Media guide: Vermont villages are publishing boom towns

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 1994 by Youngwood, Susan

John Lea, the publisher of The Five Town News, for instance, offers new businesses who advertise the opportunity to write an article about the business in the paper--something he doesn't consider for businesses that don't advertise. And Cate says she doubts she would ever run articles of controversial nature.

"We don't figure it's our job to expose crime or anything like that," she said. Like other publishers of newer community newspapers, neither Cate or Lea have any background in journalism.

Some journalists worry about the consequences of these community papers run by amateurs.

"Community newspapers should try to cover all news before they claim to be a community newspaper, to take an objective and unbiased look" at events, said Lynn. "A lot of (them) don't do that. That is a very legitimate distinction that many readers don't understand.

"The biggest problem with small papers is they provide an appearance of news that doesn't provide as critical a look. People get pacified by that and become lazy readers. It puts papers doing a good job of reporting at a huge disadvantage when people don't want to read bad stuff about their towns."

Adds Mitchell, "It would be really interesting to see what happens to these papers when they come up against a real issue: Will they publish both sides? What people will do with misinformation, without all the facts, is scary."

Vermont also has many long-established community papers, which have been around for more than 100 years.

Many of these older papers started with the original intention of being a source of all news to their readers. "Small newspapers used to print national news, because news didn't travel fast and there was no television," said Lynn. "They used to be the primary source of all kinds of news. But that function is no longer there."

Many of the papers are struggling financially.

"I dare anyone to live off anything that comes out twice a month and has 12 pages." said Poger of The Other Paper. "It depends on what you call profitable. We break even and I get paid a nominal salary."

"We're for profit in theory," said Ross Connelly, publisher of the Hardwick Gazette.

The long lasting recession hit the publishing business particularly hard, although some community papers posted strong financials despite the weak economy.

"In Vermont, most established community papers did OK" during the recession, said Angelo Lynn. This varied depending on how hard hit the community was. Papers in towns like Hardwick and Randolph struggled. "It's been hard; we had to do some very considerable downsizing," said Drysdale of the Herald of Randolph. And Connelly said his paper fell from a high of 24 pages in the late 1980s to a low of 10 pages last year.

But in the suburban community papers, which never had national advertising to lose, many of them actually siphoned advertising from the daily. Small businesses which decided to cut back on advertising decided to concentrate on the community papers, which have lower ad rates.

The explosion of newspapers today resembles what happened two hundred years ago, when printing a newspaper was a relatively inexpensive process and many communities had competing publications. Lynn explained that when the printing process changed to letter press in the 1800s, a substantial investment was needed and a number of papers disappeared. "Today its back to a very inexpensive process," said Lynn, referring to desk-top publishing. "That's why there are so many small nonprofits starting."