About Us – The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
We are a locally-owned and operated daily newspaper based in Barre and Montpelier, Vermont. We deliver newspapers to Washington, Orange and Lamoille counties every day, and with the Rutland Herald (which is owned by the same family) operate the Vermont Press Bureau year-round in Montpelier. The Times Argus' core coverage area is Washington County, however, with the Herald we have reporters in Southern Vermont and Orange County.

Our Mission
To serve our customers and our community by providing indispensable, timely, accurate and relevant information. To foster debate, critical thinking, a spirit of independence, civic responsibility and a vibrant community. To cultivate a team of exceptional people in a dynamic and rewarding workplace.

Our Vision:
To serve our communities as the independent, trusted voice of Central Vermont.

Vermont Community Media
The parent company of the following publications. The company operates on principles of independence for each individual publication, public service and business excellence.

Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
The Barre Daily Times first came out on March 16, 1897. The first daily edition of the Montpelier Evening Argus ran on October 30, 1897. The two papers merged on August 30, 1959, when the Times bought the Argus.

The Barre Daily Times was founded by Frank E. Langley to meet the demands of the growing Granite City. In the early days his wife set the type in their home with their children playing at her feet, and Frank sold the newspapers for a penny each in the streets. Langley sold shares in the paper in 1917 to six of his workers, one of whom was Alex Walker. Langley passed away in 1938 and Walker bought out his partners in 1958.

The Montpelier Argus began life as a weekly newspaper, the Argus-Patriot, founded in 1863 by Hiram Atkins. His son, Morris Fletcher Atkins, made the paper an evening daily in 1897, and was succeeded by his daughter, Elaine Atkins, in the 1940s. The Argus was struggling financially in 1959 when Alex Walker bought it and merged the two papers two days later.

In 1964, Walker sold the Times Argus to the Mitchells and Nobles(owners of the Rutland Herald), keeping the newspaper a locally-owned and operated publication.

John Mitchell, Bob Mitchell's son, became publisher of the Times Argus in May of 1979, writing that the goals of the paper were to: “…cover the news in depth that readers ... want to read about ... focusing attention on affairs in state and local government which affect all our readers.”

That focus remains today.

Rutland Herald
The Rutland Herald is the oldest continuously family-owned newspaper in the United States published under the same name in the same city. Seven families have owned the Herald; the current owners are the Mitchell family.

Fifth-generation Vermonter Bob Mitchell, then the newspaper's editor, bought the Herald from the Field family with partner Leroy Noble in 1947.

“I knew he [Bill Field] was entrusting the Herald to me because he thought I would manage it as nearly as possible like a public trust,” Mitchell remembered of William Field, himself a second-generation newspaper owner. The newspaper operates under the same philosophy today, in part due to a handshake agreement between Mitchell and the Noble family. When the Nobles decided to sell, they accepted a less lucrative offer from the Mitchells, rather than have the newspaper bought out by a national chain.

The Herald today does well what it has done throughout its life, as spelled out in the very first edition from Dec. 8, 1794: “…The end we mean to have steadily in view is, to make the Herald an Instructive, Entertaining, and Useful Paper, uninfluenced by parties, and as free as possible from any mixture of prejudice.”

The Herald is the only paper in Vermont to be honored with journalism's highest award, the Pulitzer Prize, for principled editorials by David Moats about the debate over civil unions in 2000. The newspaper has also won dozens of awards for advertising, layout, reporting, public service and general excellence - just in this decade. Several of the Herald's reporters and editors have gone on to win Pulitzers at other newspapers as well.

On Bob Mitchell's death in 1993, his son R. John Mitchell became the publisher of the Rutland Herald.

Vermont Press Bureau
The Press Bureau was created in 1935 when the publisher-owner of the Rutland Herald (William Field) and the publisher-owner of the Burlington Free Press (J.W. McLure) hired Bob Mitchell to be a full-time state house reporter covering the state legislature in Montpelier.
Mitchell operated as reporter, columnist and observer in the capital city for six years, before being called back to become editor of the Herald in 1941. The Press Bureau continued on even after the Free Press backed out, and lent the Herald alone among all the state newspapers a statewide outlook and sensibility that it retains today.
The Bureau now has three reporters working out of a Montpelier office, covering legislative, statewide and political issues year-round, and publishes a blog at www.rutlandherald.typepad.com/vermontview



VTCow.com
From apartment rentals to pets, autos, boats and farm equipment, the site includes thousands of non-employment classified listings from the Rutland Herald and the Times Argus for the latest 30 day period. The COW – Classifieds On Web – arrived in 2009, and she's been a hit in the local communities, and made it easy for customers to enter their own classified ads online. Sell it now with the COW!

JobsinVermont.com:
In partnership with Monster.com, our statewide jobs site is second to none with more then 41,000 resumes and 625,000 job searches performed monthly. The site consistently boosts the largest, most current list of job postings of any site in the state. It includes personalization features, career advice, job search tips, our exclusive Monster-Match employer-to-employee matching service and Monster Video job offers.