Burlington Free Press State House Reporter marks 25 years in the Biz

Burlington Free Press State House reporter Terri Hallenbeck posted this on Facebook today:

"Twenty-five years ago this week I started my newspaper career at the Norwich, N.Y., Evening Sun." Congratulations Ms. Hallenbeck for surviving and thriving in a challenging industry.

Knowing the fortunes of evening newspapers over the last quarter century, I googled the paper, mostly to see if it is still publishing. And yes, it is - five times a week, the "hometown paper of Chenango County." You can check it out at http://www.evesun.com/.

Naturally some current and former reporters made reference to their first jobs, including yours truly. I was a second-shift intern at the Free Press, sitting next to a grizzled police reporter who would (in frustration sometimes) bail the kid out of the messes he got himself into. His name was Mike Donoghue - wonder whatever happened to him?

Rob Roper's Common Sense Radio to fill True North time slot on WDEV

Rob Roper, editor of True North Reports and former host of True North Radio, will be back on WDEV in his 11 am time slot beginning Monday, Jan. 31.

In a report to readers in the Jan. 26 issue of True North Reports, Roper said the show, Common Sense Radio, will be sponsored by the Ethan Allen Institute. The Ethan Allen Institute is a conservative educational public affairs organization operated by John McClaughrey, former Caledonia County senator and aide to Pres. Ronald Reagan. Roper, of Stowe, is a former executive director of the Vermont Republican Party and Freedomworks.

In a response to an inquiry today, Roper said he and reporter Angela Chagnon will continue to issue True North Reports. "We will have our cake and eat it too," he said.

Thatcher Moats named to Vermont Press Bureau

vermontpressconnections has learned (see notice below) that Thatcher Moats, the City of Montpelier beat reporter for the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, has been hired to fill one of the two open slots at the Vermont Press Bureau, which covers state government for the Rutland Herald and Times Argus. 

Mr. Moats is the son of Pulitzer Prize winner and Rutland Herald editorial page editor David Moats, according to his 2008 wedding announcement in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/fashion/weddings/30duerr.html?_r=1

Press Bureau staff change

As many of you know, we've been looking for reporters for our Press Bureau, after naming Pete Hirschfeld the new chief in December.

We have hired Thatcher Moats, currently the Montpelier reporter for the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, to be a Vermont Press Bureau reporter. Thatcher has been with the Times Argus since the summer of 2008, when he replaced Pete as the cops and courts and general assignment reporter for the Times Argus. He moved to the Montpelier position last spring, replacing Sue Allen.

He will be moving into his new duties this coming week, while keeping an eye on Montpelier (the city government, not the state) until we can get him replaced. And, the third position will be filled soon...

-Rob Mitchell

Seven Days newspaper family hires three new employees

Thanks to JB McKinley, editor of the News & Citizen, for passing along this press release of three new hires in the Seven Days family of publications.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- January 21, 2011
Contact: Paula Routly
(802) 864-5684 or paula@sevendaysvt.com

Burlington-based Da Capo Publishing Announces Three New Hires
Seven Days brings on a graphic designer and a food writer; Kids VT gets an associate editor

Corin Hirsch, a graduate of the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism, has joined Seven Days’ editorial team as a food writer. Hirsch was most recently a food columnist at the Eagle Times in Claremont, N.H. While living there, she taught journalism at Lebanon College. New York native Hirsch also worked as a fact checker for The Nation magazine. She holds a master’s of fine arts degree, and spent several years working in art direction.

Brooke Bousquet, a Middletown Springs native, has joined the Seven Days production department as a graphic designer. Bousquet, a graduate of Castleton State College, was most recently a designer at the St. Albans Messenger. Bousquet also worked as a designer at the Valley Voice in Middlebury and The World in Barre.

Kate Laddison, a Georgia, Vt., native, has joined Kids VT as the associate editor. Laddison most recently managed a team of technical writers and regulatory specialists at a local medical software company, but she brings years of journalism experience to this position. Laddison left Vermont to attend Emerson College in Boston and returned to work as a reporter and editor for both the St. Albans Messenger and the County Courier in Enosburg Falls. She’s looking forward to returning to journalism. Laddison and her husband live in St. Albans with their 3-year-old son.

Seven Days is Vermont’s largest independent newsweekly and an award-winning source of news, opinion, art and music reviews, job listings, personals and classifieds. The paper is distributed free every Wednesday at more than 1000 locations in northern and central Vermont, and Plattsburgh, N.Y. Its website, sevendaysvt.com <http://sevendaysvt.com> , includes web-only content, such as weekly episodes of the popular video series, “Stuck in Vermont.”

Seven Days also publishes 7 Nights: The Seven Days Guide to Vermont Restaurants and Bars, What’s Good: The Off-Campus Burlington Guide, and three e-newsletters: “NOW: Notes on the Weekend,” “Bite Club” and “Daily 7." Seven Days hosts an annual Vermont Restaurant Week each spring, and helps organize the Vermont Tech Jam job fair and tech expo each fall. The company was founded in 1995 by Pamela Polston and Paula Routly. 

Kids VT publishes a free monthly magazine and an annual Resource Guide, both of which reach parents via newsstands, schools and doctors’ offices. It also hosts an annual Camp and School Fair each February. Da Capo Publishing, dba Seven Days, is updating the design with the February issue. It will carry new, local, kid-friendly content — including feature stories of interest to parents and caregivers. Find it online at kidsvt.com <http://kidsvt.com> .

Herald of Randolph asks: are anonymous comments on media websites OK?

The Herald of Randolph, the award-winning weekly newspaper for Orange County, devoted an editorial to a question being asked in many newsrooms in Vermont and across the country: should media websites allow anonymous reader comments?

Herald Editor/Publisher M. Dickey Drysdale reprinted an editorial from a Maine newspaper that is "food for thought" for editors of online news publications. The Maine paper recognizes the issue's pros and cons, then takes a strong "no" stance. To read the editorial, go to:

http://www.ourherald.com/news/2010-01-13/Columns/col02.html

As editor/publisher of the Colchester Chronicle, about 12 years ago I began allowing anonymous reader comments in print, with the published understanding that I could edit with broad discretion. Shortly afterward the Colchester Police detained and handcuffed the Town Manager, whom they suspected of swiping some soft drinks stacked in a hallway in the Town Office. They had probable cause: on the morning after the police had dusted the drinks with invisible, heat-reactive dust, the TM showed up for work with purple hands. I am not making this up. The ridiculous affair dubbed "Sodagate" was received with much ridicule and hilarity. Now that the Statute of Limitations on newspaper comment anonymity has expired, I can reveal to the world that the funniest comment came from a Fort Ethan Allen resident and radio personality better known these days as one of Colchester's representatives to the Vermont Legislature: Rep. James Condon.

I never let the anonymous comments get too uncivil. Perhaps for that reason, the anonymous comments column died a slow death. I doubt the same can be said for the "To Sign or Not to Sign" debate, as the popularity of online news increases.

Your thoughts are welcome in the "comments" section.

New face at WPTZ news desk: Emmy winner, world traveler, racehorse owner

You may have seen George Mallet as the new face on the WPTZ evening and late night news. vermontpressconnections asked the station for a bio, which we received and pass along to our readers:

George Mallet started his journalism career in print rather than on television.  His first job after graduating from The University of Delaware was as a news clerk with The Associated Press in New York City.  Although he has made his career on television since the early eighties, he continues to write pieces for such publications as The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Delaware Today Magazine.

George’s first on-air reporting job was for KUAM-TV in Agana Guam.  He didn’t stay in that U.S territory long and soon returned to the mainland where he began reporting for WITN in Washington, North Carolina.  After departing coastal Carolina, George spent ten years reporting for WTVD, the ABC-owned station in Raleigh-Durham.  From Raleigh, he moved to Fox Philadelphia where he reported and anchored for ten years.  Most recently, he has worked as an anchor and reporter for WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The winner of multiple Emmy and AP awards for spot news coverage, George has had the opportunity to cover major stories throughout his career.  While working for WTVD, he was sent to the Soviet Union to cover the Moscow Music Peace Festival featuring Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Ozzie Osbourne and a handful of heavy rock acts.  He also covered the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, the crash of TWA 800 and every hurricane to hit the fragile coast of North Carolina between 1987 and 1997.  During his time in Philadelphia, George was sent to Rome to cover the canonization of Saint Katherine Drexel and to Florida to cover the 1998 return of John Glenn to space.  Between 2004 and 2007, George chronicled an unparalleled streak of great Philadelphia racehorses participating in the Triple Crown races including Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Barbaro and Hard Spun.  Those assignments garnered George two Emmy nominations and sparked an obsession with horses that continues today.

When he isn’t working, George enjoys riding the young thoroughbred racehorse he rescued from the track.  That horse, Brahma Fear, is the grandson of the great Secretariat and finished in the money in 17 races on tracks from Philadelphia to Virginia.  An avid kayaker, George lives near Lake Champlain with his Norwegian Elk Hound, Charlie.

Vermont Press Bureau seeks two new reporters, including investigator

That unfamiliar face in the press corps at Gov. Peter Shumlin's Jan. 14 statehouse press conference is not exactly new to the newspaper business - and neither is his family. Rob Mitchell is an executive in the family business, the Rutland Herald/Times Argus newspaper group. He was covering for Vermont Press Bureau Chief and sole reporter Peter Hirschfeld, who was in Grafton on assignment. The Herald/TA is still trying to fill both posts created late last year by the resignations of two veteran reporters. Louis Porter and Dan Barlow joined the Vermont Conservation Law Foundation and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility respectively.

Mitchell, who oversees the VPB, said a hiring that was imminent last week fell through. For at least one position he wants a hard-nosed reporter with strong investigative skills.

In yesterday's blizzard, WCAX reporter to the rescue!

Driving up Rte. 2 from Richmond to Williston yesterday afternoon, I saw a WCAX van pulled over on the side of the road. An auto parts delivery car was stuck headfirst in the snow. The Good Samaritan trying to push the car out of the snowbank was none other than reporter and former Douglas administration official Anson Tebbetts! I offered to help but the driver decided he would just call a wrecker. Where else but Vermont can you get stuck in the snow and have a news reporter try to push you out? Shades of July 7, 1984, the day of the Amtrak train accident, when reporter Michael Gilhooley put down his notebook and picked up the end of an ambulance stretcher.
                          - Guy Page

Morrisville paper is yet another third-generation Vermont media dynasty

Shay Totten’s Jan. 12 Seven Days story on three-generation Vermont media dynasties, “All In The Media Family,” was a personal trip down memory lane, having a personal connection with three of the four news operations profiled. I covered St. Johnsbury Village for the Caledonian-Record in 1981 and a few years later spent two years as County Editor for Emerson Lynn at the St. Albans Messenger. “Cal-Rec” Publisher Gordon Smith was a terrific guy who didn’t mind getting printer’s ink on his hands. Every Monday afternoon, he and everyone else at the paper dropped everything to stuff at least one supermarket circular into every copy of the paper, by hand. Mr. Lynn embodied the principle that the best newspaper publishers care equally, passionately, and daily about improving both the news coverage and the advertising/circulation revenue.

I never worked for WCAX, but from President Peter Martin I learned that I should have studied harder in my college medieval history class. During a job interview 30 years ago, he saw “European history major” on my resume and promptly asked for details about the Investiture Crisis. My deer-in-the-headlights response assured me of a future in the newspaper business.

But this column isn’t about me, thank heavens, it’s about yet another three-generation Vermont newspaper family: the Limoge clan of Morrisville, publishers of the weekly News & Citizen since 1922. Arthur Limoge left the Free Press and went to work at the News & Citizen in 1921, buying it a year later after the death of the owner. His son Clyde “came up in the business,” and except for several years serving as a combat infantryman in the storied 10^th Mountain Division in Italy in World War II, spent most of his long life running the Morrisville print shop and newspaper.  As late as the mid-1980’s, Clyde would awe print shop visitors by operating the “hot lead” Morganthaler linotype machine, an amazing 19^th century-era, moveable-type contraption. When he wasn’t in the shop, you might find Clyde fishing nearby with his buddy Chuck Yeager, the famed test pilot, who had a family connection and loved to fly north and fish in Vermont. Clyde co-owned the paper with his sister Frankie, who capably ran the “front desk” and/or kept the books for decades.

Clyde’s son Brad joined the News & Citizen shortly after completing his active duty military service in the 1970’s. (He remained active as a helicopter crewman in the Guard for many years afterward, and today is an active Civil War re-enactor and in-character marcher in July 4 parades.) He threw himself into all aspects of the business, becoming a highly capable printer and pressman.  He has an astute business sense and an encyclopedic amount of practical knowledge of all things concerning community newspapers. Born and raised in Morrisville, he knows everyone in his stable, multi-generational town, and has inherited or hired a loyal, local, family-like staff. The News & Citizen may be the only Vermont newspaper where, on a November Monday morning, both editor and publisher ask visitors, “so, did you get your buck?”, and they really want to know the answer, and every detail.

The News & Citizen is a paid weekly, its gigantic broadsheet pages crammed full of local news. Local correspondents from each Lamoille County town inform the reader who ate Sunday dinner at their home, and whose house had a tree fall on their roof in the big storm last week. The front page too is local, local, local. Like similar independent, locally owned and operated community newspapers – the Journal Opinion in Bradford, the Hardwick Gazette, and Grand Isle County’s The Islander, to name just a few – the News & Citizen may be unknown outside of its readership area, but is an institution inside it. Also, the News & Citizen is believed to be the only weekly community newspaper printed on its own, in-house printing presses.

Under Brad Limoge’s leadership the business started a sister paper, The Transcript, a free, total-market-coverage weekly circulated to virtually every mailbox in Lamoille County. If you’ve ever seen the World in Washington County, The Message of the Week in the Connecticut River Valley, or the Vermont News Guide in Bennington and Rutland counties, then you know what the Transcript is all about: strengthening local businesses by giving them unparalleled advertising access to thousands of homes.

One other thing about Mr. Limoge: like Gordon Smith and many others before and since, he’s an untiring stuffer of supermarket flyers. Every Friday afternoon, he and most of the staff (often including myself, in both of my two stints there) would stuff, jog and bind. He is a hands-on publisher who wears suspenders on the job. Not Wall Street “power suspenders”, but department store suspenders that he wears because he’s too darned busy finishing a print job to waste time pulling up his pants.

He may be the last Limoge in the venerable Brooklyn Street shop. His only child lives out of state. Whatever happens and whenever it happens, Mr. Limoge will be able to look back on his career with pride. Over the coffee pot in the News & Citizen print shop hangs a poster of the First Amendment with a reminder to all readers that it is the ink-stained printer/publisher who is the last line of defense for America’s first freedom.

-          Guy Page

Below: Brad Limoge, third generation publisher of the News & Citizen in Morrisville (www.newsandcitizen.com)

                               

Caledonian-Record publishes separate Orleans County daily newspaper

The Caledonian-Record, the Northeast Kingdom daily newspaper based in St. Johnsbury, is now publishing an Orleans County edition, the Orleans County Record. The Caledonian-Record has long been circulating in Orleans County, but now there's a separate, dedicated publication. 

The Orleans County Record began publication in mid-November, Caledonian-Record Executive Editor Dana Gray told me recently. "There is a new masthead and news placement and page-design is geared toward Orleans County readers. The edition goes to Orleans County homes and single-copy sales stores," he said. "Reworking interior pages allows for news from both editions to appear in both editions. We’ve hired additional staff for news and sports coverage in Orleans County."

 Gray can be contacted at grayd@caledonian-record.com.

True North goes all-web

True North Radio, the conservative radio show founded by Paul Beaudry, is now an all-web platform, called True North Reports. The news director is Rob Roper, with Angela Chagnon as reporter, and Rob Maynard pitching in as well. Roper can be reached at rob@truenorthradio.com. I found postings from the first day of the legislative session by searching "True North" on Facebook. Once at the site, I subscribed to a mailing list.

The story below appeared recently on True North Reports and explains the transition from WDEV radio to the web.

True North goes all-web

by True North 

Angela Chagnon joins True North Reports as an investigative reporter

For ten years True North followers turned to their radios from 11:00 to noon to hear a conservative perspective on Vermont politics. But, as of January 2011, True North Radio will make a transition and an expansion to an all internet based platform -- True North Reports. 

With the change in medium comes an increased focus on  gathering news and generating original content as opposed to  just commentary. This is going to be an exciting change.

Freeing up the resources required to buy air time on WDEV and WTWK enabled True North to hire Angela Chagnon as a full time investigative reporter who will be based in the State House during the legislative session, supplying timely, in-depth coverage of issues and events.

Rob Roper will stay on as News Director, working with Chagnon, and Robert Maynard will continue helping to edit on-line content.

"I loved the radio, and hope to find another path to returning to the airwaves, but the new technology we have today allows us to reach out to a lot of people in a variety of ways that radio doesn't," said Roper. "We'll be able to use video, blogging, and social media to respond more nimbly to a 24 hour news cycle, and the ability to have someone on-site, holding legislators accountable will be an invaluable resource. I'm very excited about this evolution and the impact we'll be able to have."

Kristin Carlson to cover WCAX Statehouse beat through legislative session

Veteran statehouse reporter Kristin Carlson will cover the Statehouse beat through the 2011 legislative session, she told vermontpressconnections yesterday.

WCAX had moved Carlson from the Statehouse to the 5:30 pm newscast, and installed Bianca Slota in the Statehouse. However, Slota was named press secretary for Gov. Peter Shumlin last month, leaving the post open. WCAX management opted for bringing Carlson back to the statehouse, rather than immediately hire and train a new reporter. Carlson will continue to work on the 5:30 broadcast, she said.

This new blog, vermontpressconnections, covers developments within the Vermont media industry, both local and statewide. It is published by longtime journalist and communications professional Guy Page.

Free Press diversification, Sunday circulation up; "We are Free Press Media"




Burlington Free Press publisher Jim Fogler bylined a rare "state of the paper" column in the January 2 Sunday Burlington Free Press. Among other things, Mr. Fogler said Sunday circulation is up and branding changes ("We are Free Press Media") are underway. 

Corm, Coach and Laura launch new two-hour morning show

Shay Totten of Seven Days reported on Dec. 22 the following new radio show featuring three popular radio personalities:

“Former radio hosts Steve Cormier, Tom Brennan and Lana Wilder launched a new two-hour morning show, “Corm, Coach & Lana” on Northeast Sports Network (NSNSports.net). At 7 a.m. Monday, the trio was guffawing over headlines, talking with guests and joking around like no time had passed.”
The entire segment in Totten’s excellent “Fair Game” column can be seen at the following link: http://www.7dvt.com/2010keeping-state-secrets.

Vermont Press Connections

A new blog, vermontpressconnections, will provide ongoing news about developments in Vermont media, including new publications, personnel hirings and departures, new formats, sale and acquisition of media properties. 

The blog also features a page dedicated to providing comprehensive media contact information.

The blog publisher is Guy Page, principal partner of Vermont Press Connections (VPC), consultants to people, organizations and businesses seeking to get the right message to the right people by effective use of the right Vermont media, from the local community newspapers to regional radio to statewide newspapers, radio and television.  On a contract  basis, we partner with selected clients to plan and implement custom media campaigns. Specific roles may include strategic media planner, campaign consultant, press agent, press spokesman, press release/letter/op-ed writer, editor, news clipper, and dedicated media developer.

Page is the former editor and publisher of the Colchester Chronicle. He has worked for daily and weekly newspapers including the Burlington Free Press, Caledonian-Record, St. Albans Messenger, News & Citizen, and Chittenden Observer. He founded the North Avenue News and the Winooski Eagle, as well as a newsclipping service, Vermont Newsclips. He co-founded two community newspaper advertising consortiums, Chittenden County Suburban Newspapers and Northern Vermont Newspapers. His not-for-profit affiliations include the Vermont Lung Association, Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare, two statewide political campaigns, Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont, and (currently) Vermont Energy Partnership.

For more information, contact Guy Page at vermontpressconnections@juno.com.