MV Times announces departure of editor

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Longtime MVTimes editor Nelson Sigelman, shown here in March with spelling bee winner Sam Fetters, will be stepping down in October. -MVT file photo by Sam Moore

Martha’s Vineyard Times editor Nelson Sigelman told the newspaper staff Wednesday that he will leave the newspaper in October. Mr. Sigelman arrived at The Times in October 1989 to take a job in advertising sales. Soon he began writing a weekly fishing column. Then editor and Times owner Doug Cabral, certain he saw some latent writing talent in Mr. Sigelman’s work, turned him to the business of reporting and editing, at which Mr. Sigelman compiled a nearly three-decade record of accomplishment. Times owner and publisher Peter Oberfest, who with his wife Barbara became sole owners of the newspaper when Mr. Cabral retired in April 2014, named Mr. Sigelman to succeed Mr. Cabral as editor.

“I have devoted 26 years to the exclusive effort of getting out a weekly newspaper (and, with its website, to a certain recent extent a daily). I have always tried to focus on the stories that I think are important to all the people who live and work here, and particularly to tell those stories that but for The Times, might not be told, or would not be reported the way they ought to be,” Mr. Sigelman said. “It has not always been easy. There have been painful moments, telling stories we wished had not needed to be told, but I saw those as part of the job.”

Mr. Sigelman said he has made no plans just yet for his next career, beyond spending a few more hours afield.

“Nelson has devoted all his professional energy to making The Times the essential community newspaper it has become,” Mr. Oberfest said. “Barbara and I are grateful for his leadership of the newsroom and his unfailing loyalty to our newspaper. Nelson has left a first-rate staff in place, and all of us wish him well.”