Staffing changes at the News-Review

There have been some staffing changes at the Riverhead News-Review.

Monday marked the first day on the job for the paper’s newest staff writer, Paul Squire, a Suffolk County native and cum laude graduate of Boston University.

Mr. Squire brings with him almost two years of professional experience through Patch.com, an AOL-owned news website where he last served as editor of its Riverhead site. He also boasts writing and copy editing experience on two college publications.

A Manorville resident, Mr. Squire was hired to replace veteran News-Review staff writer and associate web editor Vera Chinese, who left the company Wednesday for a position with the New York Daily News.

“Vera’s writing style, reporting prowess and technical abilities will be missed,” said News-Review editor Michael White. “But Paul has done a great job at Patch, and when Vera’s slot opened up we thought of him immediately. We’re glad he accepted. He’s got hustle and plenty of enthusiasm, which will help him and us tremendously as he undertakes this new role.”

Mr. Squire will be covering education, police and breaking news, as well as writing general assignment stories.

Meanwhile, News-Review sports editor and two-time New York Press Association Sports Writer of the Year, Joe Werkmeister, will now be serving as associate web editor.

While Mr. Werkmeister will still cover sports, he’ll help with web-oriented work that includes posting and generating videos, slide shows and other multimedia to riverheadnewsreview.com, while writing, editing and posting news stories to the website.

“Joe’s a workhorse and a superior talent,” said Andrew Olsen, publisher of Times/Review Newsgroup, the newspaper’s parent company. “He’s also tech savvy. So besides writing great sports stories and sports features, he shoots video and has in the past conducted podcasts that we’ve posted online after and before some big games.

“He’ll be bringing all his skills to the news side of the company, while also thinking big picture and working toward beefing up our sports coverage on the Web.”

Mr. Werkmeister also started in his new role on Monday. He can be reached at [email protected].

Mr. Squire can be reached at [email protected].