I’ve got nothing bad to say about Emilie Stigliani, the now-departed executive editor of the Burlington Free Press. She’s smart, energetic, open-minded, and apparently a poet as well, who knew. She’s now departed for Sacramento after nine years at the Freeps, the last three as ExEd.

Stigliani’s job was the professional equivalent of pushing the boulder up the mountain and waking up the next morning back at the bottom. She presided over the paper at a point well into its decline phase, as ad revenue and subscriptions dwindled away, newsstand sales essentially disappeared, and her corporate bosses continued to expect handsome profits off the ever-diminishing operation.

None of that was her fault. Nor was it her fault that, during her tenure, I canceled my online subscription because the Free Press had become all but irrelevant to my work and my interests.

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