Back in June of 2014, I was approached by a familiar face. In fact, about 18 years earlier, he had a microphone in my face while conducting a brief interview after a high school baseball game I pitched in for John Jay High School. He has also been reporting on local sports for over 30 years. Yes, his name is Charlie Cornacchio. In September of 2013, he hired me to help assist with his other venture, Hudson Valley Sports Report. Fast forward one year – HVSR has accumulated over 1 million pageviews. This time, he contacted me to discuss a new project – Hudson Valley News Network. I gladly jumped on board.
So far, so good for HVNN. This Hudson Valley News Agency opened its doors (or should I say, launched its virtual doors) on September 1st, 2014 and have already become a premium news agency for the Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, Putnam, and Sullivan County regions. Through rigorous social media outreach and general word of mouth, the site continues to receive more and more traffic each day. In order to take HVNN to the next level, I felt it was important to submit their website address to Google News for consideration. The requirements for inclusion in to their special news search engine is not easy. However, in mid-April, we received notice that HVNN was successfully accepted in to Google News. When searching for local news stories, you will now see featured stories that originated from Hudson Valley News Network. See example below.
