Update on the Gazette: We’re still here!

Happy New Year! We’ve heard rumors from a number of sources that some folks think that the Gazette has closed down. Not so. As you can see, we’re up and running and working to build a sustainable community newspaper.

The Gazette’s staff was busy during our traditional year-end break finding and testing a new site for our newsroom. The original plan was to close the Gazette building to cut expenses and transition to a “virtual newsroom,” with everyone working from home. The limitations of broadband access in the Northeast Kingdom made that plan unworkable, however. So, we have moved to a workspace managed by Spark in Greensboro (sparkvt.org). We installed and tested our equipment in the new space last week and, if you are reading this, successfully put together our first edition of 2022.

My thanks to Paul Fixx for suggesting we look at Spark for a solution, to Sarah and Jake at Spark for making the move quick and easy, to my wife Kim for helping me move the desks over the weekend, and to the Gazette staff for their flexibility and dedication to the cause.

A special thanks to Rev. Ed Sunday-Winters of the Greensboro United Church of Christ for his moral support and offer of an emergency workspace. We didn’t need the space, but I very much appreciate the offer.

Now, the work starts to build a corps of citizen journalists to generate the content for the paper. So far, the results have been very encouraging. Individuals from Cabot, Craftsbury, and East Hardwick have offered to write for the Gazette. And Wiz Dow is hosting an organizational meeting for Hardwick citizen journalists on Wednesday (today!) at 7 p.m. at the Hardwick Historical Society Depot. Stop by and learn how you can help the Gazette expand its coverage of Hardwick.

That’s a great start – but only a start. To provide sustainable coverage, we will need to build small teams in each of the towns that want to be covered in the Gazette. If you have questions or want to volunteer, email me at raysmall@hardwickgazette.com.

In the meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has stepped up to keep the paper going. 

R.S.