Alissa Paolella at work beside the Emporium. (Photo by Lauren "Chuck" Shows)
At Springs Content Studio, the work is the story
- Published: June 23, 2026
Alissa Paolella is used to asking the questions. Their first career was as a journalist, and even after moving into a second career in marketing and communications, the local resident was still typically on the giving end of queries.
This month, though, sitting in the News office for an interview about their newly launched business, Springs Content Studio, Paolella acknowledged the role reversal with a laugh.
“I’ve interviewed professionally for a long time, right?” they said. “But talking about myself is a totally different thing.”
Paolella’s comment hit at the center of the work they said they aim to do via Springs Content Studio. Most people and organizations have stories to tell, Paolella said, but they don’t always know how to articulate those stories to the world at large, or at least the portion of the world they want to reach.
Though Paolella has already been offering marketing and communications consulting work under their own name for a while, they said the official launch of Springs Content Studio last month formalizes that work and puts a structure around it — and potentially solves a pragmatic issue.
“Nobody can spell [Paolella] — or, you know, say it,” they said. “I’ve got to think about search engines and how people are finding companies that do the kind of work I do.”
Paolella described their work as “ethical marketing,” an approach they said is shaped by their years in journalism, and later sharpened by time spent in organizational work.
“I don’t lie or mislead, but I do message things in a certain way,” they said.
Marketing, they said, is selective by nature; so is storytelling — and so, in its way, is journalism, for that matter. The work of ethical marketing is all about shining a light on a person’s body of work, the services a business offers or the mission of a nonprofit so it’s visible to the folks who might need it — without bending the truth.
“That’s what you lead with, it’s what you’re focusing your attention on — you’re telling the truth, but in a way that makes you look good,” they said. “When we talk about transparency, that doesn’t just mean that everyone knows everything all the time — it’s the right information at the right time, and that might not be everything all at once.”
What to say, when to say it and who needs to hear it, Paolella said, are skills they first learned as a journalist — and still use as a frequent freelance reporter for the News. Growing up in Northwest Ohio, they knew early on that they wanted to write for a living, and by high school, Paolella was editing the school newspaper. They later attended Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism and worked as a community reporter for more than a decade.
Paolella said they loved newspaper reporting, but the political climate for journalists in 2016 — “I was in a very conservative area, and I wasn’t feeling super safe in that newsroom,” they said — combined with long hours and low pay, pushed them to look for work outside the field.
The movement from journalism into broader communications wasn’t immediate, particularly as Paolella pitched potential employers on the idea that the skills they had built as a reporter — interviewing, listening, organizing information and understanding audiences — were valuable beyond the newsroom.
“I tried to convince people that my skills were transferable,” they said. “That can be difficult.”
Eventually, Paolella moved into marketing and communications work, first in nonprofit senior living, later at marketing agencies and most recently at Central State University in Wilberforce. Across those roles, they said, they developed a number of skills — media relations, design and promotion, social media messaging and copywriting and editing, among others — and found themselves helping fill gaps where they arose.
“PR is not the same as communications, is not the same as marketing, but I’ve done all three,” they said. “Because my skill-set is wide, and I’m a helper, I would say, ‘Oh, I can help out with that until someone fills the role,’ and then often, it would become part of my job.”
Transitioning into consulting work, then, was a way to corral all the various kinds of work Paolella had amassed into a defined stream of offerings. It also offered a way to keep doing the work they knew they were good at, but with more autonomy than they had found in some traditional workplaces. After experiencing workplaces that trusted them to manage their own time, they said, it was hard to imagine stepping back into any environment that valued how many hours were logged versus the quality and efficiency of their work.
“I enjoy working for myself,” they said.
Through Springs Content Studio, Paolella focuses on strategy, writing, design and public relations storytelling — or, as they put it, “how you get your story out there.” That’s where the journalist still remains visible within the consultant, they said: they’re listening for the details that, they hope, will make a story land, especially for those who may be too close to their own work to know how to describe it.
“Small businesses are sometimes just the owner, and articulating who you are, and then actually getting that out into the public, can be a challenge,” Paolella said.
Working as a kind of translator between values and public expression fits the way Paolella self-identifies as a consultant; they noted that a workplace assessment once determined their two primary traits as “creator” and “connector.”
“It’s not just connecting people,” they said. “It’s also connecting ideas,”
The creator and connector roles, Paolella said, also shape the way they aim to move through the Yellow Springs community, including its local business community. Paolella, who also co-owns Elysium Massage, said they have tried through both businesses to support and promote other local businesses; they pointed to a February local business campaign, for which they created and shared graphics highlighting other participating businesses.
“I want us all to succeed, and I believe in this town and in the people in it,” Paolella said. “I’m so lucky to be here; there’s no place like Yellow Springs.”
Paolella moved to the village about three and a half years ago, after years of feeling isolated elsewhere in Ohio. They said they came to the village intentionally, after realizing that the way they felt when they visited Yellow Springs might be reason enough to put down roots.
“I say it all the time: I feel like I belong here in ways that I’ve not belonged in other places,” they said. “There’s no perfect place — but this place is perfect for me.”
Paolella said they jumped right into getting involved in the community, becoming part of planning annual Pride events and the community Thanksgiving meal. Now they’re a double business owner, member of the Chamber of Commerce and, by one particular metric they mentioned, woven into the tapestry of village life.
“Pretty shortly after I moved here, the first time someone yelled ‘Alissa!’ out their car window as I was walking down the street, I thought, ‘I’m a local,’” they said.
For more on Springs Content Studio, go to http://www.springscontentstudio.com
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