribe to The Overlook at theoverlooknews.com. Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast is a biweekly production of Silver Hollow Audio in the heart of the Catskills. Transcription by Jerome Kazlauskas is one of the many reasons to visit us at kaatscast.com, where you can listen to any one of our 138 episodes and counting. Subscribe as a listener member or buy a T-shirt to showcase that Kaatscast Pride! You can also leave a voicemail right on the site to comment on a show, pitch an idea for a new one, or just to say hello. We love the feedback. In fact, here are portions of three voicemails in response to our last episode about wireless coverage, or lack thereof, in the Catskill Mountains

[00:22:16] Listener Voicemail (1): I've been here for over 25 years, and I've been fighting for cell service since day one. It's gotten increasingly difficult living here without cell service for a number of reasons. The internet is out frequently. The electricity is out frequently, and there's no way of communicating for 911 emergencies to get updates on any of the outages, and most importantly, drivers that are driving around at night are hitting deers. I've had three people in the last two years come to my house at 1 o'clock in the morning, 3 o'clock in the morning, hysterical, needing services, and they had no way of communicating. I've been to Africa. I've been around the world to places that were mountainous, and there was cell service. I cannot understand how, at this day and age, we don't have this very needed service. In addition to that, I've had a few neighbors here that have moved away from Shandaken because they couldn't carry out their work at home because they needed cell phone service.

[00:23:24] Listener Voicemail (2): I depend for most of my livelihood on an internet connection. That's how I do all of my work, and so when the power goes out, I am not able to text clients and other collaborators about cancellations. I have to get in my car from Phoenicia and drive to Boiceville and connect with people that way. It's a real giant pain in the ass. You know, when I drive down Main Street on my way home from somewhere and I see the power's out in the town, I just turn around and go right back to Boiceville.

[00:24:01] Listener Voicemail (3): The Verizon phone service in the Big Indian Valley is simply horrendous. There's been no improvement over the past 70 or 80 years. Landlines are always out. When they do come to repair something, they take away a line from some other homeowner and give it to you for a little while, and then they'll take it from you and give it to somebody else. An interesting occurrence happened when Verizon did show up at my residence one time and fixed the phone so I had a dial tone. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. I answered it, and the caller said, "Is this Verizon?" I said, "No," they left about 20 minutes ago. He said, "What are you doing in my house?" I said, "I'm not in your house. I'm in my own home." Well, Verizon had given me the number of somebody a mile away. We've all given up on Verizon. It's simply terrible, but luckily with Starlink, we now have internet and [with internet with] Wi-Fi calling, so no more Verizon, who has totally failed the residents in the Big Indian Valley.

[00:25:17] Brett Barry: Tune in next time for a tour of the Ulster County Archives with Historian Eddie Moran. Until then, keep in touch on Instagram [@kaatscast]. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for listening.