EO Media Group has hired long-time journalist and newspaper editor David Smigelski, 63, as the managing editor to lead the launch of a new online news site and publication for Rogue Valley residents.

The Rogue Valley Tribune, based in Medford, will contain locally produced, independent news in print and online. The online site, rvtrib.com, will be live Monday, Feb. 6, and a thrice-weekly print publication is due out by mid-February.

Smigelski was the editor for the recently shuttered Medford Mail Tribune, which stopped printing a daily paper in September, and shut down its online operations Jan. 13. EO Media is launching a new website and publication to fill that gap.

“Joining EO Media is like going back home for me,” Smigelski said, “in the sense that when I joined the Mail Tribune we were owned by a family company, Ottaway newspapers.” The company was sold to the Dow Jones company (owner of the Wall Street Journal), later to Gatehouse newspapers and lastly to Rosebud Media.

“Now we’re going home, to a local, family-owned newspaper company run by newspaper people. I can’t stress how important that is to me, to be owned by newspaper people again,” he said.

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Smigelski graduated from the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. As a reporter, he worked for a half-dozen newspapers, in Ohio, West Virginia and Portland, Oregon, covering state legislatures and working primarily as a political and investigative reporter.

He moved to Medford to be closer to family and was in charge of special projects and features. At one time, he was managing six magazines simultaneously as well as being the lifestyles editor for the daily paper. He became the managing editor in 2022.