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Vermont newspaper owners are taking swift and significant steps in the face of revenue losses from the coronavirus crisis — layoffs, furloughs, slashes to print editions, even permanent closures.
The budget reductions come at a time when information hungry residents are bumping up readership.
The crunch hit when the restaurants and businesses that typically fill the ad pages were forced to close, causing advertising dollars to all but dry up.
Twenty of the 42 employees at the Rutland Herald and Times Argus were laid off for what management hopes is a two-week period, and print editions have been reduced from five days a week to three.
Seven Days laid off seven staffers, one in each of the newspaper’s seven departments, though the company is still paying for the employees’ health insurance premiums, and says it hopes to rehire all seven after the crisis. Publisher Paula Routly estimated a third of the paper’s advertising came from restaurants and events where people gather.
The Waterbury Record on Thursday announced that the newspaper was publishing its last ever issue. Despite its circulation of 4,500, publisher Greg Popa said the paper was never profitable, even before the pandemic began.
The Addison County Independent has moved from printing twice a week to once, and three Chittenden County weeklies — the Milton Independent, Essex Reporter and Colchester Sun have ceased their print editions entirely “until further notice” in an attempt to avoid layoffs.
The Valley News laid off three reporters this week, a measure the paper says it hopes can be temporary. And at three Southern Vermont papers — the Brattleboro Reformer, Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal, all full-time staff will be furloughed for one of the next five weeks, and encouraged to apply for unemployment during that period.
Traci Griffith, a journalism professor at St. Michael’s College and board member for the Vermont Press Association, said she thinks the long-term effects of the pandemic on Vermont’s newspapers will be “pretty severe.”
“It’s kind of a domino effect,” Griffith said. “The businesses that advertise in local, small-town weeklies, those businesses are going to take a while to get back up and running. It’s not like they’ll just open their doors and all the sudden people are going to start coming.”
But even if that were the case, Griffith said, the journalists who were laid off may or may not be able to come back to the industry.
“People can’t just put a pause on life. Who knows if they will move onto some other career by then,” she said. “And by having fewer bodies to do the work, it means that things won’t get covered and they won’t get the attention they deserve.”
Steve Terry, a former managing editor of the Rutland Herald and a founding member of the nonprofit Vermont Journalism Trust, VTDigger’s parent organization, said it doesn’t help that for the last 10 years, the journalism industry has seen advertising dollars dry up across the board.
“But still, there is a void in many regions of Vermont now for people who were mainly relying on their local weeklies,” he said. “If it continues, it’s going to destroy an important social fabric in Vermont.”
He said most of the state’s smaller weeklies were “financially on the edge ” to begin with.
“This crisis hit journalism in Vermont at a point where overall, it was in a very weakened state,” Terry said. “The virus is attacking journalism when it had some really tough underlying conditions.”
Griffith said the reduction in print schedules poses a particular issue for rural areas of the state that lack access to high-speed internet.
“Simply going to the online edition of these papers can be problematic for people in those small towns that really need this information as it relates to their daily lives,” she said.
“When you hear that your local teacher or bus driver or someone in the town office got a positive COVID diagnosis, that is something that people identify with on a much deeper level. That kind of information isn’t going to come out on the NBC Nightly News.”
In the stay-at-home order Gov. Phil Scott issued on Tuesday, “news media” was listed as one of the “essential” businesses allowed to stay open during the pandemic. Terry said he found that designation “absolutely critical.”
“They can be deemed essential, but if they’re not there, if they’re closed, which is happening now almost every single day, we’re really in a dangerous situation,” he said.
In a video message posted on Twitter Sunday, Scott urged Vermonters to support local news sources.
Like many in business, trusted news organizations are being hit hard by this pandemic. If you can, please consider subscribing to your local paper or contributing to a VT news organization. You deserve transparency and the truth, and they work hard to keep you informed. #vtpoli pic.twitter.com/BC3qhl13fF
— Governor Phil Scott (@GovPhilScott) March 29, 2020
“Like many in business, trusted news organizations and local papers are being hit hard by this pandemic,” he said. “Even as they’re working long hours to keep us informed, many talented reporters and journalists are being let go across Vermont and the entire country.”
The governor encouraged people to buy their local paper or contribute to a news organization.
“You deserve transparency and the truth, and these news sources work hard every day to keep you up to date,” he said.
Griffith said she’s not sure all the state’s smaller publications will make it to the other side of the pandemic, despite all the cost cutting measures they’re now taking.
“That’s really serious for those small towns that don’t have a media outlet, don’t have an information source that pertains specifically to them,” she said.
Terry said in almost every survey he’s seen over the years about journalism, people place the highest amount of trust in their local papers.
“In the longer term, when those options no longer exist, I think that will have a very long term negative impact as well,” he said.
Terry said another lesser-recognized consequence of the hit to smaller newspapers is the effect it will have on young journalists trying to start their careers.
“Many of the journalists I know in Vermont, we all started in small newspapers,” Terry said. We learned the craft in these newsrooms.”
But he said he finds solace in the fact that Vermonters are “pretty ingenious people” who really want their way of life to continue.
“I think that at least initially, there will be a response for those who are able to help support their local news outlets,” he said.
The devastating effect of the crisis won’t be unique to the news industry, Griffith said.
“It’s somewhat unpredictable,” Griffith said. “We don’t know how long this is going to last. But we do know there will be effects that are widespreads in many areas of our lives.”
With or without the pandemic, she said, journalism is not dying.
“I don’t think small town newspapers, or the newspaper industry as a whole is shrinking,” Griffith said. “It won’t go away, it’s just changing.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated at 11:42 a.m. to include Gov. Phil Scott’s video message about news organizations.
