New editor takes the reins at BMN

Beach Metro News has a new editor. While Jon Muldoon is new to the position, many will remember him from the 10 years he worked as the paper’s reporter/photographer.

Jon, 36, was born in Burlington, ON. In 1998, he completed the program in photojournalism at Loyalist College, “one of the two real photojournalism programs in Canada at the time,” he said.

When I asked Jon why photojournalism, he said that initially he thought about signing up for a number of programs including music recording, music performance and art. While the journalism won out, Jon still pursues his interests in music – most recently performing in a duo with his wife Amanda, and art, where his forays into the subterranean world of urban infrastructure (i.e., sewers) earned him a lot of interest at art shows.

After finishing at Loyalist, Jon worked as an intern at the London Free Press, and then spent almost a year in Drayton Valley, AB, reporting for the Western Review. He then returned to the GTA, joining Beach Metro in 1999. Jon’s dramatic shots of Beach scenery and well-written stories on the environment (particularly changes at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant) and local sports were a feature of the paper until September 2010, when Jon and his wife Amanda left for Smithers, BC.

Amanda had recently finished her nursing degree and the hospital in Smithers offered her a chance to gain experience working in a more remote community. Jon took a job with the Smithers Interior News, where he handled the sports and community beats. When he saw the posting for the editor’s position here he knew it was fate.

“I missed working at a community paper that embodies what a community newspaper should be,” he said.

As he settled into the editor’s chair (literally), he said he wants to “carry on the tradition of covering what matters to the community.”

I wish Jon all the best. I am sure I am leaving the paper in good hands.

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