Who runs this, and how it works

Here's who writes Mohawk Central, where its information comes from, and who pays for it.

What Mohawk Central is

A practical reference for the Utica–Rome corridor and the towns around it. It exists to answer the questions people ask out loud: what's on tonight, what's on this weekend, where should we eat, who's playing, what's open, and what just changed.

• An events board covering the whole region, rebuilt every morning and published in full at /events — no sign-up required to read it.
• A free Monday newsletter with the week ahead, and nothing on the other six days.
• Permanent directories — restaurants, venues, farmers markets, places to go — kept current and dated, so you can tell how fresh a listing is.

And what it isn't

It isn't a newspaper, and it isn't trying to be. It doesn't cover breaking news, crime, or politics — WKTV, the Rome Sentinel, and the Observer-Dispatch do that, and this site links to them rather than repeating them. There's no comment section, no aggregated outrage, and no attempt to be a local Facebook. If a story matters and isn't about going out or getting oriented, someone else is better placed to tell it.

Who runs it

Mohawk Central is written, built and maintained by one person — Richard — with no staff and no newsroom. When you email the site, he is who replies. When something here is wrong, it's his mistake.

Where the information comes from

Events are gathered every morning from the primary sources that publish them — the calendars of libraries, colleges, municipalities, venues and ticketing systems, read directly from the feeds those institutions maintain. That's where most local events are published. The rest arrive by hand: from readers, venue staff, and organizers who send them in.

What's automated, and what a person checks

How listings are verified

Restaurant and market listings carry the date they were last checked against a primary source, and say so on the page. If hours couldn't be confirmed, the listing says that too, rather than guessing — you'll see language like “not recently verified” or “the official site doesn't publish weekly hours.” A place that closes is marked closed rather than quietly deleted, because what changed is useful information.

This is the site's promise: not that it's never wrong, but that it tells you how confident it is. If a listing looks certain here, it's because it was checked.

Corrections

Corrections are welcome and are treated as a favor, not a complaint. Email corrections@mohawkcentral.com and you'll get an acknowledgement within about two days, and a fix or an explanation within a week. If a business's own details are wrong, they're corrected free, always, with no expectation of anything in return.

How it's paid for

By a small number of clearly-labeled local sponsors — one per section, category-exclusive — and nothing else. The full rate card and rules are on the sponsorship page. The parts that matter to you as a reader:

• Money never moves a listing. No business can pay to be included, ranked higher, recommended, or reviewed more kindly. There is no such product for sale, at any price.
• Sponsors are labeled every time, and a sponsor can't be a business covered on the page it sponsors.
• No ad networks, no pop-ups, no third-party trackers or pixels. The only analytics used are first-party and cookieless — page counts, not profiles of you. Nothing about your visit is sold, and your email address never is either.
• Guides are editorial. When a restaurant appears in a guide, it's because of what it does, and each guide explains the basis for its picks.

Photographs

Photographs are credited to whoever took them, and contributors keep ownership of their work — the site asks for permission to use a photo, not for the photo itself. The full terms are on the photo terms page, and photographers can submit work here or ask for a credit to be corrected or a photo removed at any time.

Get in touch

Mohawk Central is an independent, privately-run publication. It is not affiliated with any municipality, chamber of commerce, tourism agency, or news organization.