Rural Vermont weekly goes fully remote, puts building up for sale, relies on citizen journalists to survive pandemic

Photo courtesy of the Hardwick Gazette

A 132-year-old weekly newspaper in Vermont is going fully remote and seeking volunteer journalists in an attempt to turn the paper's finances around. Ray Small, editor-publisher of the Hardwick Gazette, recently put its building up for sale. If it sells, he "plans to use to use part of those profits towards continuing its online platform, which the paper pivoted to during the pandemic," Mary Engisch reports for Vermont Public Radio.

The Gazette is no stranger to bold action for the sake of the paper. In 2016, longtime editor-publisher Ross Connelly held an essay contest to find a new owner. He charged $175 per entry and hoped to get 700 entries, enough to ensure the paper's financial health. Connelly abandoned the idea when entries fell short, entries, but Small, an entrant, fell in love with the paper and bought it. The business analyst and his wife, Kim, moved from Stamford, Conn., and took over the paper in February 2017.

The Gazette was losing money when they took over, but until the pandemic "we were slowly clawing our way back to at least break even," Small told Engisch. "Covid wiped out 90% of our revenues, ad revenues. They really haven't come back." Going online-only has saved costs, but it had its downsides: Fewer local businesses wanted to buy digital ads, so their advertising revenue went down. And many paid public notices no longer ran in the Gazette, reducing revenue even more.

So Small is trying several tactics to keep the paper afloat. Besides going online-only and trying to sell the building, he's trying to secure non-profit status so the paper can fundraise through donors. He's also trying to focus more on selling subscriptions than bringing in ad revenue.

He's also recruiting volunteer journalists to help cover the community. The approach proved popular with residents when the Gazette tried it out a few years ago. "We ran some special sections once a month in the towns of Greensboro and Craftsbury. And have the local residents cover their towns," Small told Engisch. "We had great response. I still edited every piece and we did the professional layouts and residents choosing the topics do a much better job than a Gazette correspondent who has limited bandwidth to cover any particular town."