Media guide: Vermont villages are publishing boom towns

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 1994 by Youngwood, Susan

Mitchell agrees. "It's almost going back to the beginnings of journalism when papers were created to express the views of the publisher."

These papers don't have large staffs. The publisher usually keeps the books, reports, writes and edits stories, sells and designs ads, produces the paper and distributes it, with varying degrees of help from volunteers, part-time employees and free-lancers.

Many possible conflicts can occur. "I wear two hats," said Guy Page. "It's very hard. I have businesses who buy ads and then we sit around and talk about news. One minute I'm helping them realize their goals and the next I'm not." Page tries to impose strict standards, and says he won't let advertisers influence his news coverage. "We'll never trade news for ads," he said.

Randy Capitani, the publisher of The Deerfield Valley News, said, "We walk a fine line. We do try to maintain as high a journalistic standard as can when we report on events, but we also understand the value of promoting the community as well."

This paper had an unusual start: It began as a promotional newspaper by Mount Snow ski resort 27 years ago and evolved into an independent community newspaper that relies on newsstand sales and subscribers, including about 500 second home owners who receive it through the mail at their out-of-state homes.

"What's hard for me is keeping the difference between news and editorials," said Connelly. "I'll write a news story and an editorial on the same subject in the same issue. I try to be very careful when I write the news story."

Publishers of these community newspapers are optimistic about their future. For while daily newspapers are losing readership, as more people turn to television, community newspapers fill a need that television cannot address.

"More and more, we're what people read," said Page. "The dailies are really caught. They used to be the place where people got the news, but now people get state and international news on television. Everything that is in the daily newspaper is old news, so they are getting read less and less, and they don't have the room to really cover local news the way they want to."

And while daily newspapers wonder what role they will play in the information highway of cable, television, telephones and computers, publishers of community newspapers believe they provide news these media cannot

"The community newspaper will always have a niche," said Capitani. "The large information gathering networks will never service the local community."

Connelly uses this analogy. "If you want to get from here to San Francisco, you need an interstate map. If you want to get from here to Burlington, you need a state map. If you want to get around Hardwick, you need a town map to know the dirt roads, the back roads. That's what community newspapers are--the back roads of journalism, addressing issues that bigger daily newspapers don't have on their road map."

SUMMING UP

More and more community newspaper are popping up around Vermont as digital desktop publishing replaces older methods and as community members get motivated to publicize town events.