Today, as I write this on Giving Tuesday, I spent the morning listening to Vermont Public’s fund drive as they interrupted the daily news and information. While we place ads in the paper, we can’t come to you hourly until you make a donation. We do, however, have your attention while you digest what’s on our pages. We hope you find it valuable and make a donation to support our efforts.
As staff and the board work to keep The Hardwick Gazette coming to you every week, as it has for 139 years without interruption, almost every week I read of a newspaper somewhere in the U.S that’s failed.
Recent news of the Brandon Reporter being shuttered after its final issue on October 1, and a small group of residents in the area working to bring it back, hit closer to home.
We know the difficulty of working to bring a newspaper back from the brink, even a digital one, after it has jettisoned parts of its operation.
We regularly struggle with being located in Greensboro, while our name places us in Hardwick. Greensboro has been quite welcoming and offers us a generously low rent, which makes it virtually impossible to consider any options that present themselves for moving back to Hardwick.
I mistakenly printed eight extra copies of The Gazette back in October, so I asked the Buffalo Mountain Market if they’d be willing to sell them. They answered yes, and a print copy of the Gazette became available. Just 18 copies were sold that week at $5 each. Adding that to the 16 copies that have been going to libraries and other places our readers might find them, made it enough to have a printer in Newport do the work that once took me several hours after each issue was finished. That brings our cost down a little, making it possible to cover printing and leave something for the outlet selling them.
Last week we took ten copies to Willey’s in Greensboro.
You’ll now see a $5 print price below our name at the top of page one and a bar code to the right.
That accident fortuitously returned The Gazette to print. Selling 20 or 30 copies a week is a long way from the thousands of copies of the Gazette that were once distributed each week, but it has us headed in the opposite direction of many small local newspapers.
Even at $5, we’re only covering the cost of printing and distribution, but not the writing and production of either the digital or print edition.
While we’re still a long way from the several thousand copies that could allow us to move to newsprint paper and cut our costs considerably, those who prefer a print edition can now buy one on the newsstand.
The Vermont Journalism award of $5,000, announced at the start of our end-of-year fund drive, for which local and national donors and organizations have given over $40,000 to match your gifts, has us more grateful than I can easily express.
Just yesterday, a gift of $500 came in soon after we announced that one of our staffers has created crocheted comfort chickens, which we’ve offered for a $500 donation.
As I write this at noon on Giving Tuesday, we’ve received over $10,000 toward the $40,000 in matching funds. We’ll be well on our way toward sustainability when we reach our goal of another $30,000.
As you go about your day, in the back of your mind please hear us reminding you to join your friends and neighbors in supporting The Hardwick Gazette with your donation of any amount.
We have a donor who’s promised us an additional $1,000 if 50 new people make donations of any amount, so almost everyone can contribute to our success in some way.
Thank you for being a reader, a donor and for trusting us to bring your community’s news and information into your home.
We’ll appreciate your help reaching our goal and thank you for doing so.
Paul Fixx, editor
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
