Justin Trombly to be new full-time editor for CNS

Justin Trombly first dabbled with writing in elementary school when he wrote and produced a newspaper called The Daily Locker. “When people ask me how I got into journalism, that's my origin story,” Trombly said.

Now at 27, Trombly has been hired as the first full time, year-round editor of UVM student stories for the Community News Service—a program which provides student reported stories to local newspapers across Vermont.

As the CNS editor, Trombly acts as a mentor for students enrolled in journalism classes and internships. Weekly, he meets with cohorts of students to discuss progress and challenges with writing articles and gives advice for coming up with new story ideas, reaching people for commentary and any other questions or concerns they might have.

“The way to learn it is to do it,” said Trombly. “It's a collaborative process that results in a really great product.”

Trombly also meets one-on-one with students to workshop drafts of news articles. “That's how I learned best when I was at an earlier stage in my career. It was getting the opportunity to sit down with editors who were patient and who wanted to work with me to have a better piece in the end. Those are the best editors that I ever had, so I try to bring that to the work I'm doing here.”

Sadie Ensana has been interning with the Community News Service since last fall and has valued her time working with Trombly as an editor. “He doesn’t make you feel incompetent. He helps you form your thoughts into something,” said Ensana “He is helpful, but he doesn’t talk down to you.”

UVM recently announced a new commitment of $650,000 over the next three years to grow student-driven journalism. The funding will also be used to provide summer reporting scholarships and support students developing multi-media pieces, podcasts, videos and more.

The CNS Editor position is in addition to that funding, according to UVM Provost Patricia Prelock.

“In addition to the 650,000, it's important to have personnel who are going to make a difference, and so we're creating a new position in the College of Arts and Sciences---the Community News Service editor,” said Prelock “A full time 12 month editor to continue to increase student stories, edited to professional standards and then available to Vermont News Sources for free.”

At the core of the Community News Service is the Editor.

“When I became aware that this is sort of a position in the works, it just struck me that he is such a great fit for that kind of role,” said Jim Welch, the former managing editor at VTDigger. “The students he'll be working with, other editors will be working with and perhaps other staff members that he'll be working with are really, really fortunate to have somebody of that sort joining their team.”

Trombly grew up just across Lake Champlain in Chazy, New York — a ten-minute drive from Vermont and the Canadian border. While Trombly always loved storytelling growing up, it wasn’t until a high school teacher left a note on an assignment that read “you have an intrinsic ability to write and you should pursue something involving writing” that Trombly started to seriously consider writing professionally.

Trombly double majored in English and political science at the University of Rochester. “I read a lot of writing and picked up a lot of tricks as an English major and then from that political science program, I think I gained very valuable perspectives on how government and power works,” said Trombly. “And of course, that helps when you're trying to write about it.”

While there was no journalism program at the University of Rochester, Trombly’s experience with the campus paper served as his first instruction in reporting. He became involved by writing articles his first semester, and went on to serve as opinions editor, managing editor and editor in chief during his four years of college.

Looking for an internship for the summer after Trombly’s freshman year of college, he reached out to his hometown paper, the Plattsburgh Press Republican.

“They took a chance on me—-I was 18, and I was very lucky in that a national news story and probably the biggest story in that newspaper's history hit the summer that I was there.”

The national news story was the manhunt of two convicted killers who escaped from a max-security prison in upstate New York. On his own initiative, Trombly went door to door to capture the voices of local residents.

Lois Claremont, a now-retired editor for the Plattsburgh Press Republican, reflected on her time working with Justin. “Right away, I could tell he had great curiosity, and his writing was a step above even some of our staff reporters.”

“I had quite a few interns in the 40 years I was at the Press Republican, and there are a few that stand out, and he was one of them,” Claremont said.

Trombly said he learned how to write a creative lead for news articles as well as how to take notes in the field without relying on recording devices through the guidance of his editors during the internship.

“The fundamentals of everything I know come from my experience in that local newsroom,” said Trombly.

Trombly went on to intern at the Glens Falls Post Star the next summer. There, Trombly took interest in a partnership between Bennington College and a New York State prison where professors would teach classes to inmates regularly, leading to a difficult story from inside the prison. The following year, Trombly interned at the Buffalo News where he got experience working with court records.

After graduation, Trombly took on a summer internship which was extended into a full year with the Tampa Bay Times in Florida.

“This was a paper that, within the industry, was considered a writer's paper where not only did they value really strong reporting, but really creative and expressive writing as well, and despite

me not being in a journalism program and not coming from a school with any sort of journalism network or alumni apparatus, they took a flier on me,” said Trombly.

After working at the Tampa Bay Times, Trombly took on a job with VTDigger as a reporter covering the Northeast Kingdom. Trombly said the news outlet’s commitment to investigative journalism and the fact that he was originally from a rural area drew him to the position.

Jim Welch said that Trombly stood out among the applicant pool because of his many internships, knowledge of journalistic ethics and refined writing abilities as a young reporter. “Here was somebody who wanted to learn how he could become a better reporter, a better writer,” said Jim Welch.

In 2021, after two years working for VTDigger, Trombly was hired to lead a group of student writers in the Community of Practice internship program at UVM and became the editor for the Community News Service a year later.

Although he enjoyed being a reporter, editing is Trombly’s true passion.

“The thought of helping other people put together the best version of their work is more appealing to me and more engaging for me than reporting,” said Trombly. “It's super rewarding to be involved in that growth.