[T]he publisher of the Stowe Reporter, a weekly newspaper that recently bought two other local weeklies, says community journalism in Vermont is strong despite reports nationally of papers shrinking.
“People, they’re not getting that sort of hyper-local news anywhere else,” said Greg Popa, publisher of the Stowe Reporter group.
The purchase in late May of the Shelburne News and The Citizen, which covers Charlotte and Hinesburg, bumps the Stowe Reporter group’s collective circulation to about 31,500.
The group also owns the Waterbury Record and the News & Citizen in Morrisville. All five papers publish weekly.
Popa would not say how much the group paid for the Shelburne News or The Citizen. The seller was Holly Johnson.
As most news consumers know, many papers are downsizing. Major dailies around the country have nearly halved their editorial staff, outsourced their designers and reduced reporter pay in recent years.
Vermont is not insulated from the pressures on the industry. Last year the Rutland Herald reported that checks to its newsroom staff had bounced and freelancers were not being paid. The paper and its sister publication, The Times Argus, later sold to out-of-state owners. Also last year, The Hardwick Gazette tried to find a new owner through an essay contest after traditional methods failed. That paper also later sold after the contest fell short of the required number of entries.
For many papers, the industry is grim. Not for the Stowe Reporter group, Popa said.
He plans to beef up coverage in the Shelburne News and The Citizen of hard news like crime and include more features like profiles on local government officials to help people understand their communities better, he said.
The group has also retained the editorial and advertising staff from each paper, he said.
“We invest in reporting staff. We invest in editorial staff. We don’t cut corners,” Popa said. “We understand the issues facing small towns, and we try to bring that detail and nuance to the stories so that people can be informed and make good decisions.”
The reason many small local papers like those included in the Stowe Reporter group are doing well in the Green Mountain State is that Vermonters rely on them, said Mike Donoghue, Vermont Press Association executive director and a longtime Vermont reporter.
For residents of many tiny Vermont towns, the newspapers are their No. 1 source of community news, he said. Those papers know their coverage areas in ways outside media don’t, he said.
“There’s something about familiarity and knowing your community where you live,” he said. “You know who the players are, and you can help sort those things out.”
