by Guy Page
Okay, bad news first. Pull the splinter quickly.
Tuesday morning, PayPal discontinued the Vermont Daily Chronicle account. This means our faithful, much-appreciated Contributing Subscribers can no longer provide financial support via PayPal.
Ouch!
PayPal’s explanation was murky, as is typical with Big Tech (just ask Martin Green). Who knows, and at this point, who cares – particularly because every donation accepted by PayPal was credited and forwarded to my bank. They’re not freezing any funds. But as of today, PayPal is history for Chronicle subscribers.
I don’t think it’s necessary for Contributing Subscribers through PayPal to “do” anything – other than accept my grateful thanks and to consider how to continue your support. I’m working on other easy online giving methods:
- We always welcome checks in the mail ($108/year suggested, non-tax deductible contribution) to Vermont Daily Chronicle, P.O. Box 1547, Montpelier, VT 05601.
- We can invoice you for a one-time, non-recurring payment via QuickBooks, payable by credit card. It’s clunkier than PayPal, but if that works for you, please let us know.
- We are working on making Venmo available. Still in process – we’ll let you know.
And now the good news……
As regular readers know, we’ve long been promising to beef up our Burlington coverage. As of TODAY, the Vermont Daily Chronicle is also publishing the Burlington Daily News, an online daily news publication similar in format to VDC but different in focus. BDN is a true community newspaper, much like the current North Avenue News, which I co-founded over 30 years ago. I have Burlington roots, as does my son and assistant editor Tim Page. We were both born in Burlington, lived and worked there off and on in childhood and as adults, and attended Burlington High School.
When I worked at the Burlington Free Press as a Jimmy Olsen intern, the Superman of the newsroom was Mike Donoghue, whose desk was next to mine. The Burlington Daily News will publish plenty of Burlington cops ‘n courts news with his byline.
What BDN will publish, and what we won’t. The Burlington Daily News will publish Burlington news and commentary of statewide interest (which will remain available on VDC) plus many other features found in a community newspaper: local sports, neighborhood news, the opening of new city parks, and the city-wide leaf gathering offered by the Public Works Department.
And in case you were wondering…. yes, we WILL publish comments, within the guidelines set down for the Chronicle: no explicit racism or other bigotry, no profanity, and no mocking or other personal criticism of other commenters. Criticizing ideas is fair game. But when the words become personal, you’ll have to take it outside, cowperson. My bar, my rules.
And like any other good community newspaper, we won’t publish news and commentary that isn’t about Burlington. When I published the Colchester Chronicle lo these many years ago, I used to say that if the governor was shot in Burlington, it wouldn’t make the Chronicle unless he staggered across the town line into Colchester. Now the locales are reversed but the philosophy still holds.
How to access the Burlington Daily News. Either check in with the website directly at www.burlingtondailynews.net or receive the daily e-edition by email. As with VDC, all subscriptions are absolutely free. Click here to subscribe.
I want to thank Kolby LaMarche for creating the BDN flag (newspaper talk for logo). The aerial photo of City Hall is from a drone shot by Adam Silverman, a former Burlington Free Press editor and current State Police media spox who is one of the very best photographers in Vermont. Remember those shots of the Northern Lights over Malletts Bay last year? Adam Silverman.
Most of all I want to thank our terrific readers, subscribers, commenters, and contributors.
Free Speech Forever,
Guy Page, Editor & Publisher,
Vermont Daily Chronicle and Burlington Daily News
