EAST MONTPELIER – Local news has always mattered. It’s the only way we can keep in touch with our town and city governments, school boards, high school sports, arts and community events, not to mention road construction, floods, fires, crashes, and crime. But it matters even more now, at this moment, than it ever has before.
That’s because larger media outlets, such as daily newspapers, radio and TV, have shrunk to an alarming degree. Local outlets, including weekly newspapers and digital-only operations, occupy what would otherwise be news deserts, places with little to no news coverage at all. These deserts would include most of Vermont if not for the valiant efforts of our local papers and digital outlets.
Take, for example, The Hardwick Gazette, a nonprofit whose governing board includes little ol’ me. The Gazette serves 11 communities from Plainfield to Craftsbury, from Wolcott to Cabot. The Gazette’s service area falls between the catchments of three longtime dailies: TheBarre Montpelier Times Argus, The Newport Daily Express, and The St. Johnsbury Caledonian-Record. Each of those papers used to consistently reach beyond their home bases to cover the towns in between. They rarely do so anymore, because it’s all they can do to report on their core communities.
So for the residents of those 11 towns, it’s The Gazette or pretty much nothing at all.
At the same time, The Gazette is part of a national movement into nonprofit journalism. Ad sales just can’t sustain a significant news operation anymore. Nonprofit is the future. It’s a very promising future, but the movement is still in its infancy. Success or failure is in the balance.
After more than 130 years as a locally owned business, The Gazette became a community-operated nonprofit last year. It’s largely dependent on reader support. And it is in the middle of a major fundraising campaign this summer. It’s vital that this drive is a success, to get us through the coming months and build a solid financial foundation for the future.
If you live in The Gazette’s service area, I urge you to make a donation. If possible, become a monthly contributor at $5 or $10 a month, or more if you can afford it. If you live elsewhere, please donate to your local news outlet. Vermont is blessed with a large number of local papers and digital platforms with long and storied histories. All are struggling, either to succeed as for-profit businesses or as newly organized nonprofits.
It’s a difficult transition, and these organizations’ staffs aren’t necessarily equipped for the new challenges of running as a nonprofit. It’s a new and different skill-set for print journalists. Besides, they’re working as hard as they can just to get the news out there.
At the same time, there are very promising developments all across the country. In June, I attended a national conference of the Institute for Nonprofit News, an organization dedicated to developing nonprofit journalism. I can’t tell you how many people I met who inspired me. They are putting their energy and creativity to work, and offering new ways to engage with their audiences and generate the income they need to give their communities the news coverage they deserve.
Just one example. I met the editor-in-chief of The Harpswell Anchor, a paper on the Maine coast. His service area has a population roughly twice that of The Gazette, which is still awfully small. (General consensus was that The Gazette was the smallest operation represented at the conference. I paid my own way, in case you were wondering.) And yet The Anchor has built a very strong financial base. They are a success, and they are paying back their donors’ investments each and every day with news coverage that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
It can be done. News outlets everywhere are coming up with ways to increase reader engagement, attract major donors and grant support, and even boost advertising in ways that an old-fashioned print newspaper couldn’t dream of. Some have even ventured back into print, and made it pay off.
But you, Dear Reader, are the key link in the chain. If you depend on the local weekly or digital outlet to find out what’s going on in your community, it’s time to close the circle by supporting the service you rely on. No more can you assume that advertisers will float the enterprise. They are part of the equation, but gone are the days when advertising was the single biggest source of funds for news.
It’s a new day. It’s full of promise. Please join in the effort, and help make it a reality.
John Walters weekly media roundup, “News You Should View,” has taken the week off. He’s been very busy with non-blog-related work lately. In particular, there’s been a lot of activity around his duties as a board member of The Hardwick Gazette. This post reflects that involvement and broader thoughts about the importance of local news, which is the bread and butter of “News You Should View.”
John Walters is the sole author of The Vermont Political Observer, readable for free (but donations cheerfully accepted) at thevpo.org. Walters has had a long career in print and broadcast journalism. He’s been an observer of Vermont politics since 2011, including a three-year stint as political columnist for Seven Days. He is on the board of NEK Public Journalism. He lives in East Montpelier with his loyal spouse, two house rabbits and two cockatiels.
