Dougherty and Terra Headshot

Michael Dougherty, left, is VTDigger’s new community editor, and Florencio Terra has been hired as the news organization’s membership and events coordinator. VTDigger photo

VTDigger Hires Community Editor, Membership Coordinator

VTDigger has hired two new staffers — a community editor and a membership coordinator.Michael Dougherty has been tapped as VTDigger’s community editor. He is in charge of comment review, social media engagement and multi-media productions.

Dougherty is a D.C.-area native and studied journalism and music at New York University. Prior to joining VTDigger, Dougherty spent two years as a program coordinator for the Vermont Humanities Council.

Before moving to Vermont in 2015, he spent seven years managing recording operations for the oral history nonprofit StoryCorps, assisted Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas, and contributed to the Brooklyn-based alt-weekly L Magazine.

Dougherty joins the five reporters and two editors in VTDigger’s Montpelier newsroom.

In addition, he will work with our four community reporters in Chittenden, Windham, Bennington and Rutland counties, and a full-time reporter in Washington, D.C., who covers the Vermont congressional delegation and the impact of President Donald Trump’s policies on the state.

Florencio Terra has been hired as VTDigger’s membership and events coordinator. Terra previously worked for Zutano Inc., the children’s clothing company.

Terra will lead VTDigger’s twice annual reader donation drives and will coordinate journalism events. He joins VTDigger’s business team — Director of Underwriting Theresa Murray Clasen, Director of Business Development, Finance and Administration Phayvanh Luekhamhan.

Terra got his start in journalism as a production manager at The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at UMass Amherst. After graduating with a bachelor’s in communications he moved to the greater Boston area and worked in film and video production. He later relocated to central Vermont and returned to the world of journalism working in design and production for a local Vermont weekly, the Hardwick Gazette.

ABOUT VTDIGGER
VTDigger is a nonprofit online news daily dedicated to public service journalism. We publish daily stories about Vermont politics, business, criminal justice, education, the environment and other matters of public interest.

VTDigger was founded in 2009 and merged with the Vermont Journalism Trust in 2011, becoming a 501(c)(3) educational charity.

The mission of the Vermont Journalism Trust and VTDigger is to produce rigorous journalism that explains complex issues, holds the government accountable to the public and engages Vermonters in the democratic process.