About Us

Immediate, shareable and in the voice of our town, the New Canaanite is New Canaan’s independent local news source.

Launched Jan. 31, 2014 by Michael Dinan, NewCanaanite.com covers quality-of-life news in this picturesque New England village—municipal government, schools, traffic, parking, land use, parks, wildlife, local history.

NewCanaanite.com has been a member publication of the Society of Professional Journalists and New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. For work published in the first calendar year NewCanaanite.com was live, we earned eight ‘Excellence in Journalism’ awards from the Connecticut Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, then 18 the next, including eight first-place awards.

In 2019, we earned an official citation from the Connecticut General Assembly for “five years of exceptional service to the New Canaan community with your insightful and clear-eyed reporting of town issues, events and residents. You are a great asset to the community.”

That same year, we launched the 0684-Radi0 weekly podcast.

Our free daily newsletter counts 3,000 subscribers, and our open and click-through rates are 69% and 32.2%, respectively, compared to industry averages of 31.5% and 7.3% (source: Mailchimp).

We are the official media partners of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society, and host the Community Coffee on the first Thursday of each month in partnership with New Canaan Library.

We believe that local news reporting is a responsibility and privilege, and it’s central to our mission to serve New Canaan with credibility, integrity and accountability. Though we have several columnists and freelance writers who contribute to the site, we keep our sole proprietorship small and nimble, and are not beholden to any political or other special interest.

We’ve been covered by several industry publications, including the Columbia Journalism Review, Yale Daily News, Republican-American, Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University and American Journalism Review.

For us, the font of New Canaan is etched into the sign that still hangs from our movie theater, New Canaan Playhouse, a local landmark that dedicated volunteers and the municipality itself have helped to preserve. That’s why we chose the photo you see in black-and-white behind this page as the background of New Canaanite.

Since launching, New Canaanite has served as a sponsoring business and media sponsor for scores of local community events and causes, including partnerships with AmeriCares, Carriage Barn Arts Center, New Canaan Preservation Alliance, New Canaan Historical Society, New Canaan Dog Days, Stand Together Against Racism, New Canaan Chamber Music, New Canaan CARES and the New Canaan High School Scholarship Foundation.