News Journal owners Terry Forcht and Don Estep have announced that Trevor Sherman will be assuming publisher duties at the weekly newspaper effective Jan. 1, 2025.
Sherman will become the third publisher in the News Journal’s 38-year history.
Estep began in 1987 when he took over as publisher of the former Whitley Republican. Soon thereafter, he launched a new weekly publication in the Corbin area called Corbin! This Week. The two papers merged in 1992 under the banner of the News Journal.
Estep stepped down as the full-time publisher of the News Journal in 2015, serving as publisher emeritus for five years after handing the reins off to Trent Knuckles, who spent a total of 24 years with the paper before leaving to explore other opportunities in 2020.
Estep resumed publisher duties after Knuckles’ departure, and has held the position for the past four years.
Sherman first came to the News Journal in 2011 as an advertising sales representative and a delivery route driver. In late 2013, he took over as sports editor when former editor, Jim McAlister, had to resign due to mounting health concerns. He began making the transition to doing more news and feature writing in early 2020, but made the decision later that year to pursue other career paths.
Over the next year-and-a-half, Sherman remained engaged with the News Journal, filling in on an as-needed basis until he returned to full-time employment in the summer of 2022. Since that time, he has resumed sports reporting duties, contributed to the publication’s weekly local news coverage, provided regular editorial content, and taken on additional composition responsibilities, among other tasks.
“I am pleased to announce that Trevor Sherman, a young man who started his newspaper career with us 14 years ago, will be the new publisher of the News Journal,” Estep wrote recently in his My Journey column. “Trevor is talented in many ways. He has experience in selling advertising, writing news and sports copy and composition.”
“When I told our staff that my health would no longer let me carry on the duties of publisher, all were in favor of Trevor taking over. His youth will serve him well, because a publisher has many demanding jobs. Most of our staff has been here over 30 years and that will make this transition easy for him.”
To read comments from Sherman related to this transition, see his Thinking Out Loud column, found this week on page A-4.
