As veteran journalist David Moats reflects on Vermont’s changing press landscape, your support is crucial to VTDigger’s continued success. We rely on donations to provide rigorous, independent reporting that keeps our state informed. Help us reach our goal of $539,000 by December 31 to sustain fearless journalism through 2024 and into the new year. Your gift, of any amount, makes an immediate impact.
It wasn’t the hot lead era when I came into the news business, but it wasn’t long after that. We were still on typewriters, though we soon moved on to computers. Even then, type came out on long strips of paper, waxed on the back, that were cut and pasted onto the pages. A darkroom technician developed the photos. Paper boys and girls delivered the paper in the morning, or it came in the mail.
If you weren’t listening to the ball game the night before, you had to wait ’til you saw the morning paper to find out who won. At the Rutland Herald, where I worked for more than 35 years, a large team gathered on the night of Town Meeting Day to get results by phone from town clerks throughout southern Vermont and Addison County, which appeared in the paper the next morning.
The Rutland Herald’s David Moats won the 2001 Pulitzer for editorial writing. File photo
All that has changed. And it’s not just the news business that has changed. Amazon, Google and others have sucked billions of dollars out of local communities, advertising has dried up, and newspapers have cut back or disappeared altogether. You can get the baseball scores inning by inning on your phone. You can sell your boat on Craigslist instead of paying for a classified ad in the local paper.
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VTDigger is among the pioneering news websites working to fill the gap caused by the digital revolution. In the last 25 years, 75% of newspaper jobs in Vermont have vanished. A number of the reporters and editors whose jobs disappeared have ended up at VTDigger.
It was this declining pattern in newspapers that inspired founder Anne Galloway to launch VTDigger in 2009.
For a time Anne was the one at the Sunday Times Argus and Rutland Herald who edited the editorials I wrote for the Sunday paper. Those editorials benefited from her close attention.
When layoffs eliminated Anne’s job, it was not just a personal loss. It was becoming clear that coverage of Vermont news was going to suffer if staffing at the state’s major papers continued to decline. Thus, VTDigger got its start when Anne began her one-woman news operation, and now it has the most robust news staff in the state.
My time at the Herald coincided with what might be viewed as a Golden Age in Vermont journalism. The Herald and the Burlington Free Press occupied large buildings in their respective downtowns and served as nerve centers for their communities. They competed for the biggest stories and helped provide news coverage as thorough as coverage at any state capital in the country.
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But it wasn’t just the big stories that were important. The papers had reporters and stringers who followed the news in small towns throughout the state. Selectboard meetings and school boards didn’t escape attention.
Now news comes out, not just in the morning, but whenever it’s ready to be posted. In order for it to be something other than a random posting of dubious credibility somewhere on social media, the news requires conscientious reporting and diligent editing. It’s true at newspapers, as it always was, and it’s true at any online source that can be counted on as reliable. That’s why news sites such as VTDigger work to establish and maintain credibility over time in their communities.
Anne Galloway, editor of VTDigger.org in 2009.
VTDigger can celebrate its 15th anniversary because it has established that credibility. One of its early big stories was the EB-5 scandal in the Northeast Kingdom, ultimately revealed as the largest financial fraud in the state’s history. Anne’s reporting was relentless, much to the discomfort of the perpetrators and those in state government whose failure of oversight proved so costly.
Another story that VTDigger broke was the saga of Daniel Banyai, who ran an illegal gun range and training camp in Pawlet and who had intimidated nearby residents who objected to its presence. Fear in the community was real, but VTDigger dug into the story and eventually, after a tortuous legal process, the camp was closed down. This was a local story with larger implications.
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The good stories have been many, and accuracy and clarity are still essential, which is why a professional staff to write and edit the news is also essential. No one gets it right all the time, and they never have, which is why VTDigger’s motto is both accurate and aspirational: “News in pursuit of truth.”
As a veteran of the news business, it is rewarding for me to sense the dedication and excitement felt by the largely young staff gathering the news for VTDigger. It was exciting for us in the 1980s, as young news editors and reporters, to take the reins at the Rutland Herald and guide its news coverage. It helped bind Vermont together.
During those years, I sometimes asked myself whether I should go to work for a worthy cause — the environment, civil rights, human rights — or go to work in politics. Instead, I stayed with journalism and realized eventually that in doing so I was working on behalf of one of the worthiest causes of all — a free press. I was a practitioner of the First Amendment.
One can foresee the crises of the immediate future. For example, what are Vermont farmers going to do if the Trump administration’s mass deportation of foreign workers decimates the state’s farm labor force?
That’s one question among many that readers will be asking and editors and reporters will be facing in the coming days. As VTDigger celebrates its 15th anniversary, dedicated practitioners of the First Amendment, at VTDigger and elsewhere, will be as important as ever.
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If you can, please join me in supporting VTDigger’s year-end drive with a donation today.
Sincerely,
David Moats
Author, journalist and editorial page editor emeritus of the Rutland Herald
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch on Friday said the Pentagon had ordered the deployment of the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing to the Caribbean amid heightened tensions with Venezuela.
According to Welch, the deployment is part of Operation Southern Spear, which has been targeting drug trafficking in the region as President Donald Trump’s administration has sought the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
A Pentagon spokesperson on Friday referred questions to the Vermont Guard.
The 158th Fighter Wing, based in South Burlington, includes 20 F-35A Lightning II fighter jets and approximately 1,000 personnel.
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Joseph Brooks, a spokesperson for the Vermont Guard, told the Globe earlier this week that the unit had been ordered by the Department of Defense to mobilize, but he would not disclose the location or details of the deployment.
Brooks declined to comment further Friday night.
In a written statement, Welch thanked Vermont Guard members for their service but criticized the Trump administration for deploying them.
“I strongly oppose President Trump’s mobilization of the Vermont Air National Guard alongside thousands of other U.S. military units in what appears to be a relentless march to war,” Welch said. “An undeclared war against the Venezuelan regime would be illegal under our Constitution. If this president — or any president — wants to start a war with Venezuela, which has not attacked us and is not a source of the fentanyl that is killing Americans, then he needs to seek authorization from Congress, as the authors of the Constitution intended.”
Details of the deployment remained unclear Friday, though Seven Days, a Burlington newspaper, reported that the unit would be stationed at a recently reopened military base in Puerto Rico. The newspaper said some Vermont Guard members had already headed there to prepare for the deployment.
WINOOSKI, Vt. — A small school district in Vermont was hit with racist and threatening calls and messages after a Somali flag was put up a week ago in response to President Donald Trump referring to Minnesota’s Somali community as “ garbage.”
The Winooski School District began to display the flag Dec. 5 to show solidarity with a student body that includes about 9% people of Somali descent.
“We invited our students and community to come together for a little moment of normalcy in a sea of racist rhetoric nationally,” said Winooski School District Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria, himself a Nicaraguan immigrant. “We felt really good about it until the ugliness came knocking Monday morning.”
The Somali flag was flown alongside the Vermont state flag and beneath the United States flag at a building that includes K-12 classrooms and administrative offices. Somali students cheered and clapped, telling administrators the flag flying meant a great deal to them, he said.
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What ensued was a deluge of phone calls, voicemails and social media posts aimed at district workers and students. Some school phone lines were shut down — along with the district website — as a way to shield staff from harassment. Chavarria said videos of the event did not also show the U.S. and Vermont flags were still up and spread through right-wing social media apps, leaving out the important context.
“Our staff members, our administrators and our community are overwhelmed right now, and they are being viciously attacked. The content of those attacks is extremely, extremely deplorable. I don’t know what other word to use,” Chavarria said Tuesday.
Mukhtar Abdullahi, an immigrant who serves as a multilingual liaison for families in the district who speak Somali and a related dialect, said “no one, no human being, regardless of where they come from, is garbage.” Students have asked if their immigrant parents are safe, he said.
“Regardless of what happens, I know we have a strong community,” Abdullahi said. “And I’m very, very, very thankful to be part of it.”
The district is helping law enforcement investigate the continued threats, Chavarria said, and additional police officers have been stationed at school buildings as a precaution. Winooski is near Burlington, about 93 miles (150 kilometers) south of Montreal, Canada.
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White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called the calls and messages the school received “the actions of individuals who have nothing to do with” Trump.
“Aliens who come to our country, complain about how much they hate America, fail to contribute to our economy, and refuse to assimilate into our society should not be here,” Jackson said in an email late Thursday. “And American schools should fly American flags.”
Federal authorities last week began an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota to focus on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S. Trump has claimed “they contribute nothing ” and said “I don’t want them in our country.” The Minneapolis mayor has defended the newcomers, saying they have started businesses, created jobs and added to the city’s cultural fabric. Most are U.S. citizens and more than half of all Somali people in Minnesota were born in the U.S.
At the school district in Vermont, Chavarria said his position as superintendent gave him authority to fly the flag for up to a week without the school board’s explicit approval.
The school district also held an event with catered Somali food, and Chavarria plans to continue to find ways to celebrate its diversity.
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“I felt sorrow for the students, the families, the little kids that are my responsibility to keep safe. And it’s my responsibility to make them feel like they belong and that this is their country and this is their school district. This is what we do,” he said.
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont police officers are working overtime shifts along the Canadian border under a federal program that critics say could violate the state’s anti-bias policing laws.
“Up here, we’re so small we rely on our partner agencies,” said Swanton Village Police Chief Matthew Sullivan.
On a recent frosty Friday, Sullivan was patrolling along the Canadian border as part of Homeland Security’s Operation Stonegarden. The chief and other local officers work overtime shifts for the U.S. Border Patrol.
“It acts as a force multiplier because we’re able to put more officers out in these rural areas in Vermont,” Sullivan said.
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During an exclusive ride-along, Sullivan showed us a field where, as recently as last fall, migrants were smuggled across the border. “These people are really being taken advantage of,” he said.
From 2022 to 2023, U.S. Border Patrol encountered just shy of 7,000 people entering the country illegally in the region, more than the previous 11 years combined.
In several instances, police say cars have tried to crash through a gate in Swanton along the border. Others enter from Canada on foot and get picked up by cars with out-of-state plates.
The chief says the illegal crossings strike fear among local parents. “They didn’t feel safe allowing their kids outside to play, which is extremely unfortunate,” Sullivan said.
Through Operation Stonegarden — which was created in the wake of 9/11 — Sullivan and his officers get overtime pay from the feds. “We’re kind of another set of eyes and ears for border patrol,” Sullivan said. His department also gets equipment and training.
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Six agencies in Vermont participate in Stonegarden: The Vermont State Police, Chittenden County Sheriff’s Department, Essex County Sheriff’s Department, Orleans County Sheriff’s Department, Newport City Police Department, and the Swanton Village Police Department. Some three dozen across New England participate in Stonegarden. These agencies collect relatively small amounts from the feds — $760,000 in Vermont, $190,000 in New Hampshire, and $1 million in Maine.
But amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Stonegarden is under scrutiny.
“This has become quite relevant to a lot of people once again,” said Paul Heintz, a longtime Vermont journalist who now writes for the Boston Globe. “These three states have dramatically different policies when it comes to local law enforcement working with federal law enforcement.”
Vermont has some of the strictest rules about police assisting federal immigration officials. The Fair and Impartial Policing Policy limits cooperation with the feds and says immigration status, language, and proximity to the border cannot be the basis of an investigation.
“Vermonters have made clear through their elected representatives that they want state and local law enforcement to be focusing on state and local issues,” said Lia Ernst with the ACLU of Vermont. She says Stonegarden is crossing the line. “They don’t want their police to be a cog in the mass deportation machinery of any administration but particularly the Trump administration,” Ernst said.
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The ACLU and other critics are concerned that Stonegarden creates a cozy relationship between local police and immigration officials that can be used to enforce the president’s immigration crackdown.
Heintz says the distinction between civil and criminal immigration enforcement can be fluid. In most civil cases in which the feds seek to deport, Vermont law enforcement can’t play a role because it’s against the law. In criminal cases, which local police can enforce, immigrants can be detained and charged.
“An operation may start out appearing to focus on a federal criminal immigration issue and may turn into a civil one over the course of that investigation,” Heintz said.
“There is a lot of nuance to it,” admitted Sullivan. He insists his department is not the long arm of federal law enforcement and is instead focused on crime, including guns, drugs, and human trafficking. However, if someone is caught in the act of crossing the border illegally, that constitutes a crime, and the chief said he calls for federal backup. Though he said that rarely happens.
“It’s a criminal violation to cross the border outside of a port of entry, and technically, we could take action on that. But again, we’re not here to enforce civil immigration while working Stonegarden,” Sullivan said.
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Anne Galloway, editor of VTDigger.org in 2009. 
