Photo by Tim Calabro, The Herald of Randolph Maria Archangelo of the Stowe Reporter, right, shares an ad design with M.D. Drysdale of the Herald of Randolph during a round table of 13 Vermont weeklies. Publishers and their representatives from 13 Vermont community weekly newspapers met in Randolph last week to emphatically assert that they remain a healthy medium for news and advertising, despite the well-publicized financial problems of some larger newspapers.

The four-hour roundtable session heard none of the gloom and doom that pervades much of the national discussion of the newspaper business, nor were fears expressed that the internet is seriously threatening their advertising and circulation base. Rather, a shared conviction emerged that community weekly newspapers as a group, while sharing the negative impact of the current recession, have a bright future as the dominant media in local communities.

Three of the newspapers said that they had experienced their best year ever in 2008, just before the recession crippled the economy. Most publishers said that this year's sales are down, but generally in the 4 per cent to 6 per cent range, a far cry from the plunging bottom lines at metropolitan newspapers that are getting most of the publicity.

Two Vermont weeklies actually grew during the recession year of 2009, their publishers said.

They also believe that further growth is in their future, according to Angelo Lynn, for 25 years the publisher of the Addison County Independent, which is now a biweekly.

He led a session that listed the strengths of community weekly newspapers, strengths he believes will insure their status as indispensable outlets for news and advertising, despite the competing claims of internet based services.

Those advantages, publishers said, include a local focus that the internet can't match, a reliability and long perspective that cause readers and advertisers to want to gravitate toward them.

"We were there yesterday, we're here today, and we'll be here tomorrow," Mr. Lynn stated.

Publishers also said that readers and advertisers understand the importance of the "watchdog function" of the local press, and the way newspapers can impart the knowledge necessary to be good citizens.

The fact that a local newspaper is part of the community also creates reader and advertiser loyalty, it was pointed out.

Also, several publishers said evidence is beginning to flow in that the fascination with some internet-based communication is wearing thin.

The Stowe Reporter has seen a turning away from the Craigslist classified advertising site, for instance, said editor Tom Kearney.

"People are tired of getting 20 irrelevant responses and they want to get some feeling for what the community is like, that they can get through the newspaper,” he added.

Another noted that some of his readers are expressing impatience with the burgeoning multiplicity of sites on the Internet and find it more convenient to receive news and advertising in a printed package that arrives at their door every week.

“More of a threat than the Internet itself, is a growing national perception that newspapers are endangered, said one publisher. This perception needs to be countered with evidence that community weekly newspapers remain healthy,” said M. Dickey Drysdale, publisher of The Herald of Randolph.

"This story-the basic health of community weekly newspapersneeds to be told frequently, consistently, and confidently," he wrote in a letter to other publishers, in proposing last week's meeting. "We have an opportunity even an obligation-to work together," he wrote.

To that end, the publishers formed committees to work on various types of promotions which can convince the public that they are ready to serve advertisers and readers for many years to come.

The newspapers will also seek to form a common research and resource base to collect information about community newspapers and to share with each other.

Newspapers represented in Randolph included the Addison County Independent, the Vermont Standard of Woodstock, the Stowe Reporter, the Chronicle of Barton, the Journal Opinion of Bradford, The Herald of Randolph, the Hardwick Gazette, the Montpelier Bridge, the News & Citizen and the Transcript of Morrisville, the Northfield News, the Waterbury Record, the Valley Reporter of Waitsfield and the Other Paper of South Burlington.