Dear Readers and Supporters,

By the spring semester of my first year at what was then Castleton State College, I knew I didn’t want to leave Vermont when classes wrapped for the summer. 

I had found a place of stunning natural beauty, strong civic engagement, and adventurous, entrepreneurial, and welcoming people — even to me, an out-of-stater. I was absolutely in love with this state and thought it was, in many ways, perfect. I wore my rose-colored glasses, and as the kids say these days, Vermont “became my whole personality.”

As I’ve spent a couple of decades in the news business, those glasses have become clearer. I’ve watched as our state has grappled with weighty matters: A warming and wetter climate, substance misuse, declining school populations, social injustices, a lack of affordable homes.

These are some of the key issues that VTDigger’s journalists tackled this year, in an effort to understand and explain what’s happening — ultimately so Vermonters stay informed, aware and can do something about it. I think of Emma Cotton’s tale of a woman in Lyndonville who survived being swept away in the 2024 summer flooding, which vividly showed how the changing climate is becoming life or near-death. Carly Berlin’s deep dive into whether the whispers that Vermont’s motel program is a magnet for out of staters untangled a mostly untrue myth that was influencing how people talked about the program — and the people enrolled in it. Ethan Weinstein’s story about a South Burlington boy with autism and his family’s struggle to find an appropriate educational environment illuminated one of the effects of a new law that put a moratorium on state funding for newly formed independent schools. There are many more examples.

When I think about the future of VTDigger, it is inextricably tied to the future of Vermont. When I envision a state where residents are thriving, it’s a place with economic opportunity, access to outdoor spaces, accessible education, and social equity. It’s also one in which residents can find an affordable apartment, a doctor or a plumber. A vibrant Vermont exists when our leaders and voters understand the issues at hand and build solutions. None of this can happen without a thriving independent press.

This independent press is only possible because of you — our readers and supporters who believe in the power of independent journalism. Your financial support ensures that VTDigger can surface challenges, present varying points of view, show the impact of policy decisions, and hold our leaders — the ones who decide our laws and set our vision for the future — to account.

I’m proud of the clarity VTDigger’s reporting brought to these issues in 2024, as difficult as they might be to reckon with, let alone solve. We aim not to sensationalize, but to inform and inspire action.

I don’t mourn the loss of my rose-colored glasses. Knowing the truth matters more. Thanks to VTDigger’s journalists, operations team, board of trustees, and the supporters who make our work possible, I can look at the state I love with clarity and hope. After all, understanding the challenges is the first step toward finding solutions.

Thank you for being part of this journey with us. We appreciate your support so Digger keeps digging well into the future, because our state’s future depends on it.

Sincerely,

Sky Barsch
CEO, VTDigger

In 2024 the trustees of the Vermont Journalism Trust, Ltd., which oversees VTDigger, concentrated on fiscal sustainability to ensure the continuation of the award-winning journalism that has defined Digger’s 15 years. 

In 2024 we published 2,450 original news stories, reaching 500,000 to 600,000 readers each month on our website, 42,000 newsletter subscribers, 150,000 social media followers, and thousands more who read our stories through our Community News Sharing Program or hear about them on radio news.

Through careful stewardship, our CEO, Sky Barsch, led Digger closer to a break-even year financially — a key accomplishment after several years of larger losses that were in part the result of a challenging fiscal environment during and after the pandemic, and during the leadership transition when there was increased pressure on our news team.

The improvement can be attributed to the strength of Digger’s reader support and several key new funders and advertisers. But the deficits also necessitated significant reductions to both the reporting and business staff in order to bring costs in line with revenues. We continue to seek new support to restore our strength.

Throughout the year, our smaller but mighty team brought award-winning reporting to natural disasters, complex state-wide challenges in housing and education, and changing election dynamics, as well as to the quieter behind-the-scenes stories of Vermonters making a difference in their communities. The New England Newspaper and Press Association awarded Digger top honors for its energy and environmental reporting, photography, newsletters and graphics.

During 2024, four trustees each completed the maximum term of nine years of volunteer service to Digger. Don Hooper, Neale Lunderville, Mathew Rubin, and the late Bill Mares all served as enthusiastic supporters of Digger’s nonprofit public service journalism and we are grateful for their guidance, advocacy and hard work.

In reviewing how the news landscape has changed over Digger’s 15 years, the board continues to explore the ways Digger can work with other news organizations in the state, even as we sometimes compete with them for breaking news. For example, in 2024 we continued our partnership with Vermont Public, sharing a Report For America housing reporter who writes for both outlets, and also collaborated with VP on a U.S. Senate candidates debate. Students in UVM’s Center for Community News authored a number of stories, and we are exploring how UVM’s research capacity can strengthen our reporting. And while we continue our Community News Sharing Project supporting primarily smaller news weeklies around the state by allowing republication of our stories for free, we hope to build our partnership with hyper-local news outlets to ensure the health of that important segment of Vermont’s news ecosystem.

I so appreciate the commitment of the people behind VTDigger — the reporters, the editors, the leadership team, and volunteer trustees, as well as our readers, subscribers and donors. We cannot succeed without all of you! 

Thank you,

Gaye Symington
President