VTDigger warmly thanks all our members who contributed to our new Southern Vermont reporter position. Thanks to you, we reached our goal of raising $11,500 from readers for increased regional reporting for Southern Vermont.
VTDigger is thrilled to welcome journalist Emma Cotton as our full-time Southern Vermont reporter and the newest member of the VTDigger newsroom. Cotton will cover Rutland and Bennington counties in tandem with Kevin O’Connor, who covers Windham County. She will report on matters of critical importance to the area, replicating VTDigger’s successful Northeast Kingdom regional reporter model.
Report for America leverages a regional funding match for part of the corps members’ salary and asks local news organizations to raise money from readers for a portion of the cost. This approach creates a shared investment in local journalism, for the community, by the community. VTDigger is grateful to our members for stepping up to join us in supporting this new position.
Launched in 2017, Report for America is an initiative of the nonprofit media organization the GroundTruth Project. It’s aimed at harnessing the skills of early career journalists — plus the creative spirit of local news organizations — in order to bolster coverage that has been drastically reduced through cutbacks in the newspaper industry.
Vermont Public Radio is also participating in the program — whose stated mission is “to strengthen our communities and our democracy through local journalism that is truthful, fearless, fair and smart.”
The appointment is for one year but can be extended, with the hope that the position eventually becomes self-sustaining.
“We are thrilled to be chosen for this potentially game-changing program and look forward to working even harder for Vermonters in the southern part of our state,” said Anne Galloway, founder and editor of the 10-year-old Montpelier-based news site.
“We understand our program may not fix all that is broken in local journalism,” said Charles Sennott, CEO and editor in chief of GroundTruth. “But we are honored to be part of a wider community directly confronting the crisis and doing everything we can to restore journalism from the ground up.
Last June, VTDigger deployed a reporter exclusively to cover issues of importance to the Northeast Kingdom. Based in St. Johnsbury, that position is partially backed by the Tillotson Fund at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.
Read the story on VTDigger here: More Southern Vermont reporting, thanks to members.
