Updated below with comments from Remsen and Hallenbeck.
Nancy Remsen and Terri Hallenbeck, who make up the Burlington Free Press‘ two-person Statehouse bureau, are leaving the paper, according to sources close to the situation.
The circumstances surrounding the departures are not entirely clear, nor is their timing. Both reporters filed stories in Tuesday’s Free Press and would normally helm the paper’s election night coverage.
Last month, all but four Free Press reporters and editors were required to apply for new jobs at the paper with different responsibilities as part of a restructuring mandated by corporate owner Gannett Company, Inc. According to one source, Remsen and Hallenbeck were informed last Thursday they had been transferred from the Statehouse bureau to new positions covering community news. Both declined.
It’s unclear whether the paper will maintain a presence in the Statehouse. Tim Johnson, a 16-year veteran of the Free Press who was laid off last Thursday, told Seven Days on Saturday, “There’s not going to be a city hall beat. There’s not going to be a Statehouse beat. There’s not going to be an education beat.”
According to her Free Press bio, Remsen previously reported for the Associated Press and spent 20 years at the Bangor Daily News. She moved to Vermont in 1995. Hallenbeck began reporting in 1986, working in upstate New York before moving to Vermont in 1998.
Reached Monday evening, neither Remsen nor Hallenbeck would discuss their employment status.
“I’m not talking about it,” Hallenbeck said.
“It’s not something I can say anything about,” Remsen said.
Not including Remsen and Hallenbeck, the Free Press has eliminated four of its 28 editorial positions through layoffs and departures in the past three months.
Free Press executive editor Mike Townsend has repeatedly refused to comment on changes at the paper.
Updated at 5:36 p.m.:
Remsen and Hallenbeck confirmed their departures later Tuesday on their Facebook pages.
Remsen wrote:
Tomorrow will end 40 years of reporting for daily newspapers in Maine and Vermont. It has been a great run that is ending a little earlier than I wanted — but so be it. Ready for a new chapter. Any suggestions?
Hallenbeck wrote:
Friends:
Today, I am covering my last election for the Burlington Free Press. Later this week, for the first time since 1986, I will no longer be employed at a daily newspaper. I can assure you there is nothing easy about this for me.
This was not just a job for me, but a lifestyle. Being a journalist is as much a part of me as my red hair and freckles. It is where I met my husband. It is a profession I have been unable to shake despite the bad hours, relatively low pay and obvious signs in recent years of the industry’s decline.
This chapter of it, at least, is over though. I have opted against staying at the Burlington Free Press.
Some of you may have heard that the Free Press and all Gannett newspapers rewrote all newsroom job descriptions and required employees to apply for the new jobs, which focus on pursuing the most popular stories as measured by website clicks. That no longer seems to include many of the stories I’ve had the pleasure of covering the last 10 years as a Statehouse/political reporter at the Free Press.
It breaks my journalistic heart, but I can no longer pretend it’s not happening.
It has been a great privilege for me to have a front-row seat to Vermont’s unfolding history. I’m thankful for all the readers who let my words share their breakfast table. I’m grateful to all the people who trusted me with their stories. I know there were times I disappointed you. There were times I disappointed me too, but I never took this special job for granted.
There is significant irony in the fact that my departure comes during election week. You might think stories about elections, candidates and issues are important, but those stories typically attract far fewer web hits than stories about the latest crime, caper or car crash. Newspapers are now armed with data that make this crystal clear.
As some of you know, my departure from the Free Press is not the only one this week or this year. This newspaper, like many, has bid premature goodbyes to all too many good people. The Internet has not only turned news stories into click bait, it has led people to believe they can obtain their news free of charge. If we believe that, we will get the world we are asking for – one that is less well-informed, less open to hearing new ideas from new angles.
My soon-to-be-former colleagues, including my husband, will continue to try to do good work as they strive to make sense of their new world order. I wish them nothing but the best.
I leave the Free Press without knowing my next step. That is unsettling, even scary. It’s time to take the next step, though. It’s time to see life from another angle.
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Terrible news for these excellent journalists, and for Vermont. I left the Free Press in disgust in 1999 after hearing a Gannett executive describe Vermont as a “market” for the production of profit rather than a community deserving of the best quality journalism. Gannett is in a death spiral of its own making, and none of the ever-changing vocabulary of sugar-coated words that issue from headquarters will change that. It’s absurd, infuriating and — most of all — sad.
I wish Nancy and Terri well, but I’m glad, for their sake, to see them go.They’ll feel lost for a few days, but they’ll be OK.
Terri’s right: it’s unsettling to step away from the journalistic world one has struggled in for years. For a good reporter, the reporting never ends, and in a good newsroom the ethic of fairness and fearlessness is contagious.
But corruption is contagious as well, in a police force or legislature or newsroom.
A bad newsroom is a dismal cell, the managers anxious above all to avoid unhappy attention from corporate overlords, young reporters learning by example that the quick and easy way is the safe way and the watchdogs either shot or let loose.
It’s hard in these days of news snippets and cable shouting, the endless scrambling for one more farthing of ad revenue–particularly in newspapers like Gannett’s, run by individuals of breathtaking crudity and selfishness, none of them journalists—to recall the days when the local newspaper was trustworthy and indispensable. Local papers were never perfect and none uncovered all they might have, but in years past many tried to do the job.
The Free Press, of course, needs reporters in City Hall all the time, in the State House and state bureaucracies, in the police stations and courts and schools, in the streets and wherever the public business takes place. Reporting can’t be done on the cheap.
This is a sad period for Burlington. The old newspaper is dressed in a new cheap suit and is heading for Vegas, a blonde on each arm.
The Burlington Free Press has been laying off reporters left and right; without these latest two, they now employ a total of 9 reporters in their news department. They measure articles’ value by the number of clicks they get, instead of by traditional measures of journalistic importance. Video pieces are valued over in-depth reporting. Professional photojournalists have been fired (instead, reporters are told to take photos with their iPhones). And they’ve lost nearly all of the (frustrated and exasperated) veteran reporters, so they’re left with younger folks who are happy to constantly rejigger their headlines to maximize click-through rates.
But don’t worry, people — I have a solution! Simply rebrand the Burlington Free Press as BURLINGTON BUZZFEED and there will be no confusion about its news and business model, nor high expectations for its journalism. Problem solved!
This is just stupid. I completely understand “innovate or die”, but this is more akin to eating your young – there is no logic. If the reporting about how stories will be selected for coverage is accurate, (choosing to cover a story based on some troll sitting in a basement clicking “like”), this situation is more scary than no daily newspaper at all.
If they are reading this, if you two could write a book together about Vermont politics and newsmakers — I would do it. You both have seen, heard and observed so much — we would be well served by having your ideas moving forward.
If I were VTDigger or VPR or even Seven Days — I would grab them!
This isn’t about a bad newsroom — though IMO the free Press is the Froot Loops of journalism (some nutrients amidst a lot of bad stuff). It’s about journalism for profit, as it always has been at Gannett. Actual reporting on government and the economy and social issues is dead, while “reporting what you want to know” is the new business model. That means missing out on stories that really matter, even if the coverage on those stories is half-done, at least it’s something. It’s not unusual for reporters with a conscience to reel against the business model of corporate journalism. What’s interesting here is the suddenness of the change at the Freeps, which, truth be told, is behind the rest of the industry in bridging the online gap.
Terri and Nancy, this is indeed a sad day for journalism. While I didn’t always agree with you, your intelligent and energetic pursuit of the facts always impressed me. You are both wonderful and skilled reporters and I wish you all the best. Burlington Free Press – you have made a(nother) giant mistake
Shame on the Burlington Free Press
Thanks for the superbly written and totally professional exit piece.
Too bad that the BFP could not maintain the same caliber of writing as Hallenbeck displayed in the “farewell” speech…sad, but the BFP does need a shake up from its poorly written, grammatically incorrect and typo written articles but “axing” the journalists and reports on local education, and government issues is wrong. Isn’t this suppose to be a Vermont newspaper? I still say they should take note from Seven Days which is an excellent weekly paper with thought provoking, well written and community articles and not bulked up with advertisement inserts (and THEY use their spell checker and edit the articles BEFORE it goes to print!)