Disclaimers and caveats first. I’m a supporter of VTDigger. It’s an essential piece of our diminishing news ecosystem. I shudder to think where we’d be without it.

Also, I have no inside knowledge. This post, as with my other writing about Digger, is based entirely on what I can see from out here.

And what I can see is disturbing, sorry to say.

The latest shoe to drop is the sudden departure of editor-in-chief Geeta Anand. She moved across the country to take the Digger job last spring, and now she’s moving back after less than a year. It follows on the heels of CEO Sky Barsch’s pending departure, announced in late January.

I don’t know why Anand is leaving so soon, and I’m not going to speculate. But her interim replacement, veteran editor and journalist Susan Allen, will be Digger’s fourth editor-in-chief in 16 months, including two interims. (Credit to Guy Page at the Vermont Daily Chronicle for being the only reporter to point that out.)

That’s… well, that’s just bad, for a newsroom that seems adrift from its original focus.

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