A Note From Our CEO

Coverage Areas

2023 Impact Highlights

On a slow summer Sunday in July 2023, meteorologists and state officials began to issue dire warnings about a storm headed for Vermont later that day. VTDigger editors scrambled to publish a story declaring that the state could face “catastrophic, life-threatening flooding.” The piece, eventually read by more than 80,000 people, would become one of the earliest and clearest warnings of the disaster to come. 

As 3 to 9 inches of rain inundated the state in the following days, VTDigger journalists reported on the ground from every corner of Vermont — reaching isolated mountain towns at times on foot. In the first week of the storm and recovery, reporters filed from 30 different municipalities. They documented the storm’s human toll in real time: a river tearing through a manufactured home community in Ludlow, a National Guard helicopter pulling people from a residence in Berlin, a rockslide covering the car of a stranded homeowner in Jamaica. 

As the rain tapered off, Vermont’s main-stem rivers continued to rise, submerging major municipalities, such as the bustling capital of Montpelier and the working-class enclave of Barre. VTDigger’s 15 reporters, seven editors and one photographer — some stranded in these very places — closely covered the peril posed by aging and overwhelmed dams that threatened to further flood population centers.

Over the following weeks, VTDigger followed the storm’s impacts on farmers, small business owners, unhoused Vermonters and immigrants — making use of reader submissions to engage with community members — and provided critical health, safety and financial information to those rebuilding their lives and livelihoods. The outlet stood up a rapid-response newsletter process that included breaking-news emails and nightly flood recaps.

At the same time, VTDigger turned to bigger questions: What role did climate change play in the disaster? How could historic downtowns built on the banks of overflowing rivers adapt? How could Vermont better protect the most vulnerable? 

Throughout the storm and recovery, VTDigger became the go-to source for Vermonters seeking lifesaving information about the storm devastating their state. 

On the first full day of the storm, VTDigger published 29 original news stories on it — more than the site typically prints in a week. In the first week of the disaster, it published 116 flood stories, and in the first month, 214. In July alone, VTDigger had 1 million unique visitors, compared with 650,000 in a typical month, and 3.1 million page views, compared with 2.1 million monthly average. For full coverage, click here.

The historic summer floods challenged Vermont’s image as a climate haven, and wrought shocking damages to the state’s landscape and agricultural operations. In addition to analyzing the environmental factors and impacts related to the floods, VTDigger’s energy and environment coverage ran the gamut. Reporter Emma Cotton’s January 2023 report on Washington Electric Cooperative’s response to a major power outage won first place in the New England Better Newspaper Competition for “Energy and News Reporting.” We are also proud of this story on the debate about forest management.

Vermont’s homelessness rate is among the worst in the nation. In 2023, VTDigger and Vermont Public partnered to host reporter Carly Berlin, a Report For America corps member, to cover Vermont housing and infrastructure. In the wake of the historic July floods, Berlin rigorously covered the destruction of manufactured homes, increased strain on renters and homeowners, disbursement of disaster relief and lack of flood insurance. VTDigger closely followed the fraught politics of Vermont’s pandemic-era motel housing program with a focus on the lived experiences of the people most affected.

In May 2023, when builders and architects found themselves lobbying Vermont legislators for stricter oversight of their own industry, they repeatedly referenced Alden Wicker’s investigation for VTDigger about a popular building insulation material known as spray foam. 

In this winter-weary state plagued by aging housing stock, Wicker documented not only the devastating failures of spray foam — hailed as an environmentally friendly method to reduce home heating costs and emissions, yet prone to misapplication that can cause roof rot, mold and toxic fumes — but also the lack of recourse for Vermonters whose homes suffered severe damage as a result. This investigation was VTDigger’s most-read story in 2023.

VTDigger dedicates more reporting power to Statehouse coverage and political news than any other Vermont news source. In 2023, VTDigger deployed half a dozen reporters to the Statehouse during the legislative session to closely cover action in committee and on the floor.

 Our legislative newsletter, Final Reading, won first place in the New England Better Newspaper Competition“Outstanding Newsletter” category.  The newsletter has become a must-read for the officials, advocates and lobbyists shaping Vermont’s policies, as well as engaged citizens. Throughout the year, our reporters provided Vermonters with comprehensive analysis on critical policy issues such as access to abortion pills, major firearms legislation and clean heat standards. 

VTDigger also covers local politics. For example, Veteran Southern Vermont reporter Kevin O’Connor spent the past year reporting on Brattleboro municipal government’s sudden, unexplained switch in emergency medical services. VTDigger is the only news outlet to investigate the change through the state’s public records act, and our continuing coverage helped inform 2023 Town Meeting representatives as they called for a “transparent” decision-making process and more say in related spending.

Access to primary care in rural areas and substance use disorder recovery services continues to be a challenge for many Vermonters. VTDigger’s reporters shone a light on health care issues including mold in buildings damaged by the floods, living with long Covid, youth mental health and efforts to address opioid misuse.

One of the defining issues in Vermont’s educational landscape in recent years has been the decline of the Vermont State Colleges System due to declining enrollment, budget deficits and underfunding. VTDigger’s journalists provided in-depth coverage of the institutional challenges, controversy and efforts by new leadership to right the ship. We reported on new developments, such as the increasing influence of conservative legal groups in Vermont school debates and the University of Vermont’s growing reliance on out-of-state student tuition. We shone a light on how often restraint and seclusion are used on young students, and documented some creative solutions to student mental health needs.

Veteran reporter Alan Keays provided timely reporting from courtrooms across the state, where key cases of public interest were being played out, including the settlement from Vermont’s massive EB-5 investor fraud case. VTDigger reporters also closely covered evacuations, rescues and road closures during the summer flooding. 

After VTDigger’s Ethan Weinstein wrote about an incarcerated person suffering from stroke symptoms, the corrections department provided medical attention to him. After we revealed the health service leader’s troubling disciplinary record, the state barred him from entering Vermont’s prisons. And a man who our reporting suggested was wrongly held in prison was released soon after publication.

Our reporting led to greater accountability among law enforcement professionals in the state, including the passage of a new transparency law spurred by VTDigger’s coverage of sheriff’s departments. VTDigger also broke a story about an after hours gathering laced with misogynistic and racist language that resulted in the resignation of two state troopers.

Human interest stories are important to fostering a shared sense of place, understanding and community. These kinds of stories truly resonate with readers, like Auditi Guha’s description of the Afghan celebration of Nowruz or Kevin O’Connor’s remembrance of photographer Peter Miller. Data Reporter Erin Petenko’s Creemee Database was a runaway crowd pleaser and a badge of honor for purveyors of the tasty Vermont treat. It also won first place for “Best Infographic on Website” in the New England Better Newspaper Competition.

Awards

VTDigger picked up 12 journalism prizes at the New England Newspaper & Press Association conference, including five first-place finishes. Vermont’s statewide digital news organization was honored in a variety of fields in the association’s 2023 New England Better Newspaper Competition, including reporting, photography, newsletters and graphics. VTDigger’s entire staff won second place in the prestigious “General Excellence” category among news services and online news sites.

Full Disclosure

From the judges: “The remarkable efforts of VTDigger have undeniably made a substantial difference in the state of Vermont after they located financial disclosures legislators obfuscated — and made them publicly available online. VTDigger’s work is both bold and brave.” 

VTDigger’s “Full Disclosure” series tied for first place in the public service category at the 2023 LION Local Journalism Awards, sharing the award with Block Club Chicago. VTDigger’s Full Disclosure series enabled Vermonters to learn about and evaluate their state legislators’ potential conflicts of interest. Before we pursued this project, only political insiders knew where and how to obtain ethics and financial disclosure forms filed by Vermont lawmakers and candidates. By digitizing this data and creating a searchable, sortable database, we put the power of information in the hands of the people. The data also informed a five-part series we published documenting how many legislators are landlords and examining how their day jobs and volunteer service intersect with their lawmaking duties. Nearly nine months after this project was published, the Vermont Senate voted in January 2024 to mandate that its members disclose additional information about their personal finances and potential conflicts of interest. The data-intensive investigative project also won first place for Public Service Journalism at the LION Publishers Awards.

Community & Events

In October, we honored VTDigger founder Anne Galloway with a momentous celebration of her achievements at a gathering at Sugarbush Resort in Warren.

Friends, family, and journalism luminaries celebrated Galloway for her prescient vision, fierce determination and unrelenting work ethic. Her nonprofit news model has become a beacon of hope in a troubled industry — and the event served to recognize her many contributions to journalism and Vermont. Nearly 200 people turned out for the celebration.

Brian McGrory, former editor of the Boston Globe, was the keynote speaker. He shared his story of how he got to know Vermont — and Galloway.

“I must have gone left when I should have gone right,” was how McGrory began a late 1990s column about his first visit to Vermont, which he recalled during his remarks. A self-described “very brash” thirty-something at the time, McGrory wrote about Vermont’s black flies that “swarm your head like a fleet of Apache helicopters” and the disappointment that the innkeepers at his Woodstock hotel hadn’t bothered to fill the guest pool with water. 

McGrory, an admirer of Galloway, shared how his opinion of Vermont changed drastically in recent years as he got to better know the state while his stepdaughter attended Middlebury College. Vermont’s beauty, Otter Creek Bakery cookies, Hen of the Wood restaurant: “I loved it all,” he said, “and I couldn’t get enough of it.”

The trajectory of McGrory’s relationship with Vermont was similar to the way many politicians in the room related to Galloway, and to VTDigger. Her trademarks — including her practice of conducting long, pressing interviews; getting into the minutiae of lawmaking in the way few other journalists did at the time; and the countless hours she spent in the Statehouse, offering little reprieve to unsuspecting legislators — earned her a reputation for being a bit annoying at first. But today, readers of all stripes turn to VTDigger for investigative and accountability journalism that has waned elsewhere in the country since websites began selling advertising and classified ads, decimating the newspaper business model that had historically relied on sales revenue to fund reporting and gathering the news.

Neale Lunderville, president and CEO of VGS and a board member of the Vermont Journalism Trust, and Sue Minter, executive director of the social services nonprofit Capstone Community Action, emceed the evening, and recalled the early days when Galloway was getting VTDigger off the ground. Both have served as cabinet members in Vermont’s executive branch. 

“Sue and I realized that we are among some of the only speakers who have been on the, shall we say, ‘pointy end’ of Anne’s pen,” Lunderville said of the gathering. “Sue and I were opposite each other in a great annual tradition in the Statehouse known as the state budget. … And my boss, Gov. Jim Douglas, was in a battle royale with the legislature.”

Galloway, barely known in the Statehouse at the time, showed up and stayed put.

“At this time, usually the media would come … when the big wigs, like Neale Lunderville, presented the budget,” Minter said. “And then they’d go away. But this year, one solo operator came in. … And she did not leave. Day after day. Those of us in the room who were used to having more informal conversations off the record, were never off the record. And we were held to account. … And I will say, that was transformational.”

“Transformational” was a common sentiment throughout the evening, including remarks from then-Vermont Journalism Trust Board Chair John Reilly, a slew of national journalists who appeared via video testimonials, and Win Smith, former owner of Sugarbush Resort. 

Galloway joined the stage with The Vermont Conversation podcast host David Goodman for an interview. She shared the trials and tribulations of getting VTDigger off the ground, how she didn’t conform to unwritten rules around covering the Statehouse, and what kept her going when public officials were annoyed with her diligent digging. 

Minter introduced Galloway, calling her “our shero.”

“I’m feeling very blessed and completely overwhelmed. Thank you, everybody,” Galloway said after appearing onstage. 

Goodman teed Galloway up to talk about VTDigger’s origin story. After being laid off from the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and Rutland Herald in 2009, Galloway founded an online-only news organization, uncommon at the time. “Most people who are set adrift swim for safety,” Goodman said. “You swam further out into uncharted waters and decided to create your own news organization. Why?”

“I believed so passionately in the work of the journalists at the Times Argus and the Rutland Herald,” Galloway said. “I just felt that the state wasn’t being covered. … When I was laid off, I just thought, ‘Damnit, I have to do something about it.’”

Goodman asked Galloway about the ups and downs of running a start-up. “How did you keep picking yourself back up and assuring yourself that this crazy idea you had could work?” he asked.

“It really came down to the readers,” Galloway said. “Because, I would have a bad day … but readers kept reaching out to me saying ‘thank you’ and ‘we need this’ … and ‘keep going’ … and that kept me going, because I knew that they needed the information and that really gave me a lot of steam.”

Galloway said the conversations she had with readers — and the news tips that came in — drove her passion to keep going. “I was obsessed with reader tips, which drove the staff completely crazy,” she said to laughs. “But to me that was the connection with the little guy.”  

Goodman asked Galloway about what she’s proudest of.

“I’m really proud of all the people over the years who have made a major contribution to the work. I’m also really proud that readers love us, and they put aside Facebook and other distractions to read Digger. The idea that 600,000 to 700,000 readers a month come to Digger, there’s nothing like that in the country,” she said, referring to the reach Digger has given the state’s size. “Digger is the first organization of our type to replace traditional news in the country. And that’s a big deal. And that’s all about people giving their support to Digger, about Digger giving back to the community. It’s a two-way street. There’s so many things to be proud of this organization.”

Sky Barsch, who joined VTDigger as CEO in April, shared her gratitude for Anne’s vision and support. “Vermont is lucky to have VTDigger, and that is because of Anne,” she said.

Our yearly membership drives have become opportunities to bring public attention to pressing issues and enable our members to support VTDigger’s journalism and other worthy causes at the same time.

During our 2023 spring and annual member drives, VTDigger members sent: