Hats off to The Hardwick Gazette, not because of my association with it, but because they pulled off the scoop of the goddamn week. In the process, the doughty weekly showcased the importance of strong, active local news operations, especially as our daily papers have focused on their core communities and our statewide outlets just can’t cover all the gaps.

Last Friday, federal agents conducted “a coordinated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) action that involved five vehicles” in the town of Hardwick, population less than 3,000, not exactly an epicenter of crime, not the place where Trump’s immigration crackdown could actually do anything to make our country safer. As The Gazette put the pieces together, what emerged was the apparent detention of nine individuals who all “worked for the same construction company,” which could not be immediately identified.

Rumors about this action reverberated around social media over the weekend. The Gazette’s editor, publisher, chief cook and bottle washer Paul Fixx put the pieces together in time for this week’s edition. And as far as I can tell, no other media outlet has reported on this coordinated action targeting people who may or may not have their papers in order, but who apparently held jobs in an industry desperately short of personnel.

So far, one of the nine has been released. Will Lambek of Migrant Justice told The Gazette that some of the remaining eight have been transferred to unknown locations out of state.

I don’t need to relitigate my views of Trump’s crackdown any further, except to once again note that ICE is picking the low-hanging fruit in their efforts to fulfill Stephen Miller’s reported enforcement quotas. They’re not catching actual criminals; those people are too hard to find and detain. They’re going after people who may (or may not) be undocumented, but also have jobs and regular schedules or who dutifully show up for court or immigration appointments.

Would this enforcement action, this spiriting away of nine construction workers, have gone unreported if not for The Gazette? I don’t know. Presumably Migrant Justice or the Vermont ACLU would have gotten the word out sooner or later. But The Gazette was there on the scene, and The Gazette got the scoop.

Which again underscores the importance, now more than ever, of local news operations capable of covering our smaller communities and bringing vital stories into wider view. All of these entities are struggling to achieve financial sustainability, often kept alive only through the efforts of underpaid staff and dedicated volunteers. They deserve better.

We are about to lose one of these papers, while a second staged a tactical retreat in hopes of avoiding closure. If you care about local journalism, please support your local paper. Subscribe. Donate. If you have a business or offer a service, buy advertisements. Local papers are still the best way to reach local consumers, if not the only way.

And if you’re a member of what’s been referred to as “the wealth community,” please consider making a substantial gift. There are people in every local paper’s catchment area capable of writing four- or five-figure checks. It used to be that ad sales accounted for 75% of a newspaper’s revenue. Those days are gone and they ain’t coming back. Someone has to fill the gap.

Local news operations should be considered a public good alongside libraries, schools, houses of worship, and the like. They are the backbone, the nervous system, of their communities. They are the way people connect with their neighbors, their local governments, their arts organizations, their school sports teams. And they’re the way people find out what’s going on when federal agents in unmarked vehicles stage an operation in their community.