 and Bill Doyle on Vermont Issues, our guest today is Michael Dumpfey, the new editor of The Bridge newspaper here in Montpelier, and we're really grateful to have you here. We have so many questions, and we're so proud of you for taking on this big local project that is so important to so many people. Thank you. Thank you very much for the invitation. Yeah, it's a great honor. We both are honored that you're here. So do you want to give us a little background sketch, maybe, of who you are and how you ended up in Montpelier? Sure thing. It's a long, complicated story, and I'll try and keep it short, but I grew up in Burlington, and like many young people at the age of 18 decided it was time to get out of Vermont, and I spent the next 20 years or so mostly living in Europe where I was teaching English, and then eventually I fell into journalism while I was living in Istanbul and changed direction in my life, and moved to New York City, was in Boston for a while, then was back in Europe, and then eventually I decided it was time to come home, and as I have so much family in this area, Montpelier was a good choice for me, and this job opened up at The Bridge. And you found it when you were in Europe, right? I did, yes. Nat told me you had to come back for the job. Yes. I'm hoping I'm the first person ever to move directly from Prague to Montpelier. Your dream to The Bridge? In terms of The Bridge, I mean, the first sort of dream is, you know, survival and thriving, that The Bridge not only survives but thrives, which is a very difficult thing to do in the print world these days, in the media world right now, and beyond that. And you have a paper that has good records, so you're coming in on The Bridge is very well appreciated by the people who read it. They are, and it's amazing to walk into a publication that already has such a devoted readership. That's a unicorn, in many respects, and I'm very appreciative and grateful for that. But in terms of where I would like to go with The Bridge, I very much looked to Seven Days as a model, I would say for many reasons, mainly because they are an example of a successful print-based publication within Vermont that's free and is doing pretty good business. And so I think they're a great model, but obviously we want to distinguish ourselves in our own way and not just be a copy of that. But there are many things that they do that fit within us. For example, their weekly, we're bi-weekly, but we both have the similar issue of we can't really leap on as easily to breaking news. It's not what we do, so we have to select our stories and do those deep dives. And I like that idea of taking the threads of the stories and really going into them deeply, as deeply as we can. And I don't know how many publications are doing that at the moment within the state, so I think we're pretty good about that. And I like the idea of doing that more as well as in mixing the hard and the soft news as best we can. Well, never before in our history have journalists such as yourself under attack. You want to make any comments? Because the conversation and what's been written about the journalists by some have certainly been not favorable to the press. So how much do you handle that? It's a very good question, and luckily thus far the general types of journalism that I've been doing, I haven't really been personally attacked, or whatever, related to that, but obviously it's on everybody's, every journalist who's writing now has this on their mind. And there doesn't seem to be a day that goes by where there's not another terrible story of a journalist killed, like in recently the Saudi journalist in Turkey and the one in Bulgaria. And it's a very dangerous profession and it's really people are afraid of the truth. And if anything, it demonstrates the power and the need of journalism that it would frighten people so much. But this would be their response, that journalists are more dangerous than anybody else because they bring the truth, or they certainly try to. And I think if anything, it underscores the importance of it. And I think we are seeing some of that realization, I think in the past years, especially in the Trump years and all that, that there is a renewed support for the kind of journalism that should be. So if there is a silver lining, that could be one. But yes, it's something we're all very deeply concerned in. I guess we hope that in the end, it's the work that will say more than weaken at the value of the work and the quality of the work and the benefit it gives to the society is really the best response you can give to that sort of attacks, is do your job well. Yeah, I was saying to Bill, it's wonderful reading the bridge because you get so isolated in your own world. And then you wonder, well, what's the outcome of this situation? Or what's the outcome of that situation? And I always find the answer in the bridge. That's wonderful, but. Which is really great. I think the name of the bridge is something that links to what you're saying there, and that a strong community requires strong communication. And in our especially digital world, which is very cocoon-ish of everybody on their phones and everything, we're lacking more and more of that communication, which I think we can see manifest in many ways. And so the name of the bridge as a connector has a symbolic meaning. And part of what we're trying to do is to keep those connections and keep those conversations going. And through that is where we build the stronger community and stronger society, I think. Mike, what are some of the influences that you've got while you made a career choice? Well, initially, as I said, I got into journalism when I was abroad. And if you're a boy who grew up in Vermont and then suddenly you're in a place like Istanbul or places like that, it's so overwhelming and there's so many stories and adventures and things you want to tell people, the things you experience, or at least I did. And it just started there with me just wanting to tell those stories. And then it began in private journals and then little newsletters and then little blogs and then you just kept going up the ladder. But it was just wanting to tell these stories. And where were you located in Europe? A number of places, so I was in the UK for a year. I was in Czech Republic for two years. I was in Estonia for three years and I was in Turkey for four years. And then a whole bunch of other places for some months at a time. So it was really all over the place. It was on the road, I would say in many ways, but they have very good trains there, so it's more on the rails. Speaking of that, say more about the rails that you just talked about. Well, it's wonderful and this is actually, you know, 43 moving back to Vermont is the first time I've ever had to own a car. Which is sort of shocking and I admit, I do miss that the wonderful connected train systems in Europe that are, we were on a train in Switzerland like a little while ago and we had first class tickets and we were in the second class and thought we were in the first class. And then you get on the Amtrak and it's just striking how different it is. And so I found that wonderful. I do miss that, yes. Were you writing for English speaking papers or were you and so you had a sort of community that you were working with there? Yes, I mean most freelancers and surviving as a freelancer, whether it's a writer or whatever, you develop networks and you develop relationships with different people. So I had enough success to have a network of people that would always employ me. So I had a lot of work coming to me on a regular basis. I didn't have to go looking for it all the time. Would it be transferred back to the states as well or did it mainly, your writing mainly stayed in Europe? No, they were mostly for American and British publications. And then of course, if it's on the web, it's international. So the paychecks were coming from here. What tools did you bring back from Europe? Tools, well certainly for this position, I guess journalistic tools and the experience and writing all, I don't know if it's necessarily from travel, but just from being a freelancer for so many years in New York, in Europe, in Boston and learning how to, the hustle of it and the hard work that it requires and really how to network and schmooze and how talent in writing or talent in art is almost secondary to sort of the management and the hustle and the effort that's required and the relationships you build. And in many ways that is something that's important here. A lot of the stories we get at the bridge or we're gonna write about come from us having relationships with people and relationships to community members who want to speak with us or trust us or are willing to share information with us. I'm sure most newspapers would say the same. It's this building of relationships, I think is very helpful. And then learning how to translate those ideas into a printed form or it's one thing to have the idea for something, but then how do you translate that into 800 words in a specific format that in a skillful way? Public conversation, yeah. So, what do you like to see schmooze about most? Well, if I'm actually schmoozing, I don't do much of the talking because I have, I found that the best strategy was schmoozing as you get the other person to do most of the talking. If you allow someone the ability or the chance to talk about how great they are, they usually like you. It's a little cynical, but it works. Certainly worked in New York. So, we wanna know, Bill and I are great food lovers. We believe in energy through good food and we heard that you got to be a food writer. And can you tell us about an adventure that sort of got you into or a new food you discovered because of it or a highlight? I would say the benefits of being a food writer is that you get to eat a lot of things you could never afford as a food writer because they would cost more to get than you would ever make from writing. So, and many times they're amazing and sometimes I almost would rather have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I mean, I was in Amsterdam once and they gave me one of those real Wagyu things that was like a $200 filet. And they brought it to me and the person next to me was having like fish and chips. And I wanted the fish and chips. It's just like, so sometimes when you go to that level, it's not as great as you might think. Well, let's talk about some of the countries that you've been to and associate meals that identify a good meal in each country that you can remember at this time. Well, probably altogether Turkey was probably the most amazing for food. I mean, just the whole cultural and ethnic confluence that has occurred there. And all of the unbelievable food, especially if you're coming from like Northern New England, whether there were specific dishes. I mean, there were so many, I couldn't. I mean, there was one I really love that was called The Sultan's Delight, which was like a smoked mashed eggplant with like very tender lamb chunks on top and I adored that. And then, but the fish was great and I mean, I could go on and on and on about. I really can't, it's difficult to choose one. And the desserts, my God, that's my guilty pleasures. I have a sweet tooth, so just unbelievable desserts of baklava and all that sort of rose, it's always full of rose water and honey in that area. And the phylo breads and the nuts and the fruit figs and all that sort of thing. And again, if you're coming from Vermont, that was always pretty amazing to me. So overall, I would say culinarily, Turkey was the best for sure. How far were you from the Mediterranean? Well, the Mediterranean has many different components. So Istanbul is on the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus, which connects to the Aegean, which is part of the Mediterranean. So it just depends kind of how you define, you want to define Mediterranean. But I mean, you could smell the salt and look out your window and see it. Because Istanbul has many hills, seven like Rome, which is part of why they put it there. So it's very elevated, so you have these great views. And I was on the Adriatic for a year when I was in Croatia and Slovenia. And again, the food there was pretty amazing as well. One particular dish that came to mind was like they would take calamari and they would stuff the hoods with, I think it was muscarpone cheese and prosciutto. And then grill that, exactly. Or they had wild asparagus there, which I had never had. Like it's much smaller and thinner than what you get, but it grew everywhere. But it had a much more pungent taste. Sophie and I have a long way to go to match what you just said. And so they would scramble that with eggs in the morning and prosciutto. And I thought, and then they always put a dose of olive oil on it, which my landlord made. And that was amazing. So he would just leave me bottles of olive oil that he made at my door and wine and grappa. And so that came with the extra love. Right, why did you come back? No, just easy. That's a good question. I do wake up some day, I don't wonder about that. But it is, at a certain point, I think maybe just some agree when you cross that 40 threshold. And I had been doing it a very long time. It wasn't just a year or two. We're talking about 15 years of living in a bag and the constant moving and constantly having to say goodbye to people. And that's not fun. And then as you get older, it's just not the same. So most people have children and families and mortgages and careers. And they don't have the energy. So they're not as available. So if you meet somebody really interesting, they say, well, maybe next month on a Tuesday from three to four, when my kids at daycare, I might have time to hang out with you. Describe your favorite dinner. You mean when I was abroad? Well, I didn't pick any period of time. Well, if it was in Vermont, it would be lobster, obviously. Because you can't get. That's one thing. I'm talking overseas. Europe. Boy. I think some of the ones I mentioned for Turkey were really there. But I think you tie up food with you don't just isolate the food by itself. It's connected to stories and nostalgic feelings and experiences you have and you put those all together. So when I think of the idea of sitting on the GNC with my friends and having the fish and the rucka, which is like the liquor they have there, I mean, it's just hard to beat that. Now, did you go to college with the intention of being a writer or is that something? No, I went to college because I had no idea what to do. And in college, I had to. Well, I ended up going to three, but I graduated from UVM. What were the other two? I started at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. And then, of course, if you've ever been to Poughkeepsie, there's your answer while I left. And then I went to UVM, and then I got a scholarship to study in the UK. So I was in Canterbury for a year. And that was kind of where the travel bug started. And then I came back to UVM and finished out there and got my degree there, which was just in English and history. And really what happened was in my last class, when I suddenly realized, OK, this is all going to end soon and I don't know how to do anything. And I don't see any job advertisements for like Marxist criticism and literature. Somebody came into the class from the Peace Corps and was just, here's a job, here's travel, here's deferments on your student loans. It's great on your resume. And I thought that sounded great. Let's do that. So that's what you did. You got out of college and joined the Peace Corps. I did. OK, and then? And then I was an English teacher in a little village in the southwest of Estonia for about two and a half years. And obviously, you do a lot of traveling because you have great train systems and just the opportunity. And I really liked Eastern Europe much more because it had so much more authenticity to it. I felt, and it was 100 times cheaper and more undiscovered. Did they make you sing in Estonia? Oh, yes. Have you got a little ditty you could sing for us? Estonia is, well, you can tell the story better than I. They separated from the USSR from singing, through singing, right? They had the singing revolution. They did. I love that. Their revolution, they called it the singing revolution, which is somewhat controversial in the area if you speak to the Latvians and the Lithuanians. But that's another story. And the Estonian. And the Estonian. Well, no, they presented it as we sang and we were free. But the important thing is that song in their culture is so important to their identity as a culture. And when I was working in the schools, they put a lot of effort in teaching children song and dance, especially the traditional ones. And it was always embarrassing when they would ask me to sing a traditional American song. And all you can think are like Coca-Cola commercials. Oh, maybe you were. I want to buy the world a Coke. Or you're like, OK, she's coming around the mountain maybe. Or you know a few lions here and there, but they have these incredible bodies of works. And I did learn a couple of them just to try to win their love, because I needed to. My own memory was singing a class in Czechoslovakia and teaching English in Czechoslovakia. Not that I did, but it was being taught. Yes. But you're right. But that's a general thing through most of Eastern Europe, because there are many evils that you can point to that communism and the Iron Curtain did in that part of the world. But it also kind of pickled it. And in the sense that if it wasn't destroyed during the war, it was kind of preserved, because they didn't do any urban development programs. They were very much about keeping people connected to their folk traditions. They didn't have everything that we did. So once they sort of became free in the late 80s or whatever, those things were still pretty much intact. So they could still do their dances and still do their songs. And the cities were very kind of, as I said, authentic. They hadn't been redeveloped or even cleaned up at all. So you would still walk on the streets of Budapest. And there's 100 years of soot there, and there's so much history in that soot. Like palpable history. And I just I always loved that. So that was something I noticed a lot there that I really appreciated. So I have one question here. You were saying that part of your career was sort of international information swapping. I mean, you were writing for the United States. And a lot of that was online, probably. A mix. So the bridge is all printed. Yes. I mean, you must have some dedication to print in some way or some dream or part of it that you feel is so important that you need to support it. The dedication, I would say, is not to print as itself as a medium so much. But as to what in terms of the bridge local journalism can do that the large digital giants are not doing. And if that's in print or if that's digital, it doesn't make as much of a difference to me. At least in that sense. So as I mentioned you, I've worked in the past for a lot of these large companies like USA Today and CNN. And I know how they choose which news to write and which news to publish. And it's very soul crushing if you're in it. Because many people go into writing and the arts and journalism with a very idealistic sense of I'm going to be Woodward and Birdstein or something like that. And then the reality of the business of digital media and what drives the business is very different. And so I associate with the bridge of a very more traditional, and I would say this is the purest form of journalism I've ever been able to do where we can really just sit down and discuss at the editorial table what are the important stories we think for the community. And what will be a help? What will be a support? And that conversation just never happened at almost any of those other places I worked. What were some of these stories that you did learn about and which you liked so much? In the bridge? Yeah. Well, it's very much news and mob pillars in many ways very much like what they call it, a tempest in a teapot. So I'm working on the story on the parking garage now. And of course, it's just if you drop that. It's a hot topic right now. Right, but it's just it's important. But I do get a certain sense of amusement of the fervor it brings and the passion it brings to the community is because people love this community and they have a vision of this community. And that's wonderful. So I'm very much trying to also do stories that go beyond this community and that are state stories. So meaning that anybody in the state could read the story and it would be of value to them. So we recently did a piece about Lake Champlain and the bill that Peter Welch did and all the pollution and phosphorus issues. And that's a story anybody in the state we hope would find value in. Let's get back to travel. Sure. For the cost of travel and names and places the subways took you to that were sort of outstanding. Well, I mean in the cost of travel the best way to do it is to get somebody else to pay for it. And so a lot of being a travel journalist is a way to travel and teach English. It is a way to do it but get somebody else to pay for it or make it affordable. So in terms of the cost, I could never have done any of those things if I was just traveling on my own. What would be a typical cost if you had to pay for it? Well, I can talk about, for example, in Prague where I was before I came here because that's more fresh in my memory. And the cost of living there was just so much less. So I had a one bedroom apartment in the center of the city for about 500 bucks a month. What city was that? This was Prague. My healthcare and dental total coverage was $85 a month. Of course they're famous for beer so that was like a dollar. You could go out to a nice restaurant and have a full three courses for maybe about 15 bucks. So the ultimate goal of a lot of expats in these areas is if they can bring a Western salary into these parts of the world, you can live really, really well. And then of course there's the whole foreign exclusion tax, which is another good reason to move abroad if you're American. But you consider Western salary. Well, a Western salary, I suppose somewhere around that 40 to 50,000 range a year at the minimum. But if you take that, the 40,000, let's say, would get me a lot further in Prague than it would in Montpelier for lots of reasons. So there's a certain whole group of expats that have worked hard to create that lifestyle because you can survive on so much less. And were there specific countries that you found those communities in versus England, for example? Well, I mean Prague, of course, is a huge one. Budapest is a huge expat. Istanbul was, but that has changed unfortunately a lot. But when I was there, it was a huge expat community, but almost everybody I know has left for all the reasons that are happening in that part of the world. So there is some shifting around. So they all migrate, sort of like neighborhoods in New York, they all migrate to the sort of the poor cities that, and then they make that cool. And then it becomes the land values and the rental values go up and then they move to the next city and the sort of constant progression. So now I hear Albania is quite popular among the expat groups, like Tirana and Rosaria and Montenegro. And so there's just this constant movement because Budapest is getting too expensive. And some people like living in kind of on the edge or Lviv in Ukraine is another one that's getting quite popular now for expats. So there's a shift to the east, just like Brooklyn. So how many languages did you manage to learn on this 20 years of adventure? I would say I was never fluent, but I was pretty functional. Probably I was the best in Turkish and I can still do a pretty good job. So it's always fun to shock Turkish people in Vermont because they would never expect. There was a group walking around Montpelier some months ago and I jumped into their conversation and their jaws dropped and I always loved that. Although strangely, I guess I look like there's a Turkish celebrity I look like and so they always point that out. And they did in that group. They're like, you're like that guy. And Estonian I was pretty good in but that was so long ago that I really lost it. And then I can do some Italian and some French and a bit of Russian and a smattering of a lot of other languages. But the interesting thing with languages in most countries, all you need to do is give a couple words and they love you. Maybe not so much in France, Germany, Italy or it's a little more expected. You need 200. But if you go to Estonia and you say thank you very much or hello, they're amazed and they absolutely embrace you. And so language or making an effort at the language goes a long way to building those relationships because people will respect you and then they'll want to talk to you if you make the effort to embrace their culture. And I certainly found that in Turkey for sure because I'm clearly much more of an outsider. Turkey has gone through some economic problems and did they surface when you were there? I mean, I think that's a part of a world that's always been in volatility forever. So when I was there though, I was kind of towards the tail end of that very good period. So that was 2005 to 2009. And in fact, there were periods where the lira was almost on par with the dollar. It was so strong. And pretty much after I left, everything started to really go downhill. I don't think there's a causation there, but maybe a correlation. So I didn't really see too much of that other than when, but then at the same time, there's a lot more extreme levels of poverty that you would never see here or you wouldn't see here in the States as much. So you could just go a couple neighborhoods over and you would see neighborhoods that with really extreme levels of poverty in a different way. So it's very difficult to sort of pinpoint it. But certainly lately, yes, it's been more severe. Thank you. Well, we're pretty much out of time, but we wanna thank you so much for coming in and talking with us. It's been wonderful to have you divulge your adventures to us. I thank you very much, yes. We're very grateful to have an open eye and an open heart on the bridge because that is, like you say, exactly what it is. And it's super important to the people of Montpelier as a resource for information, but also, like you say, to know what our culture is here, what's important, and who is here. If it's a final follow-up, anything we could have asked you, you would have liked us to ask you. I think really one thing I just wanna emphasize, as I mentioned before, is how the approach to new is that the bridge is taking and how increasingly rare that is. With the digital media world, and I know that in a very personal way. So supporting the bridge in many ways, whether it's just reading it or more, really does keep that valuable form of journalism alive. And even if it's not the bridge, I just encourage everybody to support their local papers because they are doing a very valuable resource. Well, though it's not aware, where's the bridge located? Up at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. And you're always welcome to stop by, people do. It's always a hoot. Yeah, beware. Well, that's part of the fun. As I've often pointed out, that I feel like my job is a Netflix show in waiting. And it's like Northern Exposure meets Parks and Recreation. That's how I feel, but it's very enjoyable. I used to love harassing that. Well, we still accept harassment. Well, that can give as good as it gets. Probably better. He's pretty good at a match. Thank you very much for this wonderful discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. Both of you, it's really a pleasure. Yes. Good luck to you. Thank you very much, Bill.