Patch User Profile for Lauren Williams

Email: lauren.williams@patch.com Phone: 203-240-3532 Hometown: Danbury, CT Birthday: December 4

Bio: Lauren Williams was born and raised in Danbury. Back in 2004, her passion for journalism started upon joining her high school newspaper. For four years, she worked for her college newspaper, The Crusader, at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, working her way up from staff writer to editor in chief her senior year. Lauren graduated in May 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications with an emphasis in journalism. Her local editor position at Patch is her first post-graduate job.

Besides working as the publicist for many of her college organizations, Lauren also had internships at 98Q and at MasterCard's communications department at its headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. She also studied abroad in spring 2009 at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom, where she took media studies classes and traveled to nine additional European countries.

Lauren also has interests in politics, fashion and music. She is fascinated to watch the change within the news industry, particularly with social media, technology and community news. Your Beliefs At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license for you to inject your beliefs into stories or to dictate coverage according to them. In fact, the intent is the opposite: we hope that the knowledge that your beliefs are on the record will cause you to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair, balanced way. And if you ever see evidence that we failed in this mission, please let us know. Politics How would you describe your political beliefs? I have strong opinions but I love to have good, open conversations about politics. Socially, I am very liberal but more moderate with economic issues. Overall I am certainly not black and white on any issue, so if you'd like to know more, just ask!

Are you registered with a certain party? Yes, I am a registered Democrat.

Religion How religious would you consider yourself? (casual, observant, devout, non religious) I was raised Lutheran, but I am not religious. I still go to church with the family on occasion and love to go on holidays. However, religion as a whole is something I also enjoy having discussions about.

Local Hot-Button Issues What do you think are the most important issues facing the community? Where do you stand on each of these issues?

I think Bethel, overall, cares a lot about local politics. Perhaps a particular issue that's important right now is how the economy is affecting local businesses and programs. A lot of them are suffering or are closing down, which can be disappointing for a small, tight-knit community. Coming from the larger town next door, I am beginning to meet more and more people who are really concerned about that. As someone who also cares about local politics, I also think it is just so important to encourage voting in all elections, big and small, in order to make a difference.