Times Argus to halt Waterbury Reader publication

Sept. 7, 2022  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

Times Argus illustration

The Waterbury Reader weekly newspaper, published by the Times Argus featuring stories and photos from the Waterbury Roundabout online news site, will end publication in two weeks with its Sept. 23 edition. 

Times Argus Executive Editor Steven Pappas announces the decision in a message to readers on the front page of this week’s Waterbury Reader print edition that will be mailed and on newsstands by the end of this week. 

“This has been a very hard decision, especially since readers in the community continually thank us for mailing the newspaper to their home every week,” Pappas writes. 

The free weekly paper mailed to households in the two zip codes serving Waterbury and sections of the adjacent communities of Duxbury, Moretown and Bolton is a collaborative effort that began in November 2020. 

The paper is produced and distributed by the Times Argus daily newspaper serving Montpelier and Barre. It provided an opportunity for stories by the online news site WaterburyRoundabout.org to be delivered to local readers in a printed edition. 

Waterbury Roundabout began in May 2020, several weeks after the Waterbury Record weekly paper ceased its 13 years of publishing here at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its owners, the Vermont Community News Group based in Stowe, said the paper was not financially viable even before the dramatic drop in advertising revenue triggered by the pandemic. The company has continued to publish five other weekly papers including the Stowe Reporter. 

The decision by the Times Argus comes six weeks after the Reader printed a joint message from Waterbury Reader and Waterbury Roundabout editors titled, “We’re invested. Are you?” The message praised the collaboration on covering local news and the desire to keep news coverage free of charge with the caveat: “But we cannot accomplish either of those goals without an investment from the community – and that means ongoing support from our readers and local businesses.”

From the Sept. 9 edition of the Waterbury Reader

Note to readers: 

After nearly two years of trying, and unless there is a seismic shift in revenue generation, the Waterbury Reader – a product of The Times Argus – is suspending print publication on Sept. 23, 2022. The Waterbury Roundabout, the independent online news organization we have partnered with in this effort, will continue at waterburyroundabout.org.

This has been such an amazing partnership, and provided us with great opportunities to keep our product in this important Vermont community. But without ongoing advertising support, it is impossible to cover our production, printing, trucking and postage. 

This has been a very hard decision, especially since readers in the community continually thank us for mailing the newspaper to their home every week. We hope, if you truly appreciate the news coverage you are getting, that you will continue to put your support behind the work being done by Waterbury Roundabout Editor Lisa Scagliotti and her team. 

No one wants to see a print publication pack up, especially us. Thank you for your support, and feel free to reach out to me in the coming weeks if you have ideas or suggestions as to how we can keep the Waterbury Reader coming. 

Steven Pappas

Executive Editor

Waterbury Reader/The Times Argus

Given the climate for community newspapers in Vermont and across the country, we are not surprised that this has happened, but we are disappointed. 

The Roundabout website began as a class project at the University of Vermont in the spring of 2020 as part of the Community News Service journalism internship program. It never envisioned creating a new print newspaper. 

Having the Times Argus approach us that year with the idea to supply content to print in a small weekly free publication they were starting seemed like a worthwhile experiment – they would get local stories to print, we would have a steady if not modest stream of regular income, and the community would get back a physical newspaper. 

We knew the numbers would be tough given the decision by the Waterbury Record’s publisher that started this chain of events. But it seemed worth a try. 

Unfortunately, the model hasn’t gained the financial support it needs to be viable. We understand the business decision.

What’s next?

To a great extent, that depends on the community. 

WaterburyRoundabout.org isn’t going anywhere – yet. Our operation is an independent nonprofit Vermont corporation registered with the Vermont Secretary of State. Photographer Gordon Miller and I will continue to cover local news stories along with contributions by some of our regular freelance journalists as funding allows. Our digital editor Julia Bailey-Wells, who created the website, continues to work on the site and the weekly email newsletter, This Week in Waterbury. UVM’s internship program will provide an intern or two this semester to get firsthand experience reporting local news at no cost to us. 

But all of that still relies on a significant number of volunteer hours. And without revenue from the print edition, that becomes even more tenuous.

Like newspapers everywhere, we are experimenting with different business models to see what combination might work. So far, our other income sources have been reader contributions and one paid weekly business sponsor on our email newsletter. 

We are grateful to the readers who have sent us checks and signed up online to chip in with one-time and even monthly contributions. But that support is limited. While more than 1,800 people receive our weekly email, for example, we have had fewer than 200 readers contribute this year and just 22 give monthly. (Many thanks to those 22!) There is much room for improvement there. 

For those considering helping out, know that the Vermont Journalism Trust – the parent nonprofit to VtDigger – is our fiscal sponsor, making contributions potentially tax deductible depending on how you do your taxes. That sponsorship also can help the Roundabout seek grant funding. In fact, just days after we learned of the Times Argus decision last week, we received word that a grant request we made in July to the Vermont Community Foundation was approved. We have been awarded a $3,000 Spark grant to use for business development. The timing couldn’t be better. 

In the next few weeks, we will be looking at changes to our website to potentially accommodate online sponsors/advertising. It may mean that you see fewer stories posted and our newsletter may be shorter than usual while we focus on the business end of things for a bit. 

Ironically, the day before we got this news, we had decided to launch a Local Jobs page on our website to post employment listings. We hope that will help collect the “help wanted” messages from local employers in a convenient spot for job-seekers. 

What you can do 

For now, if you’re a reader and you haven’t contributed to funding our work, consider chipping in. (Even $5 a month would add up if many kick in – do the math.) 

If you’re a business owner with jobs to fill, consider placing a Local Jobs listing ($50 to post for a month). 

And, as we expand our website to accommodate paid sponsors/advertising, we hope local companies and organizations will see it as a place to connect with the community to get their messages out. More on that as we figure it out.

Ultimately, whether Waterbury continues to have a locally produced source of community news depends on everyone. If there’s interest and financial support, it will take hold. 

We don’t plan to stop trying until this truly local operation has given it a wholehearted try. We get that current market conditions don’t support a weekly print paper and all of the overhead that requires. But what about a scrappy website with a few dedicated professionals, talented local freelancers, and eager students?

Stay tuned. 

Lisa Scagliotti is editor of Waterbury Roundabout.