By Dan Cotter, Publisher
Choosing the centerpiece photo to appear on the front page of the paper is one of the highlights of the week for those who work at the Standard.
Through the years, deciding on this photo was something longtime publisher Phil Camp relished. Each Tuesday morning, the Standard’s page designer printed out and displayed all the best images that our photographers had captured in their assignments, along with any photos that were provided by community organizations that held events during the week, or even photos submitted by readers. There might be dozens of choices. Phil delighted in his weekly ritual of looking through all of them and picking his favorite. Others on the staff weighed in as well. Today we still do a similar ritual, only we do it digitally rather than with printouts.
It’s fun, but picking the cover photo is also an important decision. That picture will be the very first thing readers see when they pick up the latest edition of the Standard.
Photos of kids, whether at a community event or participating in sports, nearly always make the final cut. And you can never go wrong with a picture of a cute dog. Here in Vermont, photos of birds, horses, sheep, and oxen are fair game too. And of course, photos shot at the scene of the week’s news stories — such as a fire or other emergency, a public meeting or vote, a performance or festival, a construction site, etc. — are always strong contenders.
To me, our weekly photo ritual pretty well symbolizes what our Annual Appeal is all about. The Vermont Standard is essentially a snapshot of life this week here in our community. Just as it has been every week for the last 171 years.
And we’re trying to preserve that. Beyond the front page, the Standard is filled with articles and photos that document and describe how life is playing out right here in our community. There’s no wire copy or state or national news in this paper. Just original reporting about the people here. The happenings here. The decisions made or the ones we need to make here. The triumphs and tragedies that take place here. What’s beginning, what ended, and what’s just plodding along. Here. This week.
The paper paints a portrait that helps everyone in our community process, celebrate, and commemorate what we’re going through together. It’s about our friends, our neighbors, our kids, our characters, our heroes. Every single week, the Standard tells a new unique story about our life as it’s unfolding right here. Like a window into our world.
The Standard is the only entity that endeavors to create this mirror image of life playing out in our beautiful communities. Both in print and online, the Standard is the one comprehensive local news source just for us; that we can all enjoy. One we can trust. A common experience for the people here in this place. For those who care about this place.
We believe that’s incredibly valuable. Other communities have lost their paper – whether it has gone out of business or whether it has become so diminished that it’s hardly worth reading. Those communities are left with a void. At some level, they become “news deserts” that don’t have a reliable source of credible local information. There, misinformation, which is often spread via social media, goes unchecked, and even worse, forces with dubious agendas emerge to purposely spread disinformation. Communities like that have experienced increased polarization and a decline in civic engagement.
But here, we’ve still got a quality paper that informs and connects our citizens in a positive way. And we’ve worked to make the Standard even better in recent years. Even though advertising revenue is no longer sufficient to sustain it, we think the Standard is special and worth saving.
To keep it going, though, we need everyone to chip in. We’re asking you today for your help now before it’s too late. We need tax-deductible contributions to our Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation so that it can help fund the Standard.
Today is the end of our 4-week annual appeal, but our need in the coming year is 52 weeks long. And we intend to preserve the Standard so that it can forever continue to provide quality local journalism for our wonderful community, which counts on it to be the weekly window into our own little corner of the world.
Our need is urgent, and we are deeply appreciative of anything you’re willing to do to help us. If you’d like, Phil and I would be grateful for an opportunity to meet with you to talk more about our need and our plans. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at dcotter@thevermontstandard.com or (802) 457-1313.
We sincerely hope you’ll join us in our mission by contributing to this year’s 2024 annual appeal.
Also, if you have a family foundation, please consider adding the Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation (EIN: 93-3287932) to the worthwhile causes you regularly support.
The Foundation is a public charity so your gift will be fully tax-deductible.
Your donation will be utilized in the form of project grants to support the Vermont Standard’s mission to inform, connect, and educate our community on issues of public importance.
If you’re willing to make a tax-deductible donation to our 2024 Annual Appeal, please send a check to PO Box 88, Woodstock, VT 05091, or go to our Vermont Standard THIS WEEK website at www.thevermontstandard.com to make a contribution with your credit card. Be sure to make your check out to the “ Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation.”
