VTDigger has hired four new reporters, all women, two of whom are taking over the health care and data beats, as well as two others taking up new roles in Vermont’s largest newsroom.
Erin Petenko is taking over for Felippe Rodrigues as VTDigger’s data reporter, working on her own data-driven stories as well as collaborating with reporters across beats to crunch numbers, design graphics and make sense of spreadsheets. Petenko comes to Vermont from New Jersey, where she was a data reporter at the statewide news website NJ.com.
Katie Jickling replaces Mike Faher as VTDigger’s health care reporter. She will cover trends and changes in health care, as well as regulatory decisions and legislative debates. Jickling was previously a reporter at Seven Days, before taking a brief break from journalism to work as the outreach director at ANEW Place, a homeless shelter in Burlington. Jickling also previously served as an intern for VTDigger.
Ellie French, who has been a general assignment intern with VTDigger for most of 2019, has moved into a full-time staff position as a general assignment reporter and news assistant, helping to make sure our readers are heard — through social media, on our comments section and calls to the newsroom. French graduated from Boston University in winter 2018. She was editor in chief of BU’s student newspaper, the Daily Free Press.
Grace Elletson joins VTDigger as a government accountability reporter, covering politics, state agencies and the Legislature. She is part of the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network and a recent graduate of Ithaca College, where she was editor in chief of the Ithacan.
VTDigger has also made some changes to titles to better match staff member roles.
Mike Dougherty, who oversees multimedia projects and social media, is now our digital editor. He was previously the community editor, and has handed off some of those responsibilities to French.
Colin Meyn is now VTDigger’s managing editor. Cate Chant, previously a copy editor, became news editor (Meyn’s previous role) last year.
Elizabeth Hewitt, a longtime reporter for VTDigger, moved to New York City but remains VTDigger’s Sunday editor and a regular contributor.
And reporter Kit Norton, who authored our daily Statehouse newsletter, Final Reading, has shifted to covering Vermont’s congressional delegation and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 run for president. He writes a weekly newsletter on the campaign, Bernie’s Bid (subscribe here).
