President/Chairman of the Board William S. Fish, Jr. is a partner at the Hartford law firm of Hinckley Allen. Bill’s practice spans a broad range of legal disciplines including business services, complex commercial litigation, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, real estate, and the First Amendment. He has tried numerous complex matters in state and federal court and regularly represents clients in complex bankruptcy proceedings, acquisitions, real estate transactions and loan transactions. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Virginia School of Law as well as a fellow in The Trial Lawyer Honorary Society of the Litigation Counsel of America. Bill successfully represented the Hartford Courant in the Connecticut Supreme Court on access to records related to the Sandy Hook shooting and the Associated Press regarding 911 tapes for the shooting. Bill, along with the Courant and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, recently filed suit in U.S. District Court in regards to a new Connecticut law that may violate the speech and open government rights of the press and public.
Bob Englehart is the award-winning editorial cartoonist who worked for 35 years at the Hartford Courant before he was strongly encouraged to take a buyout in November of 2015. Before that he drew editorial cartoons for five years at the Dayton, Ohio Journal Herald before it went out of business. Today, he is a freelance syndicated editorial cartoonist for Caglecartoons.com and www.patreon.com/Englehart. He attended the American Academy of Art on full scholarship in Chicago from 1964 to 1966. He was the only finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980. Interesting story. Google has the details. He’s been married to Pat McGrath since 1988 and between them, they have three grown children and four grandchildren.
Kate Farrish is an assistant professor of journalism at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut. She is also a freelance writer for the Connecticut Health Investigative Team and an instructor at C-HIT.org’s summer journalism workshops for high school students. She spent 23 years at the Hartford Courant, where she was a higher education writer, bureau chief and city editor and won state and national awards. From 2009 to 2019, she taught newswriting at the University of Connecticut. She received a journalism degree with honors from UConn in 1983 and a master’s degree in digital communications, with a focus in journalism innovation, in 2018 from the online Communications@Syracuse program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Contact: katefarrish@gmail.com.
Matthew Kauffman recently retired from The Hartford Courant after a 32-year career. Assigned to the paper’s investigative desk, he worked on longer-term projects, specialized in computer-assisted reporting and served as an adviser to the reporting staff on freedom of information issues. In 2007, Kauffman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series he co-authored on mentally ill troops sent to war. He has also received the Polk Award, the Selden Ring Award, the Worth Bingham Prize, the Stephen A. Collins Memorial Freedom of Information Award, and was named a “Master Reporter” by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors. Since moving away from daily journalism, Kauffman has consulted for several state and national news and civic organizations and is currently working with a large tech company on the development of a free data-reporting tool for small newsrooms. Kauffman also teaches data journalism at Central Connecticut State University and has leadership positions on a number of journalism organizations that promote open government and the First Amendment.