By Richard Watts
Winooski is Vermont’s youngest and most diverse community. Next door to the state’s largest city, Burlington, the city of 8,000 has lacked a local news source for more than a decade. In the summer of 2020, UVM’s Community News Service launched the Winooski News, a bi-monthly newsletter and website to cover the events and people of Winooski.
“It’s an exciting place to live and work and a great place for our students to learn about reporting news,” said Murphy Anderson, the news editor.
In 2021, a $10,000 grant from the Vermont Community Foundation supported hiring a local publisher and news editor – to build a sustainable news source for Winooski. The grant enabled the hiring of Anderson and Steven Berbeco. Berbeco manages the business side and facilitates a local community advisory board that suggests story ideas and direction.
“Our goal is to have this be of Winooski, build local engagement and eventually transition it to be a locally directed sustainable news source for all of us in the city,” Bebeco said.
Increasing stories, audio and video, readership, and partnerships with students at UVM and Winooski High School have been core to that plan. Subscribers to the newsletter have grown to nearly 500 with open rates between 35 and 50%, Anderson said.
Ultimately, UVM’s goal is for Winooski News to become a self-run news platform that students work for under the direction of the local news editor.
To that end, the site took its first ads this summer, working with the state’s electric efficiency utility to create ads designed to reach readers in many of the community’s languages: Nepali, Somali, and others. The Winooski News has opened a bank account, incorporated with the state and is working on establishing non-profit status, and also exploring local partners that could act as a fiscal pass-through, Berbeco said.
Winooski is historically a refugee re-settlement area and 16 languages are spoken in the local school. The top languages after English are Nepali, Somali & Mai Mai, Swahili, French, Arabic, Vietnamese, Burmese/Karen.
The sustainability plan calls for a mixture of grants, local donations, and ad revenues. UVM will continue to provide two to four students per semester and in the summer for local reporting firepower.
“The Winooski News is our top partner,” said CNS founder Richard Watts. “It is next door. It provides an exceptional learning experience for our students. No one else is doing it. And frankly, it’s a fascinating city that our students love to report on.”
Both Berbeco and Anderson are residents of Winooski and love the opportunity to dive into their community. Both have full-time jobs and are managing the Winooski News at about 10 hours a week, with Berbeco playing the role of publisher and Anderson managing the news side, the newsletter, and outreach. Their commitment to Winooski shines through in their work.
In general CNS students and UVM work with existing media partners but did help start a local news site in Waterbury after its local paper closed, Watts said. “The people who know local news are the ones who have been doing it a long time. We find the news is more directed and the impact is higher when we work with someone already on the ground. For that reason, we hope to transition the Winooski News to become a partner we work with, rather than something we manage.”
Student reporters though will always be part of the plan. This summer, five students, three of whom received $3,000 scholarships from UVM, are writing stories and a new group will start in the fall.
Watts is seeking a second $10,000 grant to complete the business planning and transition the Winooski News to become its own self-sustaining entity. But until that happens, UVM will continue to provide students, funding, and expertise, Watts said. “We are lucky to have Winooski as a learning lab for our students and to be able to help provide local news that matters to the community.”
Readers can subscribe to the Winooski News here: https://thewinooskinews.com/subscribe