1996
Tom Slayton
Editor-in-Chief, Vermont Life Magazine
Senior News Consultant, Vermont Public Radio


VMD: How would you describe your new role at Vermont Public Radio? How does it differ from the commentaries you’ve been doing on VPR for some time now?

TS: It’s going to be a slightly enlarged role. I’ll be acting as sort of an unpaid consultant as VPR and Vermont Life work together in celebrating Vermont Life’s 50th anniversary in the coming year. We share a similar editorial approach to covering the state. VPR is interested in our in-depth approach that takes Vermont history into account, and tends to look at people and the human side of stories to add depth and color to events.

The bottom line function of Vermont Life is to promote the state of Vermont. To do so, we cover Vermont in an in-depth way which lets the facts speak for themselves. Our editorial philosophy is to celebrate the real Vermont. I think VPR wants to look at Vermont in a complex way — they won’t be promoting the state like Vermont Life, but they are interested in the way we cover it. I would add, with probably no trace of modesty, that they’re interested in my knowledge of the state of Vermont as well.

VMD: What was the genesis of your position as senior news consultant for Vermont Public Radio?

TS: Mark Vogelzang and I talked for several months and got to know each other. Mark got to know Vermont Life and I got to know VPR. In discussing his vision for VPR’s future news operations, we found we had a lot in common. We share a lot of common goals and ideas about news coverage and about the state of Vermont.

VMD: What’s the timetable for this news initiative? Is it happening now?

TS: It’s happening now. Basically, we’re working on it in a gradual way, both because of the financial constraints of our organizations and because we’re keying the initiative to celebrate our 50th anniversary. The fall ‘96 issue will be the actual 50th anniversary issue of Vermont Life, celebrating 50 years of publishing, but our anniversary celebration will begin early in the summer of 1996 and continue into 1997. VPR will work with us editorially, taking kind of a newsy angle on some of our stories. We’re working on some of the prototypes right now, and I think it will be something that will gather in intensity as we go down the road.

VMD: Will this initiative continue after the 50th anniversary year, or is that yet to be determined?

TS: I think we’ll let that shake out as it goes. I’m not sure what will happen after the 50th anniversary year. I think that, God willing, we’ll continue to have a friendly relationship with VPR. The 50th anniversary gives us an opportunity to try some new, more intensive things than we’ve tried before.

VMD: Could you describe the profile of the listeners you’re targeting, or will you be catering to the “typical” VPR listener? How will this be different from other radio news programs?

TS: I guess I’m not thinking of a target in terms of a 44 year-old, white, male Vermonter earning more than fifty thousand dollars a year. Basically, the assumption we’re making is that VPR’s listeners are, or should be, Vermont Life subscribers and gift donors. I think that VPR and Vermont Life have a lot in common in that their listeners and our readers are intelligent people who share common interests and characteristics.

What kind of news coverage will we be doing? I think what Mark Vogelzang has in mind is to do something a little more in depth than just day-to-day breaking news — to look beyond the day’s headlines and see the human aspect of each story and look for the unusual angle.

VMD: How much crossover will there be between VPR and Vermont Life? Will something that one might hear in the morning on VPR also appear in Vermont Life, or will they be completely separate editorially?

TS: Oh no, one of the 50th anniversary aspects of this thing is that we’re going to work together editorially. Vermont Public Radio will do stories that will take as a starting point stories that are published in Vermont Life. Because it’s a radio medium, they won’t do the same stories, but VPR will have the opportunity to add new approaches and updates. Once we’ve published it, the story is done. As a result of our quarterly publishing schedule, we have to design stories that will be valid for a long time, so our articles are “positioners” more than breaking news. VPR radio news will be able to cover developing aspects of the stories. Again, it’s not going to be the day’s headlines, it’s going to be follow-up stories to what happened with a study that Vermont Life mentioned. I’ll give you an example. In our winter ‘95 issue, we have a story that talks about research being done in Vermont to test electric cars. Since Vermont is one of the coldest, most overcast places in the country, logic has it that if electric cars work here they’ll work anywhere. Our article says that the research is starting. VPR is going to take that story another step further and say: What is the outcome of this research? Where is it leading us? And, what is it like to own or drive an electric car?

VMD: Will you be the news voice of VPR?

TS: Sometimes. Not always. One of my functions will be to help them select free-lancers. This will really be their choice, but again, I’ll be acting as a sort of unofficial consultant when they make choices about staffing or free-lance people they use and that sort of thing. That process has already started.

VMD: Will you cover straight news stories or will the Associated Press be the main source for VPR’s local news coverage?

TS: I think it’s going to depend on the story. By and large, if you listen to “All Things Considered” you know that the breaking news stories are pretty much rip-and-read wire copy. Then they take two or three ideas and do a really good, in-depth job looking beyond the headlines to find the meaning in the story.

VMD: What’s the best format to present VPR story ideas — do you prefer phone, fax, letter or e-mail?

TS: I think the best way to present stories for Vermont Public Radio is to present them to VPR staff. It wouldn’t make sense to query me directly about a VPR story as I’m really only a consultant. Mike Crane is their programming director, and he’s a good contact. I think Mark Vogelzang also tends to be very involved in those decisions; however, he tends to pass those story ideas and decisions to Mike. The bottom line is that people should go to VPR with their story ideas and not to me. I’ll see them eventually.

VMD: What capabilities will VPR’s new studio in Colchester add to the mix?

TS: Oh, it will add enormously to the capabilities that Vermont Public Radio already has. They’ll have more than one state-of-the-art production studio in one building, so that they can do many things simultaneously. They’ll have performance studios, so that if a performing artist — or maybe a string quartet — is doing something interesting we could combine a feature story with a live performance. Not too long ago, Vermont Life did a story about Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a pianist who is the son of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. If VPR were to do a feature on him, they could have him perform during the story.

VMD: Getting back to Vermont Life — sort of the same question I asked about VPR — what can a public relations practitioner do to try to intrigue you with a story idea as the editor of Vermont Life?

TS: Well, I’d say write me a letter — that’s the best approach. I’m interested in anything that’s happening in Vermont, and I read all my mail. I try to answer all my mail within a reasonable time, but people should understand that I get probably half a dozen queries a day. If you think about it, Vermont Life presently publishes four issues per year, and there may be ten story slots, plus or minus, in each issue. So we get to select only forty stories a year out of hundreds of queries, and that really constricts us. Nevertheless, people shouldn’t be at all shy about writing to me with a story suggestion. Quite often public relations people are promoting a business. We do some stories on Vermont businesses, but one of the things we’re able to do now that we carry advertising is to promote those businesses by encouraging them to advertise in Vermont Life. Many of our Vermont advertisers are real pleased with the response they’ve gotten.

VMD: Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for in a story, or are you only looking for the idiosyncratic piece that tells a different Vermont story?

TS: Well, I’m always looking for that. That’s always high on my list. I don’t tend to do a “wants list” because we plan the magazine a year in advance, and if I put out a list suddenly we’re inundated with stories.

I would just say that we focus on two or three things at Vermont Life. We try to have a contemporary story in every issue that somehow reflects something important that’s going on in Vermont today. We’ve looked at the question of development in all its various aspects. We’ve looked at what’s happening to Vermont’s forests. We’ve looked at agriculture, and we’ll continue to look at these issues as they are recurring areas of interest for us. We’re also interested in Vermont heritage and Vermont history and how it’s reflected today.

People think that today’s Vermont is real different from nineteenth-century Vermont — it’s not. There are some obvious differences. We’re connected to the urban East Coast in a way that Vermont never was before, and that’s changing Vermont. But in other ways, there’s a scale of life, there’s a sense of personal decency, there’s a reluctance to get caught up in the current craze, there’s a skepticism and a neighborliness that I think has always characterized Vermont. I was born in this state, I grew up here and I still recognize people as Vermonters that I would have known 50 years ago. Things are changing and that causes everybody concern, but Vermont isn’t changing in ways that are so drastic that it will leave us unrecognizable.

VMD: To get back to one point — you said that you plan the issues a year in advance. Does that mean that if I were to send you a letter next week I’d have to think forward to the winter of ‘96-‘97?

TS: Yes, you should. There’s usually a bit more flexibility but, because we have certain 50th anniversary stories we want to do, that’s constricting everything. Basically, for someone who’s proposing a story idea, it’s good to think at least six months ahead, and probably a year. We’ve got most of the stories for the winter ‘96 issue already assigned. That’s just the way it has to be because we have such a strong photographic component. If we do a story on ski academies as we did in the winter ‘95 issue, we have to photograph it the winter before it appears in the magazine. Unfortunately, that made our job difficult because there wasn’t a lot of snow in the winter of 1994.

VMD: What highlights can we look forward to from Vermont Life or VPR during the 50th anniversary celebration?

TS: There’s going to be a lot. Because Vermont Life is known as a magazine that features photographs of Vermont, we’ll look back at 50 years worth of photographs that will be initiated by the fall ‘96 issue. We’re going to look at several historical articles, and we’re also doing a special exhibition in coordination with the Vermont Country Store that points out how Vermont Life has covered many of the changes that have come to Vermont over the past 50 years. The 50 years that Vermont Life has been published have also been the 50 years of greatest change in the history of the state. Vermont has changed enormously in the last 50 years, and Vermont Life has chronicled that change — not always wittingly — as a result of what we do.

VMD: Can you characterize the difference in the mission and editorial content between Vermont Life and Vermont Magazine?

TS: I think that Vermont Magazine is more topical — more newsy — if you will. We kind of tend to take a longer-range look at things, and we’re frankly more promotional than they are. We’re a promotional magazine, that’s our function — our mission is to promote the state of Vermont. I would like to add that we do that in a way that I think isn’t blatant, but rather capitalizes on the great resources that already exist in the state of Vermont.

VMD: And for the foreseeable future, you expect that there is room enough for the two magazines?

TS: Oh sure, absolutely.

VMD: At the close of 1996, what do you hope to be able to say about the successes that you have experienced or enjoyed with both VPR and Vermont Life?

TS: Well, I would hope that when we close out our 50th anniversary year that people will see what a great resource Vermont Life is for the state. I hope that people also will have a sense of Vermont’s history for the last 50 years and will have a sense of the importance of Vermont’s heritage in what’s happening today. I hope people will ask themselves some questions. Where is Vermont going? Will it maintain its integrity and its individuality? Do they like where it’s going? If so, how do we encourage that — and if not, how do we change course if need be?

I also would hope that at the end of the 50-year anniversary we will have established a strong and in-depth news operation with VPR that has a real meaningful connection to the state and to what actually happens here.

VMD: Thank you very much for your time.


Editor’s Note: When proposing story ideas to Vermont Public Radio, Tom Slayton suggests directly contacting the station’s programming director, Mike Crane. Crane, who handles queries for other VPR producers in addition to Slayton, prefers to be contacted via fax or mail. For breaking news stories, Crane suggests contacting the Vermont News Service in Montpelier.

This interview was conducted in winter 1995/96. The names and organizations mentioned were current as of that time.