No one would ever describe me as a shy person, but put a microphone in front of my face, or on my lapel, and I clam right up. Like so many people, I struggle with public speaking. The only way I can manage my anxiety leading up to a talk is to prepare — some would say over-prepare — by writing the whole thing in advance. No amount of practice can wean me from the script because I don’t trust myself to improvise in front of a crowd. When all eyes are on me, a panic rises up through my gut and chest to my head, where it anesthetizes my brain. That’s how it feels, anyway.
Then comes the Q&A, for which there is no preparation. In June, after a 45-minute talk I gave at the Worthen Library in South Hero, the first question from the audience was one nobody had ever asked me: “What would you do with unlimited resources?”
It was a softball, lobbed right across the plate. I’m not even sure my answer counted as a swing. It was certainly a miss. I stammered something about the implausibility of such a scenario, like I couldn’t even imagine it. Then: “Maybe we’d add another Burlington reporter.” And: “We’d find ways to help Vermont’s smaller community media outlets to shore up the state’s increasingly fragile local media ecosystem.”
Now, after thinking about it for five months, I’m ready to give a more thoughtful answer.
The first question from the audience was one nobody had ever asked me: “What would you do with unlimited resources?”
Every week Seven Days rustles up the money to publish one of the best newspapers in the country. While our reporters and editors are caught up in the swirl of writing stories, compiling calendars, fact-checking and proofreading, the sales staff is bringing home the bacon it takes to publish their work. The number of ads — and obituaries and legal notices — they sell determines the number of pages in the paper. And the information in those advertisements is as useful to readers as the local journalism it winds up next to.
This arrangement has worked for decades — and still will as long as business owners believe there is value in aligning their brands with a trusted local news source that is informative, inspiring, clever, fun and, in the end, helps start the fire in the woodstove. The ads are meant to drum up business, of course. They are also an investment in the community we share and that Seven Days connects and reports on. TikTok is not going to organize the Vermont Tech Jam or Burger Week.
Visitors from out of town often squeal with delight when they flip through Seven Days and remember what a real newspaper, fat with ads and compelling stories, looks like. But the truth is, the paper has shrunk a bit this year because there are fewer ads, especially in the help-wanted section and from local restaurants and retailers. We now rely on foundations, philanthropists and the donations of our Super Readers to help pay the bills, but every week is an uphill battle.
Among the biggest expenses is providing health insurance to our employees. In October we learned that if we stuck with the same plan and employee contributions, the company’s annual costs would go up a whopping 36 percent in 2026 — from $308,000 to $420,000. Seven Days just can’t afford that.
To reduce the increase, we’re switching carriers and making another painful change: We’ll continue to help our employees pay their premiums — to the tune of 90 percent of the cost — but everyone will receive the same amount, regardless of their family size or status. Several of our longtime staffers are scrambling to figure out how to insure their spouses and kids.
What would I do with unlimited resources? I’d soften the edges of this grueling and relentless endeavor and devise ways to make practicing local journalism rewarding and sustainable, so that it was something people of all ages and economic backgrounds could afford to do. There would be rigorous training for rookie reporters — maybe even a summer camp for teenage journalists. We could offer short sabbaticals between big stories to recharge and get new ideas. And compensation enough so that reporters could afford to live in the city they cover — that goes for the rest of the staff, too. In short, I’d put this Vermont institution on forever-solid financial footing.
If you find that vision compelling, help us get there. Buy an ad. Send a contribution using the information on this page. Make a tax-deductible gift from your donor-advised fund to one of our fiscal sponsors, Journalism Funding Partners or the GroundTruth Project. Need help? We can walk you through the process.
I forced myself to give that talk at the Worthen to spread the message: This free newspaper is worth paying for.
This article appears in Dec 3-9 2025.
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