Contact
Helen Labun Jordan
e-Vermont Project Director
Phone:  (802) 225-6091
Email: Helen@vtrural.org

(Montpelier, VT) – Anne Galloway, award-winning journalist and founder/editor of VTDigger.org, will be the keynote speaker at Vermont Communities in a Digital Age. This all-day workshop, presented by the e-Vermont Community Broadband Project, takes place February 16 at Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center. Galloway will discuss the importance of online journalism for reporting community news in Vermont.

e-Vermont is working across the state to help communities solve local issues with 21st century tools. This workshop will highlight some of the projects taking place and bring leaders and learners together to share what they have discovered so far. Topics include mobilizing community resources during emergencies, a hands-on lab about digital tools for business, a showcase of how technology is expanding the classroom for 4-6th graders, and a preview of how town meetings can reach a wider audience.

Registration is only $20 and includes course offerings, refreshments and lunch. For a complete schedule and to pre-register online visit the e-Vermont website at www.e4vt.org, call 802-859-3090, or e-mail joanna@snellingcenter.org. Follow e-Vermont on Facebook (e-Vermont) and Twitter (@eVermont).

e-Vermont partner The Snelling Center for Government is the lead organizer for Vermont Communities in a Digital Age.

The e-Vermont Community Broadband Project is led by the Vermont Council on Rural Development, and is made up of the Vermont State Colleges, the Vermont Department of Libraries, the Vermont Department of Public Service, Vermont Small Business Development Center, the Snelling Center for Government, Front Porch Forum, Digital Wish, Evslin Family Foundation and Vermont Community Foundation.

e-Vermont is funded through a federal program for Sustainable Broadband Adoption and the matching support of local funders.

VTDigger

The Vermont Statehouse decorated for the 2011 holiday season. VTD/Josh Larkin

This holiday season we want to thank our readers, business sponsors and grantors for making 2011 a successful year for VTDigger.org.

Over the course of the last 12 months, we’ve expanded from an all-volunteer effort to a news office with paid professional staff of four full-time and two part-time employees. This wouldn’t have been possible without your support.

If you’ve already made a donation this year, we thank you.

If you appreciate what we do and haven’t yet made a contribution to support our work, please make a tax deductible donation to Vermont Journalism Trust, our 501(c)(3) parent organization, by check to Vermont Journalism Trust, 64 Main St., Suite 27, Montpelier VT 05602, or via PayPal.

We look forward to bringing you news about the topics you care about — health care, energy, the state budget, taxes and politics — in the New Year.

Though VTDigger.org will continue to publish stories during the holiday week, we will not be approving comments from Dec. 24 through Jan. 1. We’re taking a short break to spend time with friends and family.

Best wishes for a happy holiday season.

Anne Galloway
Editor, VTDigger.org

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Burlington mayoral candidates Tim Ashe, left, and Miro Weinberger.

The Burlington Democratic Re-Caucus will air live on VTDigger.org at 3:30 p.m. The Burlington Progressive Caucus will follow beginning at 6 p.m.

This live stream comes from our new media partner CCTV, Channel 17.

Hosts from CCTV will be on hand at each caucus to interview party officials and Burlington residents, and to get commentary on the results of the caucuses.

Watch now…

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We are grateful to our faithful member donors, our generous sponsors and grantors, and our parent organization, the nonprofit Vermont Journalism Trust, for helping to make this investment in the people behind VTDigger.org possible. Without the support of the many readers like you who believed in our fledgling effort, VTDigger.org wouldn’t have been able to shift from an all-volunteer effort to a viable news outlet in less than a year. In the past year we have published more than 1,000 in-depth news reports. Now that we have a solid team in place, we look forward to publishing even more stories in 2012.

We hope that you’ll continue to help us bring you the news by making a member donation of $30, $60, $120 or $240 via Paypal, or by sending a check to the Vermont Journalism Trust, c/o VTDigger.org, 64 Main St., Suite 27, Montpelier, VT 05602. Your contribution is tax deductible.

By way of introduction here are the bios of our three new staffers:

Alan Panebaker

Alan Panebaker is a staff writer for VTDigger.org. He covers health care and energy issues. Alan graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism in 2005 and cut his teeth reporting for the Ashland Daily Tidings and Mail Tribune newspapers in Southern Oregon where he covered education and the environment. A dedicated whitewater kayaker and backcountry skier, he later wrote a weekly outdoors column for the Anchorage Press in Anchorage, Alaska, and continues to publish freelance work for Canoe & Kayak magazine. Alan took a three-year hiatus from journalism to attend Vermont Law School. After passing the bar, he decided to return to his journalism roots and start chasing stories again. He lives in Montpelier. If you have an energy or health care related tip, you can reach Alan at apanebaker@vtdigger.org or 802-222-6085.

Michael Knight

Michael Knight is the sponsorship director for VTDigger.org. He has more than 10 years experience in developing multi-media marketing strategies for a wide variety of clients. Michael graduated from Johnson State College with a degree in Business and Marketing. He is a member of the Barre Rotary club where he served as club president 2005-06, currently holds a director position on the club’s board and is a member of the International Chess Fellowship of Rotarians. He is also serving on the Green Mountain United Way board and is part of their marketing committee. Michael and his wife, Melinda, have twin daughters and live in Barre Town. If you’d like to sponsor VTDigger.org, please contact Michael at mknight@vtdigger.org or 802-272-7302.

Paul Berlejung

Paul Berlejung, our business/office manager, comes to VTDigger.org after a 35-year legal career, the last 24 as a civilian attorney for the U.S. Army. From activities as mundane as answering the phone, to filing required paper work with the State of Vermont, he’s responsible for making the office run smoothly. Self- described as big city kids, Berlejung (from Louisville, Ky.) and his wife, Mary, (from Brooklyn, N.Y.) moved from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., to their off-grid property in Groton in 2006. Since then he’s been involved in multiple community activities including establishing the Groton senior/community meal site, and successful grant writing that has brought more than $150,000 to the town and other local entities. Paul can be reached at pberlejung@vtdigger.org or 802-225-6224.

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VTDigger.org has received recognition from the Poynter Institute and the Knight Foundation for its contribution to Vermont's news media landscape. VTD/Josh Larkin

The Knight Foundation formally announced $2.26 million in matching grant awards for the Knight Community Information Challenge in San Francisco last week.

Nineteen grants were awarded for a variety of online news sites, including a $104,000 community challenge grant for VTDigger.org. The award, which will be spread out over three years, is supported locally by the Vermont Community Foundation, and will be used primarily to hire an investigative reporter to cover Vermont’s energy and health reform issues. Both of these evolving issues have the potential to become national stories.

“If you care about what’s going on in local government, the local environment or any local issues,” said Trabian Shorters, Knight Foundation’s vice president for communities, “you need to know about it to make a difference. These community and place-based foundations are stepping up to make sure that their communities get good information.”

Read the story and watch the video announcement featuring Stuart Comstock Gay, CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation.

VTDigger.org was also mentioned in several stories posted on Poynter.org, the Poynter Institute blog. Each article made the broader point that when it comes to local crisis management, there’s nothing quite like a local initiative.

The crisis that VTDigger.org and other news Web sites around the country are attempting to address are the widening gaps in news coverage left by the upheaval of the media landscape—fewer newspapers and reporters, less investigative reporting, less public accountability.

VTDigger.org, and its publisher, the nonprofit Vermont Journalism Trust, represent one of many such grassroots efforts nationally that are designed to help fill those news gaps with Web-based journalism.

Video streaming by Ustream
Bill Schubart, president of the Vermont Journalism Trust, gave the keynote address for the Online News Association entrepreneurship workshop. He explained how the Trust board is working to make VTDigger.org a sustainable in-depth news resource for Vermont. Watch the video from Schubart’s talk.

Poynter’s reporter Mark Briggs mentioned VTDigger.org as one of many journalism models that were highlighted in the ONA entrepreneurship program. “The best sign that entrepreneurial journalism endeavors are moving in the right direction is that so many of them are heading in different directions,” Briggs wrote.

In a related article, Poynter Associate Editor Mallary Jean Tenore wrote about VTDigger.org in the context of national investigative journalism trends. Tenore pointed to similar web startups in Colorado, Texas, New Jersey and California that are focused on in-depth coverage of public policy issues.

Lastly, a story we wrote about the Shumlin administration’s short-term financial bail outs for storm-ravaged communities was featured on the Reuters web site last week.

Nick Monsarrat is an editor for VTDigger.org.

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Sue Allen, special assistant to the Governor. VTD/Josh Larkin

Editor’s note: This letter refers to Anne Galloway’s column about Gov. Peter Shumlin’s press conferences, “Off the Fifth floor: Inside baseball, Shumlin style.”

By Susan Allen, Special Assistant to the Governor

A recent column by Anne Galloway asserts that Governor Peter Shumlin is inaccessible to Vermont reporters and does not allow sufficient time for questions during news conferences. She states as fact that reporters are “lucky to get 10 to 15 minutes” to question the governor.

Anne Galloway knows better. What Anne did not inform her readers was that the very day that her column was published, she spent not an hour, not two hours, but thirteen hours of unrestricted time traveling with Governor Shumlin throughout the state. I find it deeply troubling and misleading that in a column criticizing the governor for not being accessible, Anne failed to mention that she was about to spend the entire day with him.

Equally troubling are Anne’s assertions about the time the governor spends answering reporters’ questions. As a former journalist, I was trained to focus not on assumptions, but on facts – and to let the facts tell the story. Anne’s assertion that reporters are “lucky to get 10 to 15 minutes” with the governor is flatly untrue. I know that not only because I field – and in the overwhelming majority of instances, grant – requests from reporters to speak with the governor, but also because I looked at the facts. Here’s what I found:

1. Governor Shumlin has held 47 press conferences and 25 bill signings since taking office, all of which provided opportunities for reporters to ask whatever questions they wished to ask. In addition, the governor routinely responds to phone calls from reporters on whatever subject they wish to discuss.

2. Of the 19 press conferences that we have on video file, the average period of questions and answers from the press was 27 minutes. Ironically, Anne wrote in her article and in subsequent communication with me that Governor Shumlin should aim for 20 to 25 minutes of Q&A time in his press conferences. I am not holding my breath that Anne will write a follow up column praising the governor for exceeding her target.

3. On only three occasions was the press conference stopped by the governor’s staff due to time constraints. In those three examples, the Q&A period was 15, 35, and 33 minutes. The other press conferences ended because there were no further questions from reporters.

Anne is entitled to disagree with the substance of Governor Shumlin’s press conferences, but making up facts is quite another matter. I have enjoyed a good relationship with Anne over the past seven months – in the vast majority of instances when she has requested interviews with Governor Shumlin or members of his administration, those requests have been granted. While I haven’t always agreed with her conclusions, I have respected her work as fair and thorough. This instance is an unfortunate exception.

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The Vermont Community Foundation recently received a three-year, $104,000 grant to build the capacity of public policy journalism in Vermont. Library of Congress photo.

“VTDigger.org has grown from a very low budget, all-volunteer operation to a funded news organization with paid staffers in just two years,” says Galloway. “This generous grant will enable us to deepen our coverage of key issues that affect the daily lives of Vermonters and make it possible for us to focus on building the long-term sustainability of VTDigger.org.”

The grant was awarded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as a part of its Knight Community Information Challenge. The challenge is a five-year, $24 million initiative that helps community and place-based foundations support news and information projects that inform and engage residents. The Vermont Community Foundation is one of only 19 foundations throughout the country that was selected to receive a grant this round, and will match Knight’s grant dollar-for-dollar with contributions from their funds and larger supporting organizations.

“Strong democracy depends on strong journalism and informed debate,” said President & CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation Stuart Comstock-Gay. “Vermont stands out as a state with very high levels of citizen engagement, but we still need good information. We’re thrilled that the Knight Foundation has identified our proposal as worthy of funding.”

VTDigger.org first launched in 2009 when a group of concerned citizens and journalists, led by Galloway, came together to create a platform for fact-driven reporting and open debate on key issues impacting Vermonters. Now with 50,000 readers a month, VTDigger.org publishes daily stories on Vermont politics and public policy matters and serves as a critical resource for lawmakers and community leaders tracking down information on key issues.

When asked what sets VTDigger.org apart from other news sources, Galloway says: “Our total focus is on politics and public policy and we tend to write frequently and relentlessly about a given topic. Traditional papers tend to cover the end game of lawmaking, not the process.”

Galloway cites their extensive coverage around health care, broadband infrastructure, and campaign finance reform as particular points of pride for the nascent organization. This summer, VTDigger.org also launched Tipster – a virtual, public newsroom with the functionality of a social networking site like Facebook. Designed to facilitate interaction among readers and journalists, Tipster users can suggest questions and post tips and source materials for reporters. “Official sources tend to drive the information in the news,” says Galloway. “Tipster is about bringing a more grassroots voice to the surface.”

In November 2010, VTDigger.org combined operations with The Vermont Journalism Trust (VJT), an organization dedicated to the funding of investigative reporting that provides scrutiny to under-covered issues and helps Vermonters make civic policy decisions based on informational integrity. “VTDigger.org is the ideal platform on which to build out Vermont Journalism Trust’s commitment to expanding quality journalism in all media,” said VJT Founding Director Doug Clifton at the time of the merger.

“The Vermont Community Foundation and others like it are part of a growing number of community and place-based foundations working to ensure residents have the information they need to make important decisions about their communities,” said Trabian Shorters, Knight Foundation’s vice president for engaging communities. “Ultimately, our democracy will only thrive if we have informed and engaged communities.”

About The Vermont Community Foundation

The Vermont Community Foundation was founded in 1986 with a mission to grow philanthropy in the state and ensure that donors and nonprofits have the resources they need to be effective. Since then, almost 600 individuals, families, businesses, organizations, and private foundations have established funds with us. Our family of funds award more than $10 million a year in grants. For more information about the Foundation, visit www.vermontcf.org or call 802-388-3355.

About VTDigger.org

VTDigger.org is a statewide news website dedicated to coverage of Vermont politics, consumer affairs, business and public policy. Created in 2009, VTDigger.org publishes original news reporting, video, audio and photos, in addition to raw information in the form of press releases and government documents whenever possible. New content is published six days a week, Monday through Saturday.

About The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities, and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more information, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

Contact:

Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup
The Vermont Community Foundation
(802) 388-3355, ext. 295
cilstrup@vermontcf.org

Anne Galloway
VTDigger.org
(802) 441-1016
agalloway@vtdigger.org

Marc Fest
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
(305) 908-2677
fest@knightfoundation.org

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Congressman Bruce Barton. Library of Congress

Thanks to generous funding from J-Lab, we have built that platform. On Tipster, readers can follow Vermont reporters, suggest news tips, participate in news groups, and post news events, documents, photos and links.

We hope you’ll join the conversation and become a member of our Tipster news community.

After all, why simply read the news, when you can help make it happen?
Visit Tipster and learn what it’s all about.

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You’ve probably seen their bylines already over the last week or so, and you’ll be seeing a good deal more of Dobbs and Sherman on the beat and in print over the course of the next few months as they report on telecommunications, politics and environmental issues, as well as breaking news stories and features.

Our interns will also be working with Anne Galloway, editor of VTDigger.org, on a series about Vermont’s correctional system.

Taylor Dobbs

Taylor Dobbs. VTD/Josh Larkin

Dobbs was raised in Montpelier and graduated from Montpelier High School in 2008. He grew up to the sounds of his father, a science journalist and author, typing away in his home office. Dobbs is now studying journalism at Northeastern University in Boston, where he works for the school newspaper, The Huntington News. This summer he is living in Worcester with his family and their two dogs, six cats and two rabbits.

Dobbs found his way to journalism through his love of writing and a drive to illuminate important issues. In the fall, he will return to Boston where he will begin a semester-long internship with boston.com’s features department.

Read Taylor Dobbs’ stories for VTDigger.org

Eli Sherman

Eli Sherman. VTD/Josh Larkin

Sherman, born and raised in Vermont, is an upcoming senior in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y. Sherman is majoring in journalism and pursuing a minor in language. He has studied Thai, Chinese and Arabic while playing baseball with the Ithaca College baseball team.

His passion for journalism and writing comes from his grandparents and parents. His grandfather was the science editor for the New York Herald Tribune and Newsweek, and his grandmother was a journalist as well as the celebrated author of Mud Pies and Other Recipes. Both of his parents were also journalists. Eli enjoys writing, reading, and most of all hiking, playing softball and eating fresh produce with friends and family during Vermont’s pleasant summers. CORRECTED

Check out Eli Sherman’s articles on VTDigger.org

New York Times

VTDigger

Donate Box. Photo by Kathryn Harper.

The VTDigger.org team is small – we have only two full-time employees and a handful of freelance reporters – and we work hard to offer the kind of news you can’t get anywhere else. Our coverage is detailed and comprehensive because we know that’s the kind of inside information you need to understand what’s really going on at the Statehouse.

During the four month legislative session, VTDigger.org published more than 270 stories, produced dozens of videos and shot hundreds of photos. We’ve written news reports and produced analysis pieces on the budget, tax proposals, cuts to human services programs, energy and telecommunications legislation, political machinations and Gov. Peter Shumlin’s agenda. We also moderated countless comments and responses to those stories, from you, our readers.

A month ago, Josh Larkin, our director of design and technology, redesigned the VTDigger.org to enhance your online experience and make it easier for you to find the news you care so much about.

Though we offer our news service for free because we believe everyone should have access to our reports, it isn’t free to produce. The kind of in-depth journalism we publish six days a week comes at a cost. Josh and I each work 65- to 85-hour weeks to make sure you get the information you need to start your day out right. Like you, we have families to support. We also spend thousands of dollars each year on freelance reporting.

So far this year, we’ve received about $4,000 in individual donations from readers. We are grateful to those of you who have made a financial commitment to supporting VTDigger.org.

We’re a ways, however, from meeting our fund-raising goal of at least $25,000 for the year in reader contributions.

It costs $170 to $200 a year to subscribe to a daily newspaper in Vermont. Our suggested donation is $50 – the equivalent of 16 lattes at Capitol Grounds, 10 beers at Three Penny Taproom or five Montpelier parking tickets.

If you haven’t yet done your part, please click here today to make your tax deductible gift of $50 to $100 or more to support VTDigger.org via PayPal, or send a check to:

Vermont Journalism Trust
c/o Henry Chauncey, Treasurer
42 Hawthorn Dr.
Shelburne, VT 05482

Thanks in advance for your support!

~Anne Galloway, editor VTDigger.org

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