VTDigger Editor-in-Chief Geeta Anand on rebuilding trust through local news

Every week, two local newspapers close somewhere in the country. Some 50 million Americans have limited to no access to local news. That may increase with loss of public media funding. What is the future of journalism in an age where truth itself is under attack? Local news is essential because “that's where rebuilding confidence in facts and truth starts,” said VTDigger editor in chief Geeta Anand. We spoke at a public event at the Manchester Community Library on Nov. 11. “If you've actually gone to a meeting and seen a story based on it and met the reporter and it actually seems the article matches what you heard, then you begin to disbelieve the discrediting of journalism that is happening, led by the leaders of our country, which is having a devastating effect on our democracy.”Anand’s career as a journalist and author spans the globe. Her stories on corporate corruption in the Wall Street Journal earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and she was a finalist again in 2003. Her book, "The Cure," about a father’s fight to save his kids by starting a company to make a medicine for their untreatable illness, was made into the 2010 movie, Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford. She was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in India. Anand’s roots in journalism are in covering local news. She worked at Cape Cod News and then covered local government and courts at the Rutland Herald. In 2018, she became a professor at the UC Berkeley journalism school, where she was dean in 2020. She was at Berkeley until taking over leadership of VTDigger in July 2025. Anand spoke about how local journalism is a critical link in the information ecosystem. “Our coverage right now of immigrants getting picked up and spirited off to other parts of the country -- that's the way the world finds out that these things are happening. Our stories get picked up by national media, and the national media hold our national leaders accountable. We matter to you here in Vermont, but we're also a key part of the web of national and international news.”Anand said that for community and democracy to function, it is critical to support local news. “If we aren't vibrant, if we're not there at the city council meeting or at the school board meeting and telling those stories, government isn't held accountable. It's almost like these things haven't happened if we're not there.”Thanks to Greater Northshire Access Television for recording this conversation.