Ben Wolford, founder and editor of The Portager, an online local news startup serving Portage County will be the featured speaker at the Friends of the Hiram College Library Fall Program. The event will be held on Thursday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. via Zoom.
A native to the area, Wolford graduated from Waterloo High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Kent State University in 2011. He founded The Portager in March 2020 to build a strong local news source for Portage County. Today, The Portager’s email newsletter and other channels reach over 80,000 readers every month.
Additionally, Wolford works at Wolford Communications, a marketing firm founded by his father in 1993. Over the years, the company has evolved from providing print, marketing, and PR services for major corporations to focusing almost exclusively on the car wash industry. Wolford is also the English language editor at il manifesto, an Italian newspaper, and he volunteers with Empowerment Avenue, an organization that helps journalists get their work published.
Wolford began his career by interning at The Boston Globe, The Columbus Dispatch, and the Dominion Post. He was also a general assignment reporter at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, where he covered Palm Beach County. Later, he moved to New York and was a freelance writer for Newsweek, amNewYork, and a variety of other publications.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register now. The Zoom link to attend will be emailed directly to attendees prior to the event. For questions, please contact Janet Vogel, director of the Hiram College Library, at VogelJ@hiram.edu
