BY STEVEN JUPITER
This week, The Reporter embarks on a new adventure. After decades as a for-profit enterprise, much of that time as a subsidiary of The Addison Independent of Middlebury, we are sallying forth on our own as a nonprofit, community-supported newspaper. What once seemed a distant point—a whirlwind way off on the horizon—is now upon us in all its undeniable urgency. Stories must be written. Photos must be taken. Pages must be laid out. There’s a fine line indeed between panic and exhilaration.
The feedback we’ve gotten from the community so far has been a mix of hope, appreciation, and wonder at our willingness to take on such a big project. It’s going to be a stressful, laborious process for sure. But we anticipate that it will also be rewarding on many levels. And it’s the promise of those rewards that motivates us.
Our goal is to bring the communities we serve together, to keep them informed, and to keep them engaged. Even though the towns we cover have been interconnected in many ways for more than 200 years now, folks in one town are often unaware of what’s going on in the communities that surround them. We hope to create a sense of common purpose, a sense that whatever the differences from one town to the next, we’re all in it together.
The great benefit of the approach we’re taking as a community-based nonprofit is that the emphasis will be squarely on our communities. Our intention is to focus on what’s happening right here. We will cover local government, schools, and major events, but there are also a lot of good people here doing a lot of interesting things and we want to make sure we all know about them. We will also address statewide and national issues when there’s a direct impact on our local lives
To be blunt, though, it’s a challenging environment for local media these days. Easy access to online news and entertainment has made it difficult for a small-town paper to survive financially. Even in a relatively small area, there’s a lot to cover and it will be hard for us to get to it all with our limited resources. We hope that as we move forward, we’ll have the means to hire the staff needed to put out a truly comprehensive local newspaper. For the time being, we hope you’ll all help us by contributing material and reaching out to let us know what’s going on in your communities. We can’t cover what we’re unaware of.
We must acknowledge that we’re simply the latest in a long local tradition. At least as far back as the mid-1800s, there’s been a newspaper covering Brandon and its neighbors, sometimes several papers at once. Over the years, with the advent of radio, television, and internet, the reliance on printed news diminished. By the late 20th-century, we had a handful of local folks like Mim Welton, Frank Farnsworth, Ed Barna, and Roy Newton keeping the printed tradition alive with offerings like Dateline Brandon, The Brandon Bugle, and the original incarnation of The Brandon Reporter itself. We appreciate all that they have done.
We owe tremendous thanks to Angelo Lynn, publisher of The Addison Independent, who bought The Reporter from Roy Newton in 2005 and kept it running, despite the tricky economic realities of local journalism. It says something about Mr. Lynn’s commitment to community that he’s willing to turn this operation over to a new nonprofit at considerable effort and expense. Over the years, The Reporter also received expert management from Lee Kahrs, Alyssa Zollman, and Mat Clouser. They all made our community a better place.
And, for now, it falls to us—myself, Dr. George Fjeld, and Barbara Ebling—to find a way to keep the flame alive. We certainly won’t be able to do it alone. We need to expand the Board and hire staff. We need to develop networks of community contributors. We need to increase the paper’s circulation and revenues. It’s a daunting task, one we undertake with humility. We will stumble along the way. We ask in advance for your understanding and good humor. We hope we will exceed expectations, but we expect we will sometimes fall short. Please don’t hesitate to let us know what’s working and what isn’t. And please know we come to this with the best intentions.
We look forward to starting this journey with all of you.
