Our September 10 issue announced the appointment of Anna Bedford-Dillow as the Greenbelt News Review’s Editor in a unanimous vote by the Board of Directors, following a motion by retiring editor Mary Lou Williamson, who remains as editor emerita. This article profiles Bedford-Dillow, who joined the paper in September 2022 as managing editor.
As managing editor, she has been responsible for overseeing the paper’s day-to-day operation, tying together the many persons and activities throughout the week to make the News Review happen. Her promotion to editor doesn’t reflect a change in her role, but instead reflects how her role has grown.
Previous Experience
Bedford-Dillow was born in the United Kingdom and educated there, at the University of Edinburgh, and at the University of Maryland College Park, where she received a Ph.D. in comparative literature, and a graduate certificate in women’s studies and university teaching. Her career previous to the News Review was primarily academic, involving teaching, writing and teaching writing at College Park, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the College of Southern Maryland, as well as serving as founding editor of a St. Mary’s County online newspaper.
In these roles, she wrote, and taught others to write diverse content (literature, fiction, teacher training, professional workplace writing, journalism and organizations’ online and print content), and taught research skills, media literacy and evaluating sources. While academic writing differs from journalism, she sees teaching and guiding writers as a “through line” between academia and the News Review.
Investigative Reporting
Under Bedford-Dillow’s leadership, the newspaper has greatly expanded its investigative reporting into local and national news stories and their impact on Greenbelt. They range from federal decisions regarding BARC, Goddard, workforce reductions, FBI headquarters, and ICE and immigration news, to Prince George’s County public schools (PGCPS), school board and fire department, holding officials accountable for transparency and public interest. She has been responsible for almost all of this reporting.
Bedford-Dillow began investigative reporting in 2023 when, as a PGCPS parent, she observed Board of Education meetings, learned about board members suing each other, ethics investigations and other board acrimony. She could find little reporting on these issues affecting
Greenbelt and Prince George’s County families. She noted this as the start of News Review reporting on broader issues that affect Greenbelt, because Greenbelters deserve to understand how they are affected. Since then, her reporting has covered the county schools and school board, fire department staffing, the county executive and the Board of Elections.
Public Accountability
Bedford-Dillow persistently represents Greenbelters and Prince Georgians to hold public officials accountable for transparency and public interest by using Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) requests (similar to federal Freedom of Information Act requests) to uncover information residents can use when asking their own questions and when voting. She reports the facts and information gaps revealed by MPIA results. When officials violate deadlines by which they are legally required to answer MPIAs and don’t answer follow-up inquiries, she reports those facts. She uses other mechanisms including engaging Maryland’s State Ombudsperson to mediate with county officials, but definitive means do not exist to enforce the statutory requirements for officials to respond. She recalled a past in which it was considered shameful if officials refused to answer questions.
Within Greenbelt, she has built productive relationships with city officials, whom she describes as very cooperative in sharing information.
Human Connections
When the federal government began reducing workforces and dismantling programs at NASA Goddard, BARC and USAID, she reported the facts, including the fiscal impacts and the human impacts, becoming known and trusted for identifying, vetting and protecting her sources. The most meaningful reporting in this regard may have been the 2025 experiences of Greenbelters working for Goddard and USAID.
Noting the human connection provided by local reporting in a community newspaper, Bedford-Dillow said, “You can only vilify people if you don’t know them. The more we can read people’s stories, the more we can empathize with them and where people are coming from. It’s very hard to make these dichotomies of good and evil, and to believe these really polarizing narratives, when we can see the different people in our society that are relatable neighbors.”
Readers have expressed appreciation for her reporting in multiple letters to the editor.
Goals
When asked about her goals for the paper, Bedford-Dillow said she’s already pleased with how well it represents Greenbelt, continues to be read and has become even more relevant amid fewer local news sources. Having said that, she perennially hopes for more writers for the newspaper, who would bring more news to readers, along with more varied perspectives. Current writers can’t cover all the issues and community happenings that residents deserve to hear about and that readers suggest be covered. It would be especially useful to gain Greenbelt East and Greenbelt West writers.
Learning from Others
When talking of the people of the News Review, Bedford-Dillow said, “I’ve had the privilege of sitting next to Mary Lou [Williamson, editor emerita] for four years, with her amazing historical wealth of knowledge and doing the job for decades, knowing what’s important and modeling how to respond to concerns, criticism and requests. She’s been a fantastic mentor.”
Mentoring in the other direction, Bedford-Dillow enjoys guiding writers, providing them with contacts and context for their stories and giving them feedback. She said, “The dedication of the volunteers is hard to overstate,” including the volunteers who report on Greenbelt City Council, listening to meetings “that are sometimes dry, sometimes entertaining and write about them in a way that sifts through everything to let the public understand what happened and what’s important.”
She talked of interns from the University of Maryland College Park’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, of whom the News Review usually has two per semester, and for whom she provides supervision and formal performance assessments. Beside their being a link to her academic career, she said, “We’ve had really incredible interns who contributed wonderful stories and coverage. We learn from them every semester and appreciate the enthusiasm and knowledge they bring from the latest things they’re learning in school.”
Energy, Enthusiasm
Bedford-Dillow finds her role endlessly interesting, with new issues and people every week to learn about, meet and write about, and feels lucky to work with an organization that people choose to volunteer with, because they find it interesting and vital for the community. And she values learning of the variety of paths through which her colleagues acquired their editing, writing, research and other skills — their differences contribute to the whole, which demonstrates the non-hierarchical, communal ecology of the News Review, which respects and honors each person’s contributions and institutional legacy.
When asked what the job is like, Bedford-Dillow laughed, “I think about it all the time!” saying it doesn’t stop after Monday and Tuesday editing and Wednesday proofing for that week’s issue, because she and other writers are already reporting, interviewing and writing for the following week’s issue.
Outside the news, Bedford-Dillow also helps the News Review actively and directly engage the community, through hosting Girl Scout troops and summer Creative Kids Campers, speaking at school career days and the Golden Age Club, participating in local journalism panels and hosting a city council candidate forum for the first time in 2025.
News Review volunteer Lola Skolnik wrote, “Anna has elevated our local paper to a breaking news source through her investigative journalism. I am impressed not only with her writing skills, but with her kind and caring management style. With Anna as editor, we can look forward to a continuation of great leadership at the Greenbelt News Review.”
Personal Life
Bedford-Dillow and her husband Barrett Bedford-Dillow met while pursuing their Ph.D.s at the University of Maryland and have lived for about 15 years in Greenbelt, where they are raising three children who compete on the Greenbelt Municipal Swim Team and other youth swim
organizations, belong to Scouts, soccer and more. Their household also includes two dogs. Over the years, she has served as a GHI Audit Committee member, Greenbelt Nursery School board member and president during the pandemic, Cub Scout leader, PTA leader and swim team volunteer, among other positions. She continues her academic pursuits and publishing and is currently creating an anthology of women science fiction writers from the pulp era and writing her own fiction.
Building the Legacy
The News Review is an “incredible testament to community, said Bedford-Dillow; “Its mission is in part to build community, because that’s what news does. But in addition, it’s really the community who builds the News Review, because we have so many volunteers doing so many different jobs every week,” as well as other Greenbelters contributing by suggesting stories or sending photos, which means they and their families see themselves in the paper.
Bedford-Dillow mused on there being a local newspaper in Greenbelt since its 1937 start. She believes that’s not due to luck but to Greenbelt’s nature as a cooperative city. “Greenbelt has made this happen,” she says. “I’m very honored to be selected by the board to this role. I know it is a position of trust. It is a great legacy to continue.”
