As our journalists have covered devastating floods and fires, the groundbreaking impact of railroads in the region and the ever-changing political landscape, we also took great pride in covering the community news that means the most to our readers.

We know how important this news is for you. Some of our most-read stories in 2025 are about business grand openings, a guide to tax season, updates from local hospitals and important notices about road closures.

Recognizing this, we remain committed to the goal of publishing notable community news in The Herald-Mail and at heraldmailmedia.com. Notably, we’ve found a new way to deliver this news using artificial intelligence.

Since The Daily Mail first went to print in 1828, we’ve kept pace with technology through updated printing presses, electric typewriters, battery-operated tape recorders and then computers.

Things have moved quickly since the digital age took hold. Now, we’re keeping up with AI, a task that at first seemed daunting and certainly downright scary. But after diving into the potential and learning about the power of AI, we’ve found the tool to be efficient and useful, helping us deliver community news quickly and factually.

Help us follow through on this commitment by sending your news and announcements to us at community@herald-mail.com.

How are we bringing more local news to you?

Recently, we launched a tool called Espresso in our newsroom. It’s a generative artificial intelligence tool that creates polished articles from community announcements.

It’s imperative to note the reporting and writing doesn’t end with AI publishing the article. Our human journalists prepare the news and announcements for publication, which will appear in our newspaper and online, and will be available for you to share with your community and on social media.

Espresso is by no means a shortcut in our journalistic ethics and standards. We remain committed to using human journalists during every step and we are also transparent about how the articles are published. Journalists select the announcements we’ll publish, operate the tool to draft rewrites, edit the stories and review everything before publication.

Here are some examples of the type of content you can expect

• Popular places: National Park Service to demolish five structures at Harpers Ferry
• New businesses: First 50 customers at Hagerstown Honey Baked Ham get free sandwiches for year
• Tax season: IRS tips in improvements, what to know about free filing, more
• Heartwarming news: Man survives heart attack thanks to nurses at club
• Road closures: Why Summit Avenue in Hagerstown will close
• Health: What to know about high rate of flu, other viruses in Hagerstown area

What this means for you

The most important result for our readers will be more community news in The Herald-Mail and heraldmailmedia.com. But we also need your help. Our readers, local organizations and businesses can send us community news at community@herald-mail.com, and we’ll consider it for publication.