The Vermont Journalism Trust is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose sole mission is to stimulate and commission substantive news content from established journalists. VTDigger.org is a project of the Vermont Journalism Trust. Both organizations were founded in 2009; they merged in 2010.
Please read the Vermont Journalism Trust/VTDigger.org Policy Guidelines
Founding/Retired Members
Cyndy Bittinger, for 18 years, was the Executive Director of The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, a national organization based in Plymouth, Vermont. Simultaneously she taught Vermont history at the Community College of Vermont in Wilder and continues this educational outreach, mainly online. She is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and a speaker for OSHER, Road Scholar, and Ilead, all senior educational programs. Her early career included work for the Mayor of New York and the Office of Economic Affairs, a Massachusetts agency.
Henry “Sam” Chauncey, Jr. was Vice President and Secretary of Yale University, President of Science Park Development Corporation and President of Gaylord Hospital. He has been involved in numerous non-profit organizations, including the beginning of a weekly newspaper, the New Haven Independent in Connecticut
Allen Gilbert is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. He has been a journalist and teacher, and helped form a Montpelier, Vt.-based public policy and research firm. He is active in education affairs, serving on local school boards and as president of the Vermont School Boards Association. He came to his ACLU position through involvement as a plaintiff in ACLU-sponsored education finance litigation
Cornelius ‘Con’ Hogan has had careers in corrections, business, human services, and as an international consultant on children’s issues. He is a long time partner in East Hill Farm in Plainfield and currently serves on the Board of the Permanent Fund for the Well-Being of Children and as Chair of Trustees for the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has worked for five governors of both parties in Vermont since the early 70’s.
Nicholas Monsarrat has been a reporter, editorial page editor and managing editor for Vermont daily newspapers since 1969, including The Times Argus, Rutland Herald and Burlington Free Press. He is a former president of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors and board member of the New England Press Association. From 1988-2008, he was an adjunct professor of journalism at St. Michael’s College in Colchester.
Currently Serving Directors
Douglas Clifton was editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, executive editor of the Miami Herald, managing editor of the Charlotte Observer and news editor of the Knight Ridder Washington bureau. He started his newspaper career as a reporter at the Miami Herald and held a number of editing positions there before going to Washington.
Anne Galloway is the founder of VTdigger.org. She is the former Sunday editor of the Rutland Herald and Times Argus. She has worked as a reporter and editor in Vermont for 17 years. Her reporting has appeared in The New York Times, the New York Daily News, Seven Days, Vermont Life and City Pages (Minneapolis).
Curtis Ingham Koren is the founder and director of Vermont Intercultural Semesters, an accredited high school and “gap” semester program in Ladakh, India, and founder/co-director of FrontiersAfar, a new organization that will develop year-round programs in India and at other sites. VIS programs feature intercultural immersion and mutually beneficial studies for Vermont and Ladakhi students. Koren has been an English teacher at The Sharon Academy in Sharon, Vermont, and has worked as an editor and writer at Ms. Magazine, a Middle-East correspondent based in Cyprus, and a journalist at the United Nations. She has written about Vermont in magazines (Family Life and New England Monthly) and newspapers (The New York Times and The Herald of Randolph). She has served on the TSA Board of Trustees, and on the Board of Circus Smirkus. She currently serves on the boards of the Vermont Journalism Trust, Yestermorrow Design Build School and the Brookfield Community Partnership (BCP), which she helped found to spearhead community and educational projects in Brookfield, Vermont.
Donald Kreis is associate director and assistant professor of law at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment. He is a former general counsel of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission and serves on the boards of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society and the Cooperative Fund of New England. Prior to becoming a lawyer Don spent nine years as a journalist with Associated Press and Maine Times.
David Mindich is chair and professor of the media studies, journalism & digital arts department. He has been at Saint Michael’s College since 1996. Before coming to St. Michael’s, Mindich worked as an assignment editor for CNN and earned a doctorate in American Studies from New York University. He has written articles for the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wilson Quarterly, and other publications. He is the author of Just the Facts: How “Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism and Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News (Oxford University Press, 2005), a book Walter Cronkite called “very important….a handbook for the desperately needed attempt to inspire in the young generation a curiosity that generates the news habit.”
Mindich founded Jhistory, an Internet group for journalism historians, in 1994. In 1998-1999, he was head of the History Division of the AEJMC. In 2002, the AEJMC awarded Mindich the Krieghbaum Under-40 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research, Teaching and Public Service. In 2006, CASE and the Carnegie Foundation named Mindich the Vermont Professor of the Year.
Bill Porter edited newspapers in Vermont for more than 30 years, including the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, and has spent another two decades observing and writing about public affairs in his adopted state. He lives on a side-hill farm Adamant.
William Schubart has lived in VT since 1947 and grew up in Morrisville. He was educated in Morrisville, at Phillips Exeter, Kenyon College, and UVM. He and his brother Michael Couture started Philo Records and Resolution. Schubart has chaired VT Public Radio, Fletcher Allen Healthcare, The VT Business Roundtable, The VT Arts Council, The VT Library Board, VT’s Bicentennial Commission, and currently serves as chair of The VT Folklife Center in Middlebury and The VT Journalism Trust which is one with VTDigger.org. He is a currently a principal in Worth Mountain Consulting, working with businesses and nonprofits to enhance leadership, governance and strategy. He is the author of three books: The Lamoille Stories, Fat People and Panhead and is working on a new book called Photographic Memory. He also serves on the Board of The VT College of Fine Arts and the ACLU VT chapter. He lives in Hinesburg with his wife Kate.
Frances Stoddard has been involved in education and media production for over 25 years. She has been a producer/host of a number of public and commercial television and radio programs. She is an associate professor and led the communications department at Champlain College for nearly a decade. She has served on many non-profit boards, including the VT Campaign to end Childhood Hunger, Vermont Public Radio, and presided over the Vermont Mozart Festival and the Vermont International Film Festival.
Stephen Terry is a former Managing Editor of the Rutland, VT, Herald and founding Editor of the Sunday Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. He is also a Vermont State House reporter he assumed the newspaper editorial positions. Terry also had a 22-year career in business, retiring from Green Mountain Power 2006 as Senior Vice-President of Legal and Corporate Affairs. Terry is now a member of Worth Mountain Consulting, a Middlebury management consulting firm. Over the years, he served in leadership positions on various state-wide and regional non-profit boards. Terry was also Legislative Assistant to the late U. S, Senator George D. Aiken, R-Vt, and is co-editor of the Essential Aiken, speeches of the former Senator.
