Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader this week announced he and veteran Connecticut journalist Andy Thibault will launch a a pilot newspaper in Winsted.
The new, print-focused paper is set to be called the “Winsted Citizen” and launch in February. It aims to fix what Nader, a Winsted native, told the Hartford Business Journal is a “news vacuum” in Litchfield County.
“They don’t know what’s going on in the budget unless they go to the budget town meetings,” Nader told the Business Journal. “You can’t read about it. That’s pretty severe.”
But local journalists were quick to challenge that assessment. The Business Journal sent the article out with a tweet reading:
“At a time when newspapers are cutting back and closing at a rate of two per week, consumer advocate Ralph Nader believes there is pent-up demand for news reporting in a pocket of Litchfield County – and plenty of stories to be written.”
But Bruno Matarazzo Jr., a reporter with the Waterbury-based “Republican-American” newspaper, fired back with a tweet of his own. He replied to the Business Journal’s tweet, calling out Nader and saying, “you CAN read about (the budget) in the Rep-Am” and brought receipts. Matarazzo followed with a flurry of tweets with headlines like “Winsted budget plan shaved by $322K – Town manager revises package to address selectmen’s concerns” and “Gilbert mulls officer hire – School resource vs. armed security cop discussed in Winsted.”
Matarazzo said a quick search found more than 16 budget-related stories the Rep-Am wrote about Winsted’s budget. The Rep-Am has a dedicated Winsted reporter in Kurt Moffett.
Rep-Am Managing Editor Anne Karolyi said more news is always welcome.
“Any effort to help the community be engaged and educated with some local journalism is a fine effort and a noble effort,” Karolyi said.
But she also pushed back on the assertion that Winsted and its surrounding areas are in a “news vacuum.”
“I would say that’s not true based on our coverage,” she added. “We have a steady reporter in Winsted and we have some correspondents who crossover into Winsted.”
Karolyi said her paper has an office in Torrington where Moffett works so he can get to Winsted quickly if needed. Matarazzo added Hearst Media’s Emily Olson, community editor for the Torrington Register Citizen, the New Haven Register and the Middletown Press, also covers Winsted and Litchfield County.
Winsted had its own paper, the Winsted Journal, up until 2017.
“I was waiting for someone to start it up again, and no one did,” Nader told Hearst Media. “So I thought, we’ll have to get it underway. We found a spectacular editor in Andy (Thibault). He’s an old-fashioned, shoe-leather journalist.”
Nader rose to fame in the 1960s when his consumer advocacy led to new automobile regulations, like mandatory seatbelts. From the 1970s through the early 2000s, Nader was a frequent presidential candidate for progressive-leaning offshoots of the Democratic Party like the New Party and Green Party. Thibault is a a longtime journalist and private investigator. He teaches news basic reporting/writing, investigative reporting and communication at the University of New Haven in West Haven and previously worked for the Rep-Am.
Thibault and Nader said the “Winsted Citizen” will serve Winsted, Hartland, Riverton, Colebrook, Norfolk and New Hartford. Thibault will serve as editor and publisher. He said he’s already amassing a team of local journalists and is still hiring.
“I’m still looking for writers, but I’ve had a very good response,” Thibault said. “We”ll be publishing work by reporters who have established themselves in Connecticut as tops in our field.”
Nader also said the paper will have a digital presence but focus on its print product at a time when trends in the journalism industry lean heavily toward digital.
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader / Contributed photo
“It will be distributed to most of the households by hand, in print, and stacked up in certain retail stores,” Nader said in the Business Journal. “And then we’ll see what the response is because it’ll be vigorously eliciting a response.”
Karolyi said the Rep-Am still focuses both on print and digital. She said she’s found older readers skew toward print, but said even that is changing. Litchfield retirees who’ve move away, she said, have told her they enjoy being able to get digital-only subscriptions to keep up with news.
She also said she welcomes more local news, more competition and more information for Litchfield County residents.
“I agree with the premise that local news is vitally important and we’re going to continue to provide it in the county and greater Waterbury, all the way down to the valley. That’s what we do. That’s our mission in life.”