[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 18, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6590-S6591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO THE LYNN FAMILY
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the attention of
the Senate a notable family whose work has made a unique and meaningful
contribution to the Vermont newspaper community and to our State. The
Lynn family runs several Vermont newspapers, reporting local news and
serving general commerce in these communities.
In 1984, Angelo Lynn bought the Addison County Independent, marking
the beginning of a family newspaper operation based out of Middlebury,
VT. Today, Angelo's three daughters have joined a five-generation
newspaper tradition, each taking on a different Vermont town newspaper.
With Elsie running the Colchester Sun and the Essex Reporter, Polly
running the Mountain Times in Killington, and Christy working side by
side with her father overseeing the advertising sales team of the
Addison County Independent, the Lynn family reports stories Vermonters
depend on.
While some of the biggest newspapers struggle, local papers are
thriving, and the Lynn family has embraced the opportunity to influence
the future of the newspaper industry. Focusing on local government,
events, schools, sports and businesses, the Addison County Independent
is a vital piece of the community it serves. It is personal and caring,
and it reflects what matters to the residents of the community.
I congratulate Angelo Lynn on the success of his family-run newspaper
operation. Mr. Lynn, his daughters, and his brother Emerson have
harnessed local newspapers to strengthen our Vermont communities. I
have included the New York Times article ``Vermont Sisters with Roots
in News Embrace Small-Town Papers'' that covers each Lynn family
member's individual story. I ask that the text of this article, dated
August 15, 2013, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Vermont Sisters With Roots in News Embrace Small-Town Papers
(By Christine Haughney)
Middlebury, VT.--King Lear's three daughters had their
lands and loyalties to fight over. Jane Austen's Dashwood
sisters had the prospect of marriage to occupy them, and
Anton Chekhov's three sisters had local military officers to
brighten their days.
None of them ever contemplated a future as risky as
newspapers.
For a long time, neither did the Lynn sisters, even though
they are a fifth-generation newspaper family. Polly, Christy
and Elsie
[[Page S6591]]
Lynn left behind their father's dusty but cozy newsrooms for
college and careers.
Now they are back. Elsie, 26, moved home in 2010 after she
ran out of money while working and traveling through Asia.
She manages two of her father's weeklies in the Burlington
suburbs of Colchester and Essex.
Polly, 29, returned in 2011 from Denver, and has thrown
herself into running the weekly newspaper in Killington, the
popular ski town. Christy, 28, moved back in June after her
boyfriend finished graduate school in Vancouver. She helps
her father, Angelo, running the business side of Middlebury's
paper, The Addison County Independent.
It is conventional wisdom that newspapers are a fading
enterprise. Last month, the Tribune Company bought 19 local
television stations even as it sought to sell its portfolio
of papers, and twice in August, big-city papers changed
hands: The New York Times sold The Boston Globe and other
properties for $70 million, after paying $1.1 billion for The
Globe 20 years ago, and the Graham family said it would sell
The Washington Post after eight decades of ownership.
But instead of fleeing the newspaper business, the Lynn
sisters have embraced it, and not just because it is part of
their heritage.
``I've grown up in the papers,'' said Elsie Lynn. ``But I
don't think that's the reason I'm in it. The future is
exciting for me. We have this chance and this opportunity to
be pioneers and change our career and change this industry.''
The papers the Lynn sisters help run have been surprisingly
profitable. They have not faced bankruptcy like newspapers of
the Tribune Company including The Los Angeles Times and
haven't cut coverage like The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.
In these parts of Vermont, where Internet connections are
less reliable and winter snowstorms can block roads for days,
readers often prefer print.
Mr. Lynn said that he had run his newspapers debt-free for
a decade. While his papers aren't making money yet from their
digital efforts, his newspaper and phone book businesses
generate about $4.5 million in gross revenue.
``We can't afford not to make money,'' Mr. Lynn said as he
sat in his office here surrounded by photographs of his
daughters, the family dogs dozing loudly nearby. ``There's no
future losing money in any of these papers.''
It helps that Mr. Lynn has a long history in the business.
His great-grandfather, Charles Scott, bought The Iola
Register in Kansas in 1882. Mr. Lynn was raised upstairs from
the offices of another nearby Kansas paper called The
Humboldt Union. In 1984, Angelo Lynn bought The Addison
County Independent in Vermont and started building up his
chain of papers. Mr. Lynn's older brother, Emerson, owns two
papers with his wife, Suzanne, and Angelo as well as two
other Vermont papers.
Angelo Lynn speaks fondly of the newspaper life. He spends
his weekends hiking and skiing with his daughters and
weekdays churning out enterprising local journalism.
``Once you become part of a community, you see the good
that a paper does,'' Mr. Lynn said. ``That's very
fulfilling.'' His daughters' newspaper futures were less
certain. When Elsie Lynn arrived at the newsroom of The
Colchester Sun and The Essex Reporter, she had never studied
journalism or held a journalism job. She wasn't convinced she
wanted to work with her father and uncle.
``I've said, `Man, I don't know, Dad, if this is what I
want to do,' '' she said as she sat in her threadbare
newspaper office in a converted stable space on the outskirts
of Colchester. ``He said `No pressure.' ''
She settled in, typing up wedding announcements, but before
long her father asked her to review the papers' finances.
Elsie discovered they were owed $120,000 from advertisers. In
three months, she collected $90,000. She also saved her
father labor costs by absorbing multiple job titles. Elsie
said she often logged 13-hour days writing and editing
stories and promoting them on social media.
Polly Lynn was living in Colorado working for an
educational tour company with her partner, Jason Mikula, when
her father received an offer to buy The Mountain Times in
Killington. Mr. Lynn asked the couple, who were already
thinking of moving, to come to Vermont to run it. The couple
took over in September 2011 just as Hurricane Irene hit and
Killington was hit with some of the storm's worst flooding.
She produced the first editions from her father's dining room
table.
Since then, Polly said, she has kept a nonstop schedule of
publishing deadlines and has designed a hyper-local news app
for Killington. She spends evenings attending town planning
meetings and winters skiing with sources and advertisers.
There has already been a payoff. Polly and Mr. Mikula
increased the paper's revenue by 15 percent, or about
$100,000, by improving editorial content and strengthening
its advertising relationships, according to Mr. Lynn.
Mike Miller, a Killington business owner and former
selectman, said local businesses appreciated the couple's
forthright approach: when they made early mistakes on
advertisements, they admitted they were wrong, fixed them and
even offered to make more creative advertisements. They also
appreciate the couple's efforts to participate in the
community.
``I'm just amazed at their energy,'' Mr. Miller said. ``If
there's something that there are going to be more than 10
people there, they cover it.''
In some ways, Christy Lynn had the toughest transition.
While her sisters work at papers an hour's drive from their
father, she works steps away from him. Her father focuses on
editorial content, and she oversees the advertising sales
team and comes up with new promotions.
She has accomplished some small coups. She realized that
the Waterfalls Day Spa in Middlebury was promoting itself on
social media but did not advertise much in the paper. So she
persuaded the owners to advertise more in both the paper and
online. Mr. Lynn said that advertising revenue grew 6 percent
in this year's first quarter under Christy's watch.
Gary Greene, a newspaper sales broker, said successful
community newspapers shared specific traits. Unlike larger
newspapers, local community papers have little debt and don't
depend heavily on classified advertising. They hire enough
employees to report on town meetings and sports events and
publish material people can't find elsewhere. They are in
county seats, where they receive legal notices and
advertisements from local businesses.
Mr. Greene, who sits on the boards of small newspaper
chains nationwide and sees their financial statements, says
those qualities are critical to profitability.
``These papers have all made money through the downturn,''
Mr. Greene said. ``What other business categories are doing
15 to 20 percent margins? Most businesses would love to make
that kind of money.''
For now, newspaper analysts say these papers' futures
remain promising as long as they remain the sole information
source. Alan D. Mutter, a newspaper consultant who writes the
Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, said that there was still
value in information like school lunch menus and high school
sports scores.
``Weeklies in healthy communities that do a good job
reporting on local news and serving local businesses are by
far the healthiest of publications,'' he said.
``The Messenger has been in business for 150 years,'' said
Emerson Lynn, referring to one of his Vermont papers, The St.
Albans Messenger. ``Do I think Google is going to be in
existence for 150 years? Not a chance.''
It's unclear how long the Lynn sisters will work in
newspapers. While Mr. Lynn has made no succession plans, he
also doesn't want to sell. While some of the nation's largest
papers are being sold for a small fraction of their purchase
price, the market for smaller community papers is healthier.
Mr. Greene, the newspaper broker, said that this year his
company closed eight deals with 23 publications, nearly
double the sales volume in 2011 and 2012. And the resale
value of smaller newspapers--the deals worth less than $20
million--is higher than that of bigger papers and chains.
It also helps that the Lynn family seems committed to the
business. In March, Angelo and his wife, Lisa Gosselin,
invited his brood and their partners and dogs for dinner at
his home, a renovated camp building on Lake Dunmore. Dinner
conversation revolved around food, skiing and newspapers.
Polly warned her father to expect calls of complaint about a
forthcoming article.
None of them talked about how long they would remain in the
business. But long after they finished their dessert of
poached pears and blueberry pie, they lingered at the table
to chat. Before they left, Elsie remembered that The
Colchester Sun was sponsoring a cold-water dive into Lake
Champlain.
``Who is going to jump in the lake with me?'' she asked.
There was a flurry of reporterlike questions: ``How cold is
the water? When is it?''
But one by one, they all agreed to take the plunge.
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