BENNINGTON — Just ahead of turning the calendar to 2023, Vermont News and Media has brought aboard an award-winning photographer with over 20 years of experience, and a former college professor to assist produce each day content in each the Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal.
Charles “Stew” Cairns has been a freelancer for the Bennington Banner since last summer, taking a while to be a stay-at-home dad. Now that his six-year-old daughter Sadie is in class, though, Cairns is back to doing what he does best full-time: providing readers with among the stunning imagery that Vermont is legendary for.
A few of you might know Gordon Dossett from Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, where he worked until recently following his move to Sunderland after many years in California. Dossett might be covering Shires stories on the humanities, culture and tourism for the Banner and the Journal.
Because the Journal goes to a each day online publication, the Banner and Journal are adding to their team to churn out more content specific to each areas.
“We’re pleased to welcome each Gordon and Stew to our newsrooms. Their experience and background are a perfect fit to proceed to bolster our news coverage across the county,” said Jordan Brechenser, publisher and president of Vermont News and Media. “While many news organizations are tasked with doing more with less, we all know that adding expert reporters and staff to work the beats and canopy news that matters to our readers is essential to proceed to thrive.”
“Please help us to welcome them by reading, subscribing, and telling your folks and family to support local news,” Brechenser continued. “It matters.”
Cairns, who grew up on Long Island, majored in English literature at SUNY Albany in Albany, N.Y. Following graduation, Cairns built up his photography resume while also working in hospital administration at Albany Medical Center. After a couple of years, he landed his first photography position on the Register Star in Hudson, N.Y in 2000.
“[A career in photography] was all the time the hope,” said Cairns. “I got little pieces of skilled work here and there… after which of all things, the Register Star was within the ‘Help Wanted’ section of the Times Union,’ which is just not normally the best way journalism jobs are. I believed that was weird, but lo and behold, it worked out.”
Cairns’ stick with the Register Star was short-lived, as he was laid off shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. That stint got him began in the sphere, though, and spurred him on to larger things.
Cairns spent most of the following 20 years freelancing for the Associated Press and covering politics for the Latest York Times. Cairns added to an award for outstanding sports journalism earned on the Register Star by being recognized with an AP award for outstanding feature photography.
Despite being an English literature major like Cairns, Dossett’s path to the newspaper business has been significantly different, and more moderen.
Dossett’s first foray into the realm of journalism got here amid tragic circumstances when he wrote multiple columns within the aftermath of a deadly shooting at Santa Monica College in June of 2013. His reflections on that day, each from his perspective as a school member on the time, and the perspectives of those directly involved within the shooting, were powerful pieces that appeared in several publications across the country.
Dossett grew up in Chicago, but following a move in highschool, has spent almost his entire adult life in Southern California. He taught English at Santa Monica College for over 30 years, with a one-year stop across the pond at England’s Bath Spa University.
Dossett says that while most individuals associate California and the remainder of the Western U.S. with frontier living or being on the leading edge, his experience has been somewhat the alternative since moving to the East Coast for the primary time together with his daughter, Emily (18), and his son, Ben (16).
“I see my move here to Vermont as more like a move to the frontier,” he said, contrasting his time in California together with his recent life in rural Vermont. “I do think in urban life, we’re very distracted with what is just not the essence of living.”
“Vermont has a very good way of cutting that clutter out and focusing an individual on being in a spot, with people, having fun with a meal, talking to someone… moderately than that constant distraction.”
Cairns’ and Dossett’s paths to Vermont News and Media have varied in significant ways, but in addition they share some commonalities besides their college education. Cairns lives in Pittsfield, Mass., which still may not be the countryside, but his drive up Route 7 for work day-after-day is a far cry from a commute in Latest York City.
“[Life in Vermont] is only a more natural method to live. Not only living in nature, but it surely’s a more natural pace… it just looks as if you’re more in tune with the world the best way it’s purported to be,” Cairns said. “I am going back to Latest York and I just can’t freaking stand it. When you get into the traffic, I just can’t stand it anymore.”
Cairns is now grateful to be on board with the Banner and the Journal, and for the chance to capture a few of that beauty and peace the Green Mountain State holds, and convey it to readers in Southern Vermont.
“I’m compelled by taking this fluid world around us and isolating a picture, and having a moment captured in time,” Cairns said. “The challenge of a still image in time, and it helping to inform a story, capture a moment, and switch that fluidness into a chunk of art.”
Dossett, who has done most of his work writing columns and from a first-person point-of-view, specifically mentioned longtime Banner fixture Jim Therrien for example of how he hopes to follow in translating his writing skills into being a journalist.
“In his stories, he’s just about invisible,” Dossett said. “It takes an actual talent to distill a sophisticated story, and let the fabric unfold and have you actually understand that story in a brief period of time. That’s a skill I hope to proceed to work on.”
BENNINGTON — Just ahead of turning the calendar to 2023, Vermont News and Media has brought aboard an award-winning photographer with over 20 years of experience, and a former college professor to assist produce each day content in each the Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal.
Charles “Stew” Cairns has been a freelancer for the Bennington Banner since last summer, taking a while to be a stay-at-home dad. Now that his six-year-old daughter Sadie is in class, though, Cairns is back to doing what he does best full-time: providing readers with among the stunning imagery that Vermont is legendary for.
A few of you might know Gordon Dossett from Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, where he worked until recently following his move to Sunderland after many years in California. Dossett might be covering Shires stories on the humanities, culture and tourism for the Banner and the Journal.
Because the Journal goes to a each day online publication, the Banner and Journal are adding to their team to churn out more content specific to each areas.
“We’re pleased to welcome each Gordon and Stew to our newsrooms. Their experience and background are a perfect fit to proceed to bolster our news coverage across the county,” said Jordan Brechenser, publisher and president of Vermont News and Media. “While many news organizations are tasked with doing more with less, we all know that adding expert reporters and staff to work the beats and canopy news that matters to our readers is essential to proceed to thrive.”
“Please help us to welcome them by reading, subscribing, and telling your folks and family to support local news,” Brechenser continued. “It matters.”
Cairns, who grew up on Long Island, majored in English literature at SUNY Albany in Albany, N.Y. Following graduation, Cairns built up his photography resume while also working in hospital administration at Albany Medical Center. After a couple of years, he landed his first photography position on the Register Star in Hudson, N.Y in 2000.
“[A career in photography] was all the time the hope,” said Cairns. “I got little pieces of skilled work here and there… after which of all things, the Register Star was within the ‘Help Wanted’ section of the Times Union,’ which is just not normally the best way journalism jobs are. I believed that was weird, but lo and behold, it worked out.”
Cairns’ stick with the Register Star was short-lived, as he was laid off shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. That stint got him began in the sphere, though, and spurred him on to larger things.
Cairns spent most of the following 20 years freelancing for the Associated Press and covering politics for the Latest York Times. Cairns added to an award for outstanding sports journalism earned on the Register Star by being recognized with an AP award for outstanding feature photography.
Despite being an English literature major like Cairns, Dossett’s path to the newspaper business has been significantly different, and more moderen.
Dossett’s first foray into the realm of journalism got here amid tragic circumstances when he wrote multiple columns within the aftermath of a deadly shooting at Santa Monica College in June of 2013. His reflections on that day, each from his perspective as a school member on the time, and the perspectives of those directly involved within the shooting, were powerful pieces that appeared in several publications across the country.
Dossett grew up in Chicago, but following a move in highschool, has spent almost his entire adult life in Southern California. He taught English at Santa Monica College for over 30 years, with a one-year stop across the pond at England’s Bath Spa University.
Dossett says that while most individuals associate California and the remainder of the Western U.S. with frontier living or being on the leading edge, his experience has been somewhat the alternative since moving to the East Coast for the primary time together with his daughter, Emily (18), and his son, Ben (16).
“I see my move here to Vermont as more like a move to the frontier,” he said, contrasting his time in California together with his recent life in rural Vermont. “I do think in urban life, we’re very distracted with what is just not the essence of living.”
“Vermont has a very good way of cutting that clutter out and focusing an individual on being in a spot, with people, having fun with a meal, talking to someone… moderately than that constant distraction.”
Cairns’ and Dossett’s paths to Vermont News and Media have varied in significant ways, but in addition they share some commonalities besides their college education. Cairns lives in Pittsfield, Mass., which still may not be the countryside, but his drive up Route 7 for work day-after-day is a far cry from a commute in Latest York City.
“[Life in Vermont] is only a more natural method to live. Not only living in nature, but it surely’s a more natural pace… it just looks as if you’re more in tune with the world the best way it’s purported to be,” Cairns said. “I am going back to Latest York and I just can’t freaking stand it. When you get into the traffic, I just can’t stand it anymore.”
Cairns is now grateful to be on board with the Banner and the Journal, and for the chance to capture a few of that beauty and peace the Green Mountain State holds, and convey it to readers in Southern Vermont.
“I’m compelled by taking this fluid world around us and isolating a picture, and having a moment captured in time,” Cairns said. “The challenge of a still image in time, and it helping to inform a story, capture a moment, and switch that fluidness into a chunk of art.”
Dossett, who has done most of his work writing columns and from a first-person point-of-view, specifically mentioned longtime Banner fixture Jim Therrien for example of how he hopes to follow in translating his writing skills into being a journalist.
“In his stories, he’s just about invisible,” Dossett said. “It takes an actual talent to distill a sophisticated story, and let the fabric unfold and have you actually understand that story in a brief period of time. That’s a skill I hope to proceed to work on.”
