Fairlawn-Bath Patch is run Local Editor Debbie Palmer. We aim to bring you all the latest news from Fairlawn and Bath Township.

If you hear about something that you want to know more about, let Debbie know by emailing debbie.palmer@patch.com.

You can also write on the Facebook wall, or Tweet @BathPatch.

The Twinsburg Patch is Mitch's first crack at professional journalism.  A recent graduate from Kent State University with a degree in broadcast journalism, Mitch has held two great internships with local media.  He spent nearly six months writing and reporting online and over the air for WAKR in Akron.  After that, he spent several months working with WKSU in Kent.  He was a finalist in the 2010 William Randolph Hearst Awards for Television News.

Debbie Palmer has been a community journalist since earning a communication degree at Cleveland State University. She was an award-winning writer at the Sun Newspapers, where she worked as a reporter and assistant editor, overseeing the Sun Star and writing news and feature stories in Strongsville, including the Police Blotter.

A native New Yorker, Lori grew up in the Manhattan exurb of Pearl River, a town not unlike Avon Lake, Ohio where she's been living since 1994.

After graduating from Boston College in 1985 with a BA in English and Communications, she moved to Cleveland and spent nearly a decade as an investigator where her inquisitive nature was put to good use.

The following years were spent raising two kids and playing and coaching ice hockey before joining the staff at The Press newspaper. For the next 10 years, she functioned as a reporter, columnist and editor at The Press, earning state-level awards in each area.

In 2009 Lori launched Avon Lake's first online community newspaper, the Avon Lake Ledger and in 2010, the Avon Ledger. She was named editor of Avon Lake Patch in November of 2010, the editor of the Avon-Avon Lake Patch in 2011 and is a frequent contributor to other Patches.

Offline, you'll probably find Lori at a Cleveland-area rink, lacing up her Bauers for a game of ice hockey when she's not running through the MetroPark. 

Community service is a priority and in 2011 was named the first-ever female president of the Avon Lake Kiwanis Club. She was also on the founding Board of Directors at the French Creek YMCA in Avon.

Contact Lori at Lori.Switaj@patch.com or by phone at 440-670-9416.

John Deike's coursework at the Scripps-Howard School of Journalism at Ohio University and hands on experience with several area newspapers has laid the groundwork for his arrival at Patch. Whether it’s breaking news, government coverage, school updates, business features or stories with a human touch, Deike will bring his readers the news they can care about. He’ll go beyond the hearsay and find the facts folks need to make informed decisions. Catch him here weekly. It’s never too late for good news. 

At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable.

Nikki comes to Patch from the Greene County Dailies, a company that prints small community newspapers for four cities in Greene County, just east of Dayton, Ohio. At the Dailies, Nikki covered everything from crime to features to city government, and she even met Vanilla Ice and Jim Tressel (O-H!) while covering Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Before that, she worked for the Dayton Daily News as an intern and, later, contributor.

In her free time, Nikki loves to read, go to the movies and cook. Oh, and she's a Bears fan – but the Browns are just fine so please don't hold it against her.

I'm the editor of Lakewood Patch and a local news enthusiast.  I joined Patch because the company is at the forefront of the future of journalism. I have delivered, printed, packed, stacked, written for, edited and, of course, read newspapers. My first reporting gig came in the fourth grade when Mrs. Williams ordered – since I talked so much — that I report news and weather to begin the class each day. 

After stints in Chicago and Southern California, I returned to home to Northeast Ohio to attend Kent State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I held a reporting internship at the Record Publishing Co. by day and worked in the Akron Beacon Journal production department by night, stacking newspapers.

I later worked as a reporter and wire editor at the Record-Courier and received several awards for news and sports reporting. 

I live in Lakewood with my wife, Kelly Flamos, and our daughter, Ruby.

Kelly co-owns and operates Mahall's 20 Lanes with my brother-in-law, Joe Pavlick.

... In case you're curious, that will never affect my ability to report news professionally and fairly in this city that I love.

Matt comes to the Kent Patch after five years in the trenches covering news and events in the city and Kent State University.

His goal as editor of the Kent Patch is to provide its readers with information important to the community — whether that be on-the-spot coverage of a local fire, in-depth reporting on local government or coverage of the music and arts scenes.

Matt will be working closely with a team of freelancers — most of whom are your neighbors — to cover every nuance that is Kent.

This picture is probably one of the last times you'll see him wearing a tie! If you run into Matt around town, introduce yourself and say hi.

Brandon Baker is a Local Editor at Patch, providing coverage to sites in Mentor and Mayfield-Hillcrest.

He came to Patch in March 2012 with six years of community journalism under his belt. His reporting background includes reports on small and large businesses, municipalities, transit systems, health care and crime in Lake, Geauga and eastern Cuyahoga counties for The News-Herald.

Chris Mazzolini worked as a newspaper reporter in North Carolina for the past six years, where he jumped at the chance to cover all kinds of interesting and crazy things. Chris embedded with U.S. Marines on search-and-rescue operations in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He got some government folks fired for corruption. And a bunch more.

Life on the beach was great (he lived in a place called Surf City!) but his heart and family were elsewhere. So Chris happily returned to Northeast Ohio to abandon the printing press, go full digital and build something great.

Sarah Cocchimiglio is a 2003 graduate of Temple University, where she received a B.A. in journalism, public relations and advertising.
She began her journalism career in 2003 as a staff writer at Montgomery News, and became managing editor for the Spring-Ford Reporter and The Valley Item, two of Montgomery News' weekly community newspapers, in 2005.
In 2008, she took a two-year sabbatical from the world of journalism, to take a marketing and public relations position at a small, private company. Since then, Sarah has been freelance writing and editing in various capacities, while going back to school to study secondary education.
In October 2010, Sarah received her Pennsylvania Department of Education teaching certificate, and hopes to someday teach language arts and journalism to junior high and high school students.
She lives in Exeter Township, Pa., with her husband and two dogs.

Phil Meyer is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame in Journalism in the spring of 2008.  He joined the Journalism School in 1981 and served as Knight Chair in Journalism Professor from 1993-2008.  Prior to joining the school, he held a number of reporter and research positions at various media outlets. 

He has won numerous awards including the 2005 Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Research About Journalism (with Scott Maier). He was named a Fellow of Society of Professional Journalists in 2005. In 2004, the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication gave him its Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award. And in 2000 he received the American Association for Public Opinion Research Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement.

Meyer is the author of several books including The Vanishing Newspaper:  Saving Journalism in the Information Age and Precision Journalism:  A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods.  Journalism Quarterly in 2000 listed this book as one of the 35 significant books of the 20th century in journalism and mass communication; and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, observing its 50th anniversary in 1996, listed it as one of 50 significant books on public opinion research.

He received his B.S. in technical journalism from Kansas State University and his M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina.

Steven Berlin Johnson is a pioneer in the web world, as a co-founder of FEED, Plastic.com, and Outside.in, which was acquired by Patch in March of 2011. He also co-created Findings.com, which launched in late 2011. Steven was the 2009 Hearst New Media Professional-in-Residence at The Journalism School at Columbia University, and served for several years as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s Journalism School. He is a bestselling author of seven books, and won acclaim and a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2010 Time Magazine cover story, "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." 

Speaking of Steven's editorial prowess, check out this video based on Steven's book, Where Good Ideas Come From, which was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.

Brian was Editor-in-Chief of Time Out New York magazine before coming to Patch. Before that he worked for a variety of publications both online and off, including Details magazine, New York Magazine, and the old, dearly departed Sidewalk.com. He has written for numerous publications, from the New York Times magazine to Harper's Bazaar. He graduated from Bowdoin College and got an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University so he could put his novel in a drawer with distinction. He lives in Manhattan with his beautiful wife, adorable son, angelic daughter and the world's most dog-like cat. He’s proud as hell of what the Patch team has built.

Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Paulson served as the editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today.  He is now a columnist on USA Today’s board of contributors, writing about First Amendment issues and the news media.

Throughout his career, Paulson has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer, serving as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states.

He also is past-president of the American Society of News Editors, the nation’s largest organization of news media leaders.

Paulson also was the host of the Emmy-honored television program “Speaking Freely,” seen in more than 60 PBS markets nationwide over five seasons, and the author of "Freedom Sings," a multimedia stage show celebrating the First Amendment that continues to tour the nation's campuses.  

He was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online, launching online newspapers in both Florida and New York in 1993.

For 12 years, Paulson was a regular guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, speaking to more than 5,000 journalists about First Amendment issues. He was honored with the API Lifetime Service Award. In 2010 and 2011, he served as chair of the PBS Editorial Standards Review Committee.

In 2007, Paulson was named fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, “the highest honor SPJ bestows upon a journalist for extraordinary contributions to the profession.” In 2008, he  received the Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award for Meritorious Service in Mass Communications from the Southern Regional Press Institute. He has also been elected to the Illini Publishing Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois.

He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. In 2008, he received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from American University.