On Monday, Joshua Benton reported for Nieman Lab that VTDigger was the 17th-most-trafficked nonprofit news website in the U.S., with about 800,000 visits in January, the most recent month for which figures were available. That’s quite an accomplishment for a media outlet operating in a state where, as legend has it, there are more cows than people. (Not actually true.)
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On Wednesday, Digger itself reported that its current fundraising campaign was proving to be a roaring success. The headline: “Donations tripled during final days of VTDigger Spring Drive.”
But all is not well at Digger, founded in 2009 by Anne Galloway after she was laid off by the Rutland Herald. Galloway left Digger in 2022 under circumstances that have long been understood not to be entirely happy. And now Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan has checked in with a detailed story (sub. req.) of turmoil at the widely admired project. “I knew we weren’t doing everything perfectly,” Galloway told Ryan, “but I had tried to do what I could.”