CM Impact Report 2024

2024 REPORT TO READERS

The Monitor’s annual update to the community – what we’ve done and how we’re preparing for our future

TO OUR READERS

A LOOK BACK, A LOOK AHEAD Welcome to our fourth annual Report to Readers, a year-end effort that aims to detail what we’ve done in the past year and what we’re planning for the year ahead. We’ve accomplished a lot in 2024 and we’re bracing for a big 2025. Here are some of the highlights.

2024 Our newsroom The Monitor added an Education beat and a State House beat to its newsroom this past year. That means we now have more news reporters than we did 10 years ago. That’s because of the support of our readers, the generosity of some major funders and the guidance of our family-owned company, which allows us the time and flexibility to carry the Monitor into the future.

This is not to say our newsroom is bigger than it was 10 years ago. Our editing staff is much leaner, and they’re accustomed to wearing many different hats. But their hard work, dedication and talent is evident. The Monitor was again named the best news organization of its size in New England. (We’re proud to say that several news organizations in our family-owned company – The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in Peterborough, NH; the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Valley Advocate in Northampton, Mass, and The Recorder in Greenfield, Mass. – also received honors). These awards reflect the vibrancy that our local advertisers bring to the paper and website, and the honors are a testament to the power of local ownership.

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Website We launched a new, temporary website late in 2023. The move came as a result of some significant technical problems with our previous site, which was painfully slow to load and getting worse by the week. The new site has made load times much faster, but it still has just a fraction of the functionality that we want to offer our readers. So we’re ramping up for a website relaunch later this year.

6 days On the first weekend of March, we made the biggest frequency change in about three decades when we moved from seven days of print publishing to six. That matched the frequency of most newspapers of our size, and in fact, we were the last daily newspaper in northern New England to make the switch. Our new Weekend Edition, which comes out on Saturday, is at least four pages larger each week, has more local content and we also bumped up the size of our Monday edi-

tion. And, of course, we make sure our readers don’t miss a day of comics and puzzles, so our Weekend Edition doubles up on those.

Mail delivery

tent that’s trapped on paper. We’re starting to peck away at the enormity of digitizing our archives. We made some significant headway in 2024. First, we made more than a decade of Concord Monitor editions instantly available to subscribers. All you have to do is log into the E-edition either on the free Concord Monitor app or follow the Eedition link atop our website. Once you log in, click on the archive button and pick your year, month and day. Most useful of all, you can search across a range of dates to find exactly what you’re looking for.

We’ve taken things a step further, though you won’t see this on our website. We’ve been able to upload all Concord Monitor editions dating back to 1947 to Newspapers.com. This is useful to those who use that site for ancestry searches, but it’s also a lot of fun for regular readers.

Many newspapers have turned their entire delivery system over to the United States Postal Service. They’ve done that because of the continuing challenge of maintaining consistent delivery. The Monitor has put some routes into the mail, especially in areas where delivery had been an ongoing issue. But, so far, just a small percentage of our papers are delivered that way.

The tradeoff to more consistent delivery is that the paper arrives later in the day. We’ve recently heard from readers who weren’t sure they’d like it, but who have since adjusted their reading habits around mail delivery. We’ll keep exploring the viability of this method.

But a note to readers: Some of you may not have experienced delivery issues in 2025 recent months or even years, and that’s to the credit of your newspaper New content carrier. They’re a hard-working group that works tirelessly to get you your This coming year, the Monitor will morning delivery despite the daily obcontinue to report on our state, cities stacles. and towns, with a strong focus on local Puzzmo government and accountability. But we This addition to our website also also know that many readers look to us came out in March. That was when we for different types of news. We’ll be exintroduced our readers to Puzzmo, a panding our coverage of arts, entercollection of digital puzzles that are tainment, culture and lifestyle, and free for all to play. Each day, you get a we’re introducing a new column on new set of puzzles, which include a wellness. You’ll see that coverage oncrossword, two other word-based line, in the print edition, in the Concord games, a spatial puzzle and a version of Insider and in Around Concord magachess that’ll challenge your sense of zine. the game. While it’s free, you can also Technology register for expanded access and By the end of 2025, we expect that tracking or you can subscribe to get all the puzzles you want. reading the Monitor online will be a whole new experience. We’re now hard App launch at work with the beginning stages of a There are two things we hear con- new website that will give us more casistently. From younger subscribers, pability than ever. We’ll have better disthey want an app so a connection to the play of our photos, more interactive news is right there on their phone. content and stories geared toward our From longtime subscribers, we hear growing digital readership. Our goals how much they use the digital replica of are clear. The more subscribers we the print edition called the E-edition. have – in print or online – the more we Earlier this year, we combined both can invest in our news gathering. within a new app. The Concord Monitor Engagement app, available for free download on The term engagement is fairly new your smartphone or tablet, allows our subscribers to toggle between the app to local journalism, but the concept is experience, which brings you the most about as central to the industry as anyupdated news with some additional thing. To be better journalists and to features, and the E-edition, which al- deliver a daily report that is valued by lows you to get the print experience in a our subscribers, we have to be willing to listen. Engagement is about being digital format. out in the community. It’s about fielding Archives questions. And it’s about communicatOur newspaper has been around ing back consistently and effectively.

Engagement can be a lot of things. since 1864, so that means we’ve published well over 40,000 individual edi- It’s attending community events. It’s tions over the years. That’s a lot of sto- holding listening sessions. It’s meeting ries, a lot of news pages and a lot of con- with organizations of all kinds and ex-

plaining what we do and why. It’s building out policies and communicating those to our readers.

We’ve made big strides in this area over the past few years. We’ve started the annual report you’re reading now, and we’re about to welcome our fourth reader advisory board, a group of community members who we selected from a pool of applicants.

Community Partnerships We’ll continue to expand our base of Community Partners. Below are those who funded some of our reporting over the past year. Supporters have no input on the stories you read. Our editorial independence policy puts the selection, writing and editing of articles solely into the hands of Monitor journalists.

Northeast Delta Dental and Merrimack County Savings Bank: They ’ve contributed to our Two New Hampshires position for three years now. That beat is focused on issues like the housing crisis, homelessness and inequity in New Hampshire.

Rath, Young and Pignatelli: Our original Community Partner, the law group has supported the reporting of national correspondent Paul Steinhauser, a New Hampshire journalist who writes a weekly On The Trail column about the political happenings in the Granite State.

Barr Foundation: Their support helped us relaunch our education beat, which is among our best-read content.

New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: They ’ve again been a huge help to our newsroom. They previously backed our education coverage. Now they ’re helping us support our State House reporter. We share this position with our sister paper, the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.

Report For America: This national nonprofit’s mission is to help news organizations like ours add to their reporting staff. We’ve been partners since 2020 and we currently have two beats – Two New Hampshires and our State House coverage – that receives support from this group.

Concord Hospital: They ’ll be supporting a new series on wellness starting in January, so look for those stories.

And you: Occasionally, we ask for donations from our most dedicated readers. And you’ve always stepped up.

That money goes exclusively to helping our news staff report. Recent contributions have gone to our environmental and State House coverage. Learn more about how to make a donation on the back page of this section.

Thanks for being a reader. We couldn’t do it without you.

STEVE LEONE Publisher

CONNECT WITH US

WHO TO CONTACT

Those on this page can best be reached by email. Their addresses include their first initial followed by their last name @cmonitor.com.

NEWSROOM

Steve Leone, Publisher

Call (603) 224-4287 or email customerservice@ cmonitor.com

EMAIL US General news news@cmonitor.com Business news business@cmonitor.com Hometown communitynews @cmonitor.com Sports spor ts@cmonitor.com Arts, Entertainment and Lifestyle features@cmonitor.com Opinion let ters@cmonitor.com SUBMIT INFORMATION THROUGH OUR FORMS News tip: concordmonitor.com/ submit-a-tip Letter to the Editor Visit concordmonitor.com/ Opinion and select “Submit Letter to the Editor” CORRECTIONS POLICY: Our goal is to always provide accurate information. If we learn that information we published is factually inaccurate we will publicly correct the mistake as soon as possible. In print, corrections and clarifications run on either Page 2 or Page 3. They are also added as an Editor’s Note either above or below a previously published online article.

To report inaccuracies, please email news@ cmonitor.com.

Jonathan works directly with all reporters. He arrived in 2014; named editor in 2020.

Arianna leads many of the newsroom initiatives. She arrived in 2024.

Hannah Sampadian (left) Allie Geoff David and Rachel Shepard (right) Ginwala, Forester, Brooks, Engagement Photo editor Reporter Hannah and Rachel lead the editor Geoff started at David has been newspaper publication process for In addition to overseeing opinion, she focuses on outreach.

the Monitor in the 1980s before moving to the Globe. He returned in ’14.

writing about environment, science and more since the 1980s.

the Monitor and other newsrooms in our family-owned news group.

They lead a staff that includes four other editors and newspaper designers across New England.

Sruthi Gopalakrishnan, Reporter

Jeremy Margolis, Reporter

Michaela Towfighi, Reporter

Charlotte Matherly, Reporter

Catherine McLaughlin, Reporter

Rachel Wachman, Reporter

Alexander Rapp, Sports Reporter

Dan Attorri, Sports Reporter

Sruthi covers environment mental health and news in Bow, Hopkinton and Dunbar ton.

Jeremy is our lead education reporter. He covers courts and towns north of Concord.

Michaela is a Report for America corps member. She covers the Two NH beat.

Charlotte is also a Report For America corps member. Her beat is the NH State House

Catherine covers all things Concord, with a focus on city government and planning.

Rachels covers the Suncook Valley with additional focus on accessibility in our region.

Alex covers local sports, recreational sports and local news.

Dan has been here part-time since 2012. He works full-time in the Bow School District.

ADVERTISING

Sean McKenna, Digital VP

Steve Pare, Ad director

Joelle Ciras, Operations manager

Deb Spaulding, Sales

Tim Brennan, Sales

Justin Graybill, Sales

Erin Greenlaw, Sales

Jeffrey DeFrancesco, Marketing

Sean returned to the Monitor in 2020 to lead all revenue and digital operations.

Steve leads the ad team and works with customers on a range of products.

Joelle works with members of the ad staff to deliver results and maintain quality.

Deb is responsible for classified sales, recruitment advertising and legal notices.

Tim leads efforts for businesses in the downtown Concord area.

Justin works closely with businesses in Concord, Bow and beyond.

Erin covers the Lakes Region, areas of Concord and greater Manchester.

Jeff is the audience development manager across all NNE.

OUR CIRCULATION LEADERSHIP Carol Dubuque is the Monitor’s Circulation Director and leads all operations for home delivery and in-store newspaper sales.

Saturday, December 28, 2024

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Arianna MacNeill, News Editor

2024 REPORT TO READERS

REACH US

Jonathan Van Fleet, Editor

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Steve joined the Monitor as editor in 2014 and became publisher in 2020.

REPORT TO READERS

Seized & Sold: Investigating government power Few things in the Live-Free-or-Die state strike a chord like the government taking someone’s home for unpaid taxes and then selling it.

In a five-day series, reporter Michaela Towfighi talked to multiple homeowners in this dire predicament.

They were often lower-income residents, elderly or sick. Many of them said it felt like a death sentence. Municipalities like Concord said they had no choice but to take the property and sell it to put it back on the tax roll. However, a review of all tax deeds filed across the

state showed that some communities used the legal procedure far more often than others. Some never used it.

The series also found that during the pandemic every municipality in the state was supposed to stop the process of taking homes for unpaid taxes.

Rather than use American Rescue Plan Act money given to assist residents during the pandemic, Towfighi found that 240 properties were taken in 75 towns and cities in violation of the executive order, which was announced in March 2020. No action was ever

taken against the municipalities who illegally took these properties.

The Monitor worked with the Investigative Editing Corps to analyze years of tax deeds across all 10 counties in the state. We found: ■ Some owners were unaware the municipality had taken ownership of their property until after it happened due to undelivered certified mail.

■ Across a 10-year span, towns rarely waived interest on late payments, despite an ability to do so.

Homeowners faced interest charges

that in some cases surpassed the original amount owed in taxes.

■ Transparency of the process varied, with some communities discussing taking properties at open public meetings, while others make these decisions behind closed doors.

One story focused on Jon Jones of Franklin, who suffered a stroke before the city came after his home. After Seized and Sold published a reader drove to Franklin City Hall and prepaid the taxes for Jones for the rest of the year.

2,300 units coming

GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Melissa F. stands in front of her homeless camp on the railroad tracks in the back of Robin Bach’s home on North Main Street in Concord on July 10. Melissa, who asked that her last name not be used, read about how Bach’s children wouldn’t play in the backyard of their 19th-century Walker house in Concord.

Encampment story goes viral One story more than any other caught national attention last year: the plight of a Concord family who had a homeless encampment in their backyard.

Robin Bach was sympathetic to the people living in tents in the woods and wanted the city’s help to move them to a more appropriate spot to live.

As of July, Bach had called the police 37 times since she bought the house in 2018, according to records from the Concord Police Department – six times for an area check, another six for disturbances.

Homelessness rose by 52% in New Hampshire from 2022 to 2023, faster than in any other state, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The encampment on Bach’s prop-

erty posed a unique situation since it sat on railroad tracks that run through the property. The city has a memorandum of understanding with the rail company for enforcement on the property – meaning they can go and issue no-trespassing orders at any time.

Eventually, Concord police cleared the encampment, but it was far from a permanent solution for the city. The people living in the woods said they would just move somewhere else.

Concord has had multiple discussions at the city level about how best to solve homelessness, but have determined the issue is best handled by private non-profit agencies like the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness and the county community action program.

Some, like Michelle Laverdure, have urged the city to sanction one area in Concord where people experiencing homelessness can lawfully live outside, which city leaders have resisted. Currently, city ordinances prohibit all overnight camping on public property.

Laverdure typically gets up before dawn and hits the road early. She’ll drive her van to drop off donations with people, pick up those who need a reprieve from the outside and bring anyone who asks to Planet Fitness for a shower, where she has a monthly membership. Lately, her focus has turned from assistance to action.

After her story appeared in the Monitor, a Concord reader called to donate supplies to Laverdure that she could give to others.

Throughout the last year, and looking ahead, Concord residents have seen and will see a variety of new housing developments come to completion.

Concord has about 2,300 units in the pipeline, which excludes a mixed-use development with up to 1,000 units that stalled due to negotiations with the city over zoning.

While that’s a lot for the city, the state is still clamoring for more. By 2030, New Hampshire is expected to need 60,000 more housing units.

By 2040, that number climbs to 90,000 units.

Towns throughout the area are grappling with this demand for housing, while also considering how to maintain their character.

Housing experts say building single-family homes on large parcels of land isn’t the best way to increase housing growth and lower costs. In the current market, a median home price of $500,000 is emphasizing the need for a “missing middle” of housing. Potential firsttime buyers are often priced out of home ownership, which in turn keeps the rental market stagnant with current vacancy rates at less than 1 percent.

Concord High grad Shamir Darjee, 20, who immigrated from Nepal 10 years ago, bucked this trend. He worked two jobs and saved enough money to buy a five-bedroom home for his family for $460,000. After the story ran, an anonymous reader gave Darjee $1,000 to spend on his family for the holidays.

REPORT TO READERS

Critical vote focuses on new middle school The future of Concord’s middle school hung in the balance this fall ahead of two referendums that challenged the decision to build at Broken Ground, rather than in the South End. Once referendums landed on the Nov. 5 ballot, Concord reporter Catherine McLaughlin and the rest of the Monitor newsroom set out to inform Concord voters on some critical questions – what was the true cost and scope of the project, what other op-

tions existed, how have other school districts handled recent rebuilding projects and how would issues like athletic fields and transportation factor into this community vote. We took readers inside Rundlett Middle School, which officials and teachers say has fallen into disrepair.

This reporting, which we called “Rethinking Rundlett,” was published in the paper and online in the days ahead of voting.

Among the more ambitious parts of this project was our staff-wide poll. The Monitor knocked on 100 doors in Concord to learn about residents’ views on the middle school decision.

Both referendums were widely rejected by city voters and school district officials are now weighing the next step for the future of Concord’s middle school. The Monitor will keep reporting on this developing story.

This year, we relaunched an education beat with the backing of the Barr Foundation. That allowed us to do two things. We hired Jeremy Margolis to be our education reporter, which means he writes the big-picture stories, many of which have a statewide focus. It also allowed other reporters to delve more deeply into education issues in Concord and surrounding towns. Here are just some of the education-related stories we’ve followed over the past year: ■ Rising property taxes have put a greater emphasis on school budgets in many towns across New Hampshire.

The issue has been especially pronounced in Pembroke where Town Meeting voters rejected a proposed increase to the school budget to avoid even steeper increases. Residents lashed out

during the March vote with one homeowner putting it succinctly: “People are at a breaking point.” Elsewhere, school leaders are expressing frustration with the state and warning that special education costs will further increase tax bills.

■ We followed the campus protests that erupted this past spring across the country, including on the University of New Hampshire’s Durham campus. We spoke with campus leadership and those who were arrested, including a student who says video taken at the scene shows he was unfairly treated by campus police.

■ We’ve written extensively about a transgender sports ban for girls’ high school athletics. We’ve followed that across legislation, voting, lawsuits and court orders, and we’ve interviewed

some of the transgender students challenging the new state law.

■ In higher education, we reported on the closing of Magdalen College in Warner as the school put its 129 acres up for sale. We’ve also told the story of how the new FAFSA application and regulations are making it harder for some to attend college.

■ We’re continuing to explore the growing options outside of traditional public schools in New Hampshire with the rise of funding for charter schools and Education Freedom Accounts.

■ While in Concord, there was a tense discussion about building a new building (detailed above), it was a different story in Allenstown as the community came together for the opening of its new elementary school.

2024 REPORT TO READERS

In the classrooms and beyond

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GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

Allenstown Community School Principal Shannon Kruger gives a high five to second grader Mason Pieberl as students and faculty gather for a drone photo outside the school on the first day of classes at the new facility.

It’s been a few years since the Monitor had a dedicated State House reporter. We were still able to report extensively by relying on our current staff to address statewide issues with their beats. (For instance, you’ve seen Michaela Towfighi reporting on housing bills, Sruthi Gopalakrishnan on landfills and David Brooks on energy legislation for the past couple years). But we also knew we’d be better if we could maintain that approach while adding an additional reporter to navigate the state house in Concord.

We were able to hire Charlotte Matherly this summer thanks to support from national nonprofit Report For America and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. We also turned to our readers. We created a digital subscription donation program called News For Your Neighbor. Those who donated to that program helped a family who otherwise couldn’t afford a subscription get digital access. And donors indirectly contributed to the creation of this beat since we directed those donations to help fill the position.

Matherly has been off and running with this position, which we share with our sister publication the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in Peterborough. She was instrumental in covering our elections and she’s now busy gearing up for a busy session ahead out of the State House.

Saturday, December 28, 2024

State House beat returns

REPORT TO READERS

Casinos open books

Telling Barbara’s story

Accusations of financial wrongdoing against Concord Casino owner and former state senator Andy Sanborn spurred a closer examination of the state’s growing charitable gaming industry.

More casinos are opening across the state and are collecting more money than ever before.

With current revenue trends and at least four more casinos in the pipeline, the industry is projected to become a $1.1 billion market in just three years.

State law requires casinos to donate at least 35% of their table game revenue to charities and nonprofits. Of the remaining revenue, 10% goes to the state, with the rest kept by the casino.

However, a Monitor investigation found charities weren’t being paid as much money as they were due, primarily because casinos were allowed to charge them rental fees. In Sanborn’s case, he withheld as much as 50% of their proceeds for himself, which was allowed by law.

A new law prevents casinos from charging these fees in the future as the amount of money they take in grows.

The state’s charitable gaming halls were intended to be small, locally-owned operations, yet today, none of them are locally owned.

Barbara Filion wanted to end her life on her own terms. After battling metastatic bone cancer for 14 years, she constantly feared a bone fracture, but most of all she feared being confined to a bed for months, waiting to die.

This year, the Monitor published a series called “Planning the End,” which followed Barbara’s journey to ultimately end her own life through Medical Aid in Dying. Reporter Sruthi Gopalakrishnan provided context, clarity and humanity to a widely-debated issue with statewide importance.

She noticed that many in the Capital Region were talking about HB 1283, both for and against, by writing Letters to the Editor and testifying at hearings in Concord.

She set out to hear from folks on both sides of the debate to understand why someone would be in favor of allowing Medical Aid in Dying in the state of New Hampshire, and why others would be so strongly opposed.

Then she found Barbara. With patience, care and compassion, Gopalakrishnan earned the trust of the family and was granted access to be alongside them, to tell Barbara’s story and shed light on a very real issue facing many in New Hampshire. Barbara died in Vermont on March 28 at the age of 82.

Accepted and included

Saturday, December 28, 2024 2024 REPORT TO READERS 6

Cour tesy

Barbara Filion gives the peace sign as she gets comfortable before taking the medical aid in dying medicine, putting an end to the pain and suffering caused by her metastatic bone cancer, a battle she had endured for the past 14 years.

GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

Cheyenne Boucher and Owen Sansoucie recently enjoyed a night of bowling night at Boutwell’s in Concord.

Earlier this fall, reporter Rachel Wachman sat down with Concord residents James Piet and Patricia Vincent-Piet to talk about their experiences exploring local outdoor spots and the level of accessibility they find in places around the state.

This interview led to a broader conversation about the inaccessibility of many spaces – outdoor and otherwise – for people with disabilities. In recent months, Wachman has turned the focus of her reporting to efforts around accessibility and inclusion and the lived experiences of people with disabilities.

“A newspaper should be a place where people can find their stories – their successes, their struggles,

their joys, their frustrations – reflected back to them in the coverage they read,” said Wachman. “I seek to strengthen the connection between the disability community and the Monitor by bringing individuals and their stories to the forefront of my writing. Everyone deserves to feel accepted and included – this means both in their daily lives and in their local news coverage.”

Wachman has covered the Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome Awareness, written about the decade-long friendship forged between Owen Sansoucie and Cheyenne Boucher through the Best Buddies program, and told the story of accessible trails in our region through the eyes Piet,

Vincent-Piet, and other local residents such as 10-year-old Bodhi Bhattarai, who traversed roots and rocks in his motorized wheelchair on a class trip to Sewalls Falls.

Wachman also pointed readers to the premiere of a documentary by local filmmakers Samuel and Dan Habib. Born with cerebral palsy, Samuel, now 25, and his father created the documentary The Ride Ahead: Love, Tattoos, and Other Disabled Things to capture Samuel’s transition into adulthood as he pursues higher education, ponders romance, faces medical challenges, transitions into independent living and advocates for disability rights.

REPORT TO READERS

Our readers apparently love stories about hiking. Sometimes, it’s about the mountain rescues that are necessary when unprepared hikers can’t make it down on their own. Other times, it’s a bit more heartwarming like the story we published about Poppy Rose, a twopound rescue bunny that has scaled all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000 footers.

Local business Our readers clearly like to be in the Cour tesy know when a new business pops up in Poppy Rose gets a lift up one of the state’s 4,000 footers. The bunny, often Concord, or really in any of our towns. seen wearing a hiking harness, isn’t fully reliant on human assistance.

Just a few that received wide readership were the relaunch of Vinnie’s Pizzaria, the sale of Hermano’s, the openings and closings at Concord plazas on Storrs Street, Fort Eddy Road and Loudon Road and a new billiards hall in Penacook.

Development There’s been movement on several big business projects in and around Concord. Chief among them is the current downtown construction of Arts Alley, a multi-use project that will add additional buzz to downtown. That site required the removal of the Civil War era Norris House, and readers were paying attention. Articles on Steeplegate Mall development and the addition of a Whole Foods nearby were also closely followed since that scale of project is sure to remake the busy stretch of Loudon Road. And while it may not be coming for years, we know that the coming widening of I-93 and the intersection with I-89 is high on our readMonitor file ers’ priority list.

The Norris House was knocked down to make room for Arts Allley.

Hometown Heroes continue to resonate We started the Hometown Heroes series as a nod to all the people who were going above and beyond during the pandemic. The focus has shifted as we’ve returned to our daily lives, but the sentiment within the community is as strong as ever. We often hear from readers how much they value these weekly stories. And for us, it helps ground our approach.

As a local news organization, our goal is to be a mirror to the community. Often, that means we have to report on sensitive topics. But there’s also a whole lot of good hap-

pening in our corner of the world, and the Hometown Heroes series is a great way to tell the stories of those people.

Hometown Heroes is made possible by support from Ledyard Bank, the series sponsor, and by our readers.

Our Hometown Heroes are nominated by members of the community. Our editors select who to profile and the pieces are written by members of our news staff. Submitting a nomination is easy. Just visit the Hometown Heroes link at concordmonitor.com.

Saturday, December 28, 2024

A different kind of outdoors coverage

It’s no exaggeration to say that technology is changing faster than ever. That shift presents new capabilities and requires new ethical standards. Artificial intelligence has emerged as a force in all industries and that’s been true in local news as well. AI can sound like a scary term. In reality, artificial intelligence means a lot of different things, and it’s already been in use here at the Monitor.

We’ve been using it for advanced grammar checking, for automations that allow us to easily post stories onto Facebook and to transcribe recorded interviews.

We’re looking at other options as well, and we’ve done some testing in recent months. We’ve used AI to help do light editing on some community submissions.

And recently, we undertook a much wider use of AI as we built out a voter guide ahead of the November election. For our voter guide, we knew readers would value quick information that helped them assess a candidate’s stance on a key topic. So we took our own reporting from previous weeks and used an advanced version of ChatGPT to summarize those Monitor articles into scannable quickreads. We used it to extract candidate positions on key topics across Merrimack County House races. To be clear – our policy is to use AI to assist our reporting and publishing, not to write articles.

While the use of this new technology allowed us to build a 24-page print and digital guide that we would not have had the resources to create without redirecting efforts from other areas, it didn’t come without its challenges. Specifically in one case our final editing didn’t properly frame the nuance of a candidate’s stated position. This was a good learning experience that shaped our plans for future use.

Our editors and reporters are building and refining our AI policy, which requires that a journalist communicate to another editor how they will use AI to facilitate a process. It also requires that a journalist has final signoff on the end result. Our policy states that we can explore the use of AI for headlines, quick summaries for social media and newsletters and to assist the news gathering processes, especially investigative reporting. We will not publish articles generated exclusively through AI and we will not use AI-created images that are meant to represent real images. We’ll keep you updated on our policy, which is sure to change alongside the technology.

This is an important time for local journalism and we need to be able to keep up with advancements in technology while maintaining the most important thing we have – the trust of our readers.

2024 REPORT TO READERS

Our editors are constantly following article traffic on our website to better understand what types of stories our online readers value the most.

Our most read stories of the past year focus mostly on housing and homelessness, but there were other trends that we’ve found useful as we consider how to align our coverage.

How we’re using new technology

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What you’re reading online

REPORT TO READERS

Brooks receives career honors

CHIP GRIFFIN / Photos by Chip

Ramon Reynolds (24), a running back for the Concord High football team, is among the athletes who double for the school band. Here, he performs at halftime.

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

On the fields and beyond Monitor sports reporters have always strived to be there in the moments that matter most. Quite often, that’s a big rivalry matchup or a championship game like this past June when the high-powered Bow baseball team walked away with a state crown. We cap each season by selecting the top players for each sport.

But we also look for the other stories and moments that matter. Our readers loved the recent story by Alexander Rapp about the Concord High athletes who do double-duty as part of the school band. And there are the meaningful pieces that show us all that the point of sports is to bring us together. That was the case in the spring when we went to Franklin High to

watch a team and a community come together as a player and her family faced adversity.

It’s not all about high school sports coverage. We’ll follow local athletes who go on to excel elsewhere. That’s the case with former Merrimack Valley High star runner Kristie Schoffield, who was competing for a spot in the Paris Olympics, Concord High alum Nick Reynolds, who is now throwing the javelin for the University of Tennessee, and Concord grad Maria Armaganian, who was selected for the 2024-25 U.S. Women’s National Indoor Field Hockey team. And we were happy to report that former star athlete and rising sports leader Annie Mattarazzo is taking over as the new athletic director at NHTI.

Environmental reporting lab grows The Monitor’s environmental reporting lab, which focuses newsroom efforts on climate issues, entered its second year with a continued look into solid waste and recycling through its series of stories called “Landfill Landscape.”

We asked our readers to tell us what aspects of reporting on the environment they most wanted to see. They selected the topic and we delivered.

The reporting and concept became awardwinning.

“A project fueled by audience interest and concern, with robust, thorough journalism delivering a deep accounting of watchdog journalism,” the judges New Hampshire

Press Association contest wrote. “On-site examples show how the state struggles to monitor landfills, and how waste management companies lobby for their interests. This project marks a virtuous circle of newsroom-audience interaction from which all are better informed, and better prepared to address issues in this important environmental realm.”

The issue is simmering across the state as New Hampshire continues to accept out-ofstate trash while it is running out of landfill space at the same time. Plans to build a new landfill in the North Country town of Dalton have stuck a chord with residents who continue to ask lawmakers for stricter rules.

Known by many of his fans as the Granite Geek, reporter David Brooks was chosen by a board at the New England Newspaper & Press Association to be inducted into the journalism Hall of Fame this year.

“David continues to Brooks use imaginative ways to illustrate complex stories. His spirit of innovation continues to drive him,” Monitor publisher Steve Leone wrote in his nomination of Brooks to the New England Newspaper and Press Association. “But I suspect his greatest motivation comes from the readers he has long served because he knows how much they rely on his journalism.”

Brooks was grateful to re-

ceive the Hall of Fame honor but taken aback by being singled out for praise. Delivering the news has always been a team effort.

“I’m thankful to NENPA for this honor and to the Monitor for giving me a home for almost a decade. But I must say that the thing I’m really thankful for is being a reporter,” said Brooks, among the region’s lone science reporters, who said he has no plans to retire. “After all, I get paid to badger complete strangers about things that interest me! It’s a blast and apparently readers, at least some of them, have a blast too.”

Having worked in the news business for nearly four decades, Brooks has written thousands of stories that caught the interest of readers, including his weekly science columns.

Award-winning work The Weekend Monitor won New England Newspaper of the Year honors for the second year in a row.

The award was given out this fall by the New England Newspaper and Press Association to organizations above and below a circulation of 20,000 editions. The Monitor won in the smaller category.

Reporter Sruthi Gopalakrishnan won a Publick Occurrences award for her “Planning the End” series focusing on medical aid in dying through the life and death of Barbara Filion. These awards recognize the best work that New England newspapers produce each year.

Earlier in the year, the Monitor and its staff won 10 first-place awards, including Journalist of the Year and Photographer of the Year from the New Hampshire Press Association.

Reporter Michaela Towfighi, who covers a beat called “Two New Hampshires” that focuses on equality, diversity and disparity, was named the

New Hampshire Journalist of the Year. She also won first place for government reporting for a series of stories probing the state’s juvenile justice system.

Photo Editor Geoff Forester was named Photographer of the Year.

Gopalakrishnan won three first-place awards. One was for investigative reporting for her examination into Concord Casino’s Andy Sanborn.

The second was for environmental reporting for her series “Landfill Landscape.”

The third was for business reporting for giving readers a deeper look into Sanborn’s various business ventures across the state.

The Monitor also won first for feature reporting for a series of stories called “Portraits in Diversity,” and for crime and court reporting for a profile of Fabiana McLeod, who was sexually abused by former Concord teacher Howie Leung, and the changes made by the Concord School District since Leung’s arrest in 2019.

REPORT TO READERS

More reporters means more training How local

Town Criers receive an honor Since the 1990s, a dedicated group of volunteers has held a special place in the Concord Monitor. Our Town Criers report on the happenings in their town that don’t make it into the news report.

This fall, that group of 20 community writers was recognized at the annual Spirit of NH Awards, an annual event at the Capitol Center for the Arts that honors the very best volunteers in our state.

Cheryl Stinson was among those who went on stage to pick up the honor.

Stinson decided to respond to an ad in the Concord Monitor looking for a Penacook Town Crier in 1995, and she’s been writing a weekly column since.

“I never envisioned that 29 years later I’d still be doing it,” Stinson said.

Cheryl Stinson has been the GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff Penacook town Crier for the Jean Ver Hoeven, the Concord Town Crier, writes from her South End home. She has been Monitor since 1995. a key voice for Concord since taking over the role.

news is getting stronger

We’re coming up on five years since the start of the pandemic. While that certainly conjures up painful memories, in New Hampshire journalism that event serves as a clear marker of a time when local news outlets pivoted from competition to cooperation.

That’s been because of the emergence of the Granite State News Collaborative, which now includes 17 media partners.

In the early days, the Collaborative focused on big story projects. But the pandemic altered that focus. From that point on, it’s been about filling daily coverage gaps to help keep readers more informed about news from across the state.

We’ve now taken another major step as we move toward the formation of a community news fund. A news fund will help raise money across the state to help the partners and New Hampshire journalism meet critical reporting needs.

We just partnered on our first fundraising campaign that runs to the end of the year.

Visit concordmonitor.com and click “Consider donating to local news” in the right hand rail to learn more. If you’ve already donated, a big thank you. Your donation will help make us stronger in 2025.

Our 2024 donation Each year, the Newspapers of New England Foundation makes a donation to a local nonprofit.

Last year, the foundation made a $10,000 donation to the Friendly Kitchen in memory of longtime editor Mike Pride.

This year, the foundation is making numerous smaller donations. Among those in New Hampshire receiving $2,000 will be the Granite State News Collaborative.

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Ravitch and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

Michaela Towfighi took part in two advanced reporting programs, one through the national Investigative Editing Corps, which assisted with her Seized and Sold project, and a data fellowship focusing on juvenile justice run by the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

All of these opportunities were provided at no cost to the Monitor. We can’t thank these programs enough.

2024 REPORT TO READERS

journalist Gloria L. Negri, it is offered each year to 25 working New England journalists.

McLaughlin and Jeremy Margolis attended advanced training on covering fiscal issues from the Ravitch Reporting Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. The multi-day sessions are designed to give reporters indepth knowledge, help them overcome reporting challenges and improve their storytelling. It is funded by grants from long-time New York civic leader Richard

9

Thanks to several incredibly supportive programs, the Monitor was able to provide more training opportunities to its growing staff of reporters.

Sruthi Gopalakrishnan, Catherine McLaughlin and Charlotte Matherly attended the 14th annual Gloria L. Negri First Amendment Institute at Northeastern University in Boston run by the New England First Amendment Institute. The multi-day, intensive program focuses on freedom of information law and investigative reporting techniques.

Named after trail-blazing Boston Globe

REPORT TO READERS

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

OUR COMMUNITY IN A FLASH

ABOVE, LEFT: Lightning strikes on the east side of the New Hampshire State House on July 16. ABOVE, TOP RIGHT: A hot air balloon is seen through a reflection on the water at the Pittsfield Hot Air Balloon festival. ABOVE, BOTTOM RIGHT: Nayajay Perugini of Italy greets the children of the Boys and Girls Club as the runners come into the gymnasium for a ceremony on Aug. 13.

BELOW, LEFT: Carrie Bechard grooms Chippy, the 16-pound Persian retired champion at the New Hampshire Cat Show and Agility Event on May 5 in Concord. BELOW, CENTER: Melynda Parks of Salt Spa Concord uses Red Light Therapy at her new business on Oct. 15. BELOW, RIGHT: October foliage lines the view in front of the Meeting House at Canterbury Shaker Village.

READER ADVISORY BOARD

A COMMUNITY CONNECTION What do board members do?

Discussion and an exchange of ideas are at the heart of this program.

We rely on our board members to give their input on changes and improvements for the reader advisory board and the newspaper and our web site as a whole.

One of the biggest commitments we ask of reader advisory board members is to read the Monitor regularly and tell us what they think. We rely on our board members to share what’s going on in their neighborhood or community, to offer guidance on who we should talk to, and to let us know what themes they’re seeing, and what questions we could answer. We’re committed to including voices from our community in everything we do at the Monitor, and the reader advisory board is a great opportunity for us to connect and learn.

Plus, they get to talk to other journalists in our newsroom and members of our advertising sales team. And everyone’s favorite is the tour of the press in Penacook.

Pete Mosseau

Nick Perencevich

Wendy Lapham

Kathleen Beltrami

Susan Hewey

Kathryn Ann Gray

Eric Orff

Jessica Geiben Lynn

Who can join the board?

There’s an open call for applications in the fall and our editors and pubGraham Berit Ann lisher pick the new cohort, with input Gif ford Br own Dav is from members of the existing board.

This is for people who are active in the community, have a passion for local news, and want to learn more about the work that goes into the Concord Monitor. We also want members who passionate and locally focused, ready years. live, work or go to school in a town or to share their opinions and expertise Hear directly from members while also being open and able to listen city in the Monitor’s coverage area.

— to consider other viewpoints and of our 2024 board talk about them. The reader advisory Is anyone excluded We asked board members to tell us board is a space for conversation and from participation? exchange, not conflict. They come about the past year and what they have To ensure fairness, those who cur- ready to consider the bigger picture on taken away from the process. Here are rently hold elected positions, those a topic and incorporate a wider world some of the responses we received from them: who are considered public figures or view when needed. those with a role in locally-connected This sounds fun. Can I “I wanted to be a Concord Monitor public relations or communications Reader Advisory Board member to apply for 2025? will not be chosen for the reader advibetter understand how news is capsory board to avoid conflicts of interWe’ve just selected the incoming tured and delivered in my community. I est. board, but keep an eye out for our next also wanted to offer any insight or exTheir commitment to call for applications in the fall. You do pertise that I may have during my not need to re-apply if you have filled tenure. Truth be told, I also wanted to respect and civility out the application for the reader advi- know if the Concord Monitor was still All our boards have stood out in sory board before. All previous entries delivering ‘news’ in a world where the their ability to respect diverse opin- have been saved and we do our best to presentation of daily events is continuions. We want board members who are include applicants from previous ally skewed by people with various mo-

“Local journalism matters so we all understand what issues our communities are facing, and what people are trying to do to address those issues. It also reminds us of our own humanity; no matter where you are politically, we all know what it’s like to give help when we can, and to receive help when we need it.”

Jessica Geiben Lynn “I have been subscribing to the Concord Monitor since 1974 when I moved to Allenstown and then Epsom in 1979.

While news delivery has changed drastically over that half-century with a flood of digital deliveries, one thing that has not changed is the trust you feel when you read the Monitor.”

Eric Orff “My experience being on the 2024 Reader Advisory Board has given me the wonderful opportunity to meet the people behind the bylines, the people doing the editing, and all the others that make the Monitor the great daily NH newspaper that it is. They are all young, bright, and incredibly dedicated to public service and getting us readers the facts. We are lucky to have them.”

Nick Perencevich “Having spent more than two decades as a reporter and editor, I really enjoyed being a member of the Concord Monitor’s Reader Advisory Board. It’s been fun and informative.

The reporters and editors are genuinely interested in comments from the board, and over the past year have followed up on many suggestions from members of the board. The monthly meetings have provided significant insight into how the newspaper operates, from the newsroom to advertising sales.

At a time when many, many newspapers are cutting back staff, it is inspiring to learn the creative ways the Concord Monitor’s management team has found to fund specific beats as a way to add reporters to its newsroom.”

Ann Davis

Saturday, December 28, 2024

The Concord Monitor’s Reader Advisory Board is heading into its fourth year in January with a whole new lineup of readers.

The group below is just finishing up. We’re excited for the new 2025 cohort to get started. We’ll be making that announcement soon.

tives. Listening to the CM editors and how they continually seek to improve and grow despite the many hurdles facing the news industry is both fascinating and encouraging. Understanding the business dynamics as well as how stories are developed taught me that our community has more influence than it may realize. I’m pleased to say that I have a number of takeaways from this experience and I would highly recommend it.”

Graham Gifford

2024 REPORT TO READERS

Its an initiative to bring readers and community-minded individuals together to talk about local news. We’re entering our fourth year and ready to welcome a new group into the newsroom.

2024 READER ADVISORY BOARD

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What is the Concord Monitor Reader Advisory Board?

DELIVERING THE NEWS

TO YOUR FRONT DOOR

There’s a reason newsrooms often call their paper The Daily Miracle. There are a lot of processes involved, and a lot of people, though not nearly as many as there once were. We print the Monitor Monday through Saturday, minus New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. And we publish online 365 days a year. Someone is always doing something to get the news to readers. It may be a reporter running out to an event far past deadline, an editor reading an article alongside their morning coffee, a pressworker solving computer and mechanical malfunctions as deadline approaches or a delivery driver trying to juggle the complexities of a route. We don’t claim to be perfect, but we do strive to do things a little bit better than we did the day before. We thought it would be helpful if we gave you this painfully simplistic view of our story flow – from the reporter’s notepad to your computer screen, smartphone or front door.

NE WS GATHERING Reporters, photographers and editors work together to determine stories and report the news you read online and in the paper.

Here, reporter Rachel Wachman is out on assignment writing a story about the Allenstown Fire Department. She’s with Allenstown firefighter and Advanced EMT Ben Savage

> EDITING THE NEWS

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Editors post the stories online throughout the day. Along the way, they also build the newspaper that will eventually reach thousands of homes.

START THE ENGINES

>

The Monitor is done being printed around 6 p.m. But there is plenty left to do. Our 50-plus delivery drivers start arriving around 9:30 p.m. to pick up almost 30,000 papers for their routes. They’ll be delivering the Monitor, but they’ll also be delivering up to a dozen other publications, like the Boston Globe and the New York Times. In all, our drivers average about 100 miles each night across mostly rural roads. Our goal is to have all papers delivered by 6:30 to 7 a.m.

As you can imagine, that’s a tough haul, and many things can go wrong along the way – sick kids, flat tires, icy roads just to name a few. If your paper arrives each morning, you have your driver to thank. If we’ve been more spotty than we should, please let us know and we’ll work hard to fix the problem.

THE PRESSES > START This is where the heavy lifting starts, literally. The Monitor closed its

printing press at 1 Monitor Drive in 2019 at the same time that it launched a new and even bigger printing operation in Penacook.

Inside that site, you’ll find two printing presses that churn out paper after paper for Newspapers of New England’s New Hampshire news operations, including the Monitor, the Valley News in West Lebanon and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in Peterborough. Plus, they’ll print many other publications throughout the day. Inside, you’ll see stacks of newsprint rolls almost to the ceiling. Each roll has 7 miles worth of newsprint and weighs one ton.

OUR REACH

HOW WE HELP BUSINESSES We often get the same reaction when talk to new advertisers. “We didn’t know you do all that.” We’ve been publishing newspapers in Concord since 1864, so we understand why some may think only of newspapers when they hear our name. Newspapers continue to be a big piece of what we do, but we offer many other options, from digital to magazines, as we build our audience. We suggest local advertisers look at it the same way. You need to reach your customer. Some buy the newspaper. Some read our site. We can connect you with both. Some may not read the paper or the website, but we reach those homes as well. Contact us, and we’ll help you explore the ways you can expand your business.

Advertising contact information is on Page 4. You can also fill out a form at concordmonitor.com to learn more. Click “Advertising” at the top of the page.

MARKET SURVEY GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

REACH OUR READERS

What local news sources are you using most now?

53.1%

Programmatic We can reach the audience any business craves across a network of top websites, games, apps, streaming devices and email. Find the ideal customer based on where they shop, online behavior, and different socio-economic, demographic, and geographic areas defined by you.

Contests A new and exciting way to expand your presence in our market.

CTV/ZTV options Reach customers who have cut the cord through our streaming TV platforms.

ONLINE READERSHIP The Monitor uses premium tools to get a deeper understanding of how our content is being read online. That helps us better reach your next customer.

71.4%

Local newspaper and website In the last 30 days, have you or a member of your household made a purchase or sought out more information on a local product or service advertised in the local paper, local radio, local TV?

43.4%

Local newspaper and website (That number is four times higher than either local TV or local radio)

2024 REPORT TO READERS

Which of the following have you or any members of your household done in the past WEEK?

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Local newspaper and website

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In the daily Monitor We print about 5,500 copies each day, which puts our print readership above 14,000 local readers. The average reader is age 45 or older and has a household income around $70,000.

Non-Monitor readers We deliver 36,000 Monitor Extras to homes in and around Concord. In fact, nearly every home in Concord receives the Extra, which includes some stories and local advertising. We also reach more than 13,000 readers with My Concord and 5,300 homes with our quarterly glossy lifestyle magazine Around Concord.

On concordmonitor.com and our app Our 12-month average number of pageviews is about 800,000 per month. The vast majority of those views come from local readers who are either subscribers or those who only occasionally visit our site.

Social media We have more than 17,000 local readers who like us on Facebook. They’ll reach our site through the social platform, and then they’ll see your advertisement.

The Brander Package Get your business the branding it needs. Run every edition of Concord Monitor, Concord Insider, Monitor Extra with 300,000 ad impressions on concordmonitor.com. The Brander packages start as low as $250 per month.

Newsletters Connect directly with readers in their email inbox.

The Monitor conducted a survey of central New Hampshire shoppers through Pulse Research. The data helps local advertisers better gauge how their market sees the media landscape and what shoppers are prioritizing. The following is a sampling of results from 343 local survey participants.

OUR PRODUCTS

READ ALL ABOUT IT We print a lot of newspapers at our facility in Penacook (read more about it on Page 12). But a local news organization like ours does so much more. We produce a weekly alt magazine, several seasonal special sections, a weekly “Extra” edition, a special monthly publication called My Concord, a quarterly glossy lifestyle magazine and a whole lot more. Online, we publish all day on concordmonitor.com, and we reach readers through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. More than ever, we’re connecting with readers through digital newsletters. In short, we reach a lot of readers across central New Hampshire and the state in a variety of ways. Here’s a closer look at our products.

concordmonitor.com Here, you can get all the local news you’d normally get in the paper. If you’re a print subscriber, you automatically have access to our website. Or, you can get a digital-only subscription. (We love all our subscribers equally!) In most cases, you’ll see the news first on our website. That’s because we want to send our news to our paying customers as soon as we feel it is ready to publish. As you can imagine, we can do that far more quickly on our site than we can with print and delivery. Our reporters and editors work hard each day to bring you news as it happens. So check our website a few times a day – you’ll be certain to find something new about the world around you.

NEWSLET TERS

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

THE DAILY PAPER We print six days a week and we deliver across the region, from parts of Manchester to the Lakes Region. Concord and the surrounding communities are where most of our readers live.

The Monitor is $1.50 Monday through Friday on the newsstands and $3.00 on the weekend. Of course, you get a much better rate with a print subscription, which also gives you full digital access.

WHERE PRINT MEETS DIGITAL

We get that websites can sometimes be harder to navigate than a print newspaper. It can be a lot to stay on top of. Our newsletters help organize information by topic and deliver stories straight to your email inbox, so you can get all your news at once. We have a daily Headline Alerts newsletter, plus newsletters for science, arts and entertainment, real estate and sports.

Among our most popular offerings is our breaking news email, which puts you on an alert list when major events happen. You get full control of which email lists you want to be included on. It’s easy to sign up at concordmonitor.com. Click “Newslet ters” at the top of the page.

THE E-EDITION This is a digital replica of the newspaper and it’s available to all print and digital-only subscribers. So, why would someone want to read a newspaper on the website? Well, it actually has a lot of advantages. Here are some of the reasons readers turn to the e-edition: ■ They like their news to be organized in a newspaper format, but

they don’t necessarily want to get the paper sent to their home each morning.

■ Unlike the website, when you never feel like you’re done with the news for the day, you can read the edition on your iPad, desktop or phone and put it away until tomorrow.

■ You have access to more than a decade of papers.

■ Remember a story you read but can’t remember which paper it was in? Well, you can easily search across that full month.

■ Plus, there are other great features like audio playback, email notifications based on your desired search term and an ability to adjust the type to the size that works best for you.

OUR PRODUCTS AROUND CONCORD Our quarterly lifestyle magazine gets delivered to about 6,000 homes, hotels and offices across central New Hampshire and is available for purchase at Gibson’s in downtown Concord. You can purchase a subscription to get it delivered directly to your home for $20 annually. To do that, visit aroundconcord.com and click “Subscribe” in the top right corner.

THE EXTRA

THE INSIDER

Once a week, the Monitor sends out the ‘Extra,’ a free publication that includes stories from the Monitor, adver tisements and help wanted ads. We reach more than 36,000 homes in central New Hampshire, including all of Concord.

Once a week, we publish the Concord Insider, which can be found in the Monitor on Thursdays and for free at pickup locations across the city. The Insider tells you about the big events coming in the next week, and it’s a place where you can connect on what’s happening in and around the city.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE COME TO OUR WEBSITE The easiest way to subscribe to the Monitor is to visit concordmonitor.com, and click “Subscribe” at the top of the page. Pick all-access, which includes print, or digital only.

OTHER OPTIONS Contact customer service at (603) 224-4287 or at customerser vice@cmonitor.com.

A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION ■ Many of our loyal subscribers like to

Each year, we produce many special publications that are inserted into the Monitor. These include the Bridal Guide, Active Aging, the Harvest Guide, the Holiday Gift Guide and the summer travel Staycation magazine.

S uppor t l oc al Suppor tl oc al j o u n i s m j o ur r na al l i s m c onc or dmoni t or . c om/ s ubs c r i be c onc or dmoni t or . c om/ s ubs c r i be

FOLLOW US

FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA You’ll find some of our content on Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn, and any other new social platforms that allow us to better connect with our readers. Of course, this all takes work on our part, so we do the best we can to choose which platforms can connect with the most people. It’s pretty easy to find us, but if you’re struggling, we have a link at the bottom of each of our articles and at the bottom of our homepage.

S u b s c r i bet t h e S u b s c r ot h e C o n c o r dMoni t o r , C o n c o r d i t o r , r e c e n t l y n a me d t h e b e s t r ec ent l yna heb e s t p a p e r o fi i z e n p a p e r o f t ss z ei i n Ne e wE En ng gl l a n .

N w a nd d .

Saturday, December 28, 2024

SPECIAL SECTIONS

2024 REPORT TO READERS

Once a month, the ‘Extra’ includes My Concord, a publication that features events information, ads and community photos.

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MY CONCORD

buy the paper for their loved ones, especially around the holidays. If you want to do that, just follow the same process detailed above.

THE MANY WAYS OF SUPPORT

Again named the best newspaper of its size in New England

A GIFT DONATION ave someone in your life that you think would benefit from a print or digital gift subscription? Subscribing is easy.

H Just visit concordmonitor.com, and follow the Subscription link at the top of the page.

A YEAR-END DONATION

Consider a gift to local news

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2024 REPORT TO READERS

Saturday, December 28, 2024

M

any of the big decisions that impact your pocketbook, your family and your community get made in planning committees, school board meetings, and State House hearing rooms across New Hampshire. Far too often, those decisions are often made in front of empty rooms save for a lone local news reporter.

National and cable news are not going to cover these decisions. You won’t know about them without local news reporters.

Local journalism is a critical part of the civic infrastructure holding up democracy. Like solid roads and water pipes in your neighborhood, our local information systems need to be strong and sustainable.

In New Hampshire, we are proud that many local news outlets are working closely together to keep that infrastructure strong. The local news partners in the Granite State News Collaborative have set aside generations of deeply ingrained competition to focus on the shared belief that our communities are stronger when we work together.

This month, we have introduced the New Hampshire Community News Fund. It is a way for you to make a donation to strengthen local journalism and increase the number of reporters here in the Capital Region and across the state.

Through the Community News Fund, you can donate to the Concord Monitor, other participating media outlets, the Granite State News Collaborative, or a combination. Your donation will directly support news operations and strengthen the connections local news fosters in our communities.

To donate, visit concordmonitor.com and follow the link “Consider donating to local news.”

Thank you. We appreciate your generous support.