by Gazette Staff
HARDWICK – The Hardwick Gazette will change its ownership structure and will operate as a nonprofit organization as of January 1, 2024.
As part of the transition, the paper’s current owners, Kim and Ray Small, will transfer all newspaper assets from the current holding company, Hardwick Journalism Inc., to a newly-established nonprofit company, Northeast Kingdom Public Journalism Inc.
The new company will be managed by a board of directors, which has registered the nonprofit in the State of Vermont and is applying to the Internal Revenue Service for recognition as a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Nonprofit status will allow the Gazette to apply for grants which are not available to commercial organizations, and to accept tax-deductible donations.
A growing number of newspapers in the U.S. have been switching to nonprofit status in recent years to survive. With the rise of online advertising, newspapers have seen significant declines in their own advertising revenue, forcing many to reduce headcount or go out of business. Since 2005, a third of all newspapers – nearly 3,000 to date – have closed.
In response, philanthropic support for nonprofit news has been growing. In 2019, for example, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced that it would invest $300 million over five years to strengthen journalism, “with a focus on building the future of local news and information.” As a nonprofit, the Gazette will be able to apply for funding from organizations such as the Knight Foundation.
Early in Ray Small’s tenure as editor, the Gazette was able to continue to operate as a commercial enterprise, despite the challenging economic environment for newspapers. The paper produced stories on the towns in its readership area through a team of correspondents who lived in Hardwick, Craftsbury, Cabot, and Marshfield. It launched its first website and was close to financial breakeven despite adding costs such as printing pages in color for the first time in its history.
The outbreak of COVID-19, however, was shattering for the Gazette. Advertising revenues dropped 90 percent as local businesses closed at the outset of the pandemic. The paper was forced to suspend its print edition and lost all of its correspondents. Though it was able to survive with support from the federal Paycheck Protection Program and a grant from the Vermont Arts Council, it was not able to rebuild its core reporting team. A new approach was needed.
The board of Northeast Kingdom Public Journalism has started to define how it will operate the paper going forward. Elizabeth Dow, writing on behalf of the board, issued a statement that reads, in part: “We have no specific plans at the moment beyond this: we will create a community newspaper. The Hardwick Gazette will survive.”
This week’s issue will be the last to be published under the current Gazette ownership. Updates on the new board’s plans will be posted on hardwickgazette.org and hardwickgazette.org.
