UVM Students Join The Herald in Statewide Initiative to Bolster Local News
Two Sharon Academy graduates will report for The Herald this spring as part of the University of Vermont’s Community News Service, a statewide initiative through which student interns work with professional editors to write local news stories.
Chris Gish and Alexander Binzen start this week.
As news media moves online, and advertisers move to Facebook and Google, local papers around Vermont are struggling to maintain revenue— and staff. Vermont newspapers lost 100 reporters in the last 15 years, according to the Center for Research on Vermont.
To combat this trend, Richard Watts, a professor at UVM and director of The Center for Research on Vermont, started the Community News Service in the summer of 2019.
“It’s a home run,” he said, “students get real news experience and the papers get professionally edited stories.”
What began with five interns that summer has quickly grown. This semester, 50 students will work remotely with 20 partnered newspapers across the state.
Cory Dawson, a UVM grad and former VTDigger reporter, is the program’s full-time editor, leading what is now the largest part-time newsroom in the state. He highlighted Winooski, a town that had been lacking local news for decades and is now being covered by the program. In the last few months, the Winooski News has published stories on COVID-19 school re-openings, mental-health issues, and local politics, such as the charter change allowing non-citizen residents to vote.
According to a report from the University of North Carolina titled “The Expanding News Desert,” 20% of community newspapers in the U.S. have folded since 2004, leaving 1,300 counties without news coverage at all.
The Community News Service also aims to support the business side of Vermont’s local papers by designing websites and revamping revenue models.
Wendy Knight, a business consultant and Vermont’s former tourism commissioner, leads a team of business students, new this semester, to work with papers on developing business plans.
“Certainly they will be more sustainable six months from now, based on the work that we’re doing,” she said.
The Charlotte News is a non-profit collaborating with Community News Service on both its news and business operations. Editor Chea Evans was grateful for the help. “It’s really nice for me to be working with reporters who are enthusiastic about tackling town stories” she said.
UVM student reporters Gish and Binzen are excited to report on the White River Valley, they said. Gish is from Sharon and will pursue stories with a focus on the environment and criminal justice. Binzen grew up in Strafford and share’s Gish’s environmental focus, as well as interests in local economies and government.
“I’m looking forward to connecting with different kinds of people and getting to know small towns and rural life, and how they run,” Gish said.
You can find this story published in The Herald.
