May 2, 2026

by Paul B. Macro, Bricklyn Eagle Business & Economics Correspondent

After lengthy negotiations with Bricklyn Eagle publisher Jeff Brickzos, The Bricklyn Eagle’s staff of 20 full-time and 12 part-time employees voted to adopt an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) that will transfer ownership and control of The Eagle from the Brickzos Family Trust to the newspaper’s employees. It will be the first ESOP implemented in Bricklyn under the Realm’s “Employee Stock Ownership Plan Review Act” (ESOP-RA) enacted in 2023.

While most Outland readers will only be familiar with the selection of Bricklyn Eagle articles posted here at BricklynVT.com, The Eagle’s primary market consists of the more than 65,000 residents of the Tripartite Realm of Bricklyn.

The Bricklyn Eagle is the only daily paper serving the Realm’s three cities, and currently has a print circulation of just under 11,000, down from a 2015 peak of 13,500. The Eagle, however, has a growing digital subscriber base of over 17,000. This includes print subscribers who automatically receive access to The Eagle’s online edition.

The Eagle also serves as the “newspaper of record” for legal postings made by the League of Inland Cities, which is headquartered in Bricklyn.

The Eagle’s ESOP, as required by Bricklyn’s ESOP Review Act, needed approval from the Federal Council of the Realm of Bricklyn, which the Council gave by unanimous vote at its meeting last night.

The Bricklyn Eagle’s ESOP will, over the next three years, transfer the Brickzos Family’s ownership and control into a new trust held on behalf of The Eagle’s employees.

For the coming fiscal year (starting this July 1st), the Brickzos Family Trust will remain the paper’s principal owner. But over the following two years, the balance will shift until The Eagle is fully owned by its employees.

“I have always said The Eagle is run by a dedicated and talented staff,” Jeff Brickzos told members of the Federal Council, “and now they will also own the paper they proudly work for.”

Practical Idealism

Both full-time and part-time staff members will begin accumulating ownership stakes through the ESOP trust, without purchasing shares directly. Instead, the newspaper itself will fund the transition over time.

A new board of directors will also be seated on July 1st, including three members selected by the Brickzos Family Trust, and two by vote of the paper’s employees. For the following fiscal year (2027-2028) the Family Trust will hold just two directors’ seats, while three will be filled by Eagle employees. Finally, for FY 2028-2029 and beyond, the board will be comprised only of directors selected by The Eagle’s employees.

Bricklyn Eagle editor Brickman called the employee stock ownership plan “a wager that the people closest to the work will also be closest to the newspaper’s purpose.”

As Brickman added, “we had a vote of confidence when over three-quarters of our staff gave their thumbs 👍👍👍 up to adopting the ESOP.”

“One very important factor behind the strong support for the ESOP,” continued Brickman, “was the solid financial analysis — really a stress test of The Eagle — conducted by a team from Brickwell Financial Services, showing the paper’s capacity to thrive under employee ownership, while highlighting pitfalls to avoid. This analysis was vital to building confidence, and was done very early in our process of thinking through whether the ESOP option made sense.”

While still rare, employee ownership in newspapers has gained renewed attention as local outlets search for alternatives to hedge-fund consolidation and closure.

“This is not nostalgia,” said Professor Nora Tiler Tipton of Bricklyn University’s School of Civic Media. “It’s a forward-looking approach. The question is whether you can successfully steer a local newspaper through an employee-run board.”

“The transition also raises a number of tough questions,” Tipton added, “some brought up during the Federal Council’s hearing, such as whether employee-owners can make difficult budget cuts, for instance those that might result in staff layoffs, and whether the paper’s reporters would pull punches when covering actions of the newspaper they have become part owners of.”

To address these and other concerns, both Walt Brickman and Jeff Brickzos pledged that an “Editorial Independence Policy” will be drafted by The Eagle’s new Board of Directors soon after they are seated.

What will the future hold for The Bricklyn Eagle? It’s too early to tell, but one thing is clear, it will be in The Eagle’s employees’ hands.  ✥

We welcome Letters to the Editor. Please email to: bricklynvt@gmail.com

To the Editor: Hey Bricklyn Eagle. How come you didn’t mention Seven Days, that top-notch newspaper just across the border from you in Burlington, Vermont. While I don’t think they have an ESOP, I thought some of their employees were also part-owners of the paper. I double-checked on their website and here’s what they say: “Founded in 1995 by Pamela Polston and Paula Routly, Seven Days is now owned and run by Routly and a group of longtime employees.” Seven Days also says it gets financial support “from grateful “Super Readers” who make one-time or monthly contributions.” — Brandy D., Burlington, VT.

Reply from the Editor: We regret that due to article length constraints we were unable to include mention of not just Seven Days, but the Barton Chronicle, as well as thriving nonprofits (another ownership model) such as VTDigger and Vermont Public, both of which offers excellent local statewide news coverage, as well as the CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, which covers Burlington and Chittenden County. There’s truly a cornucopia of great news reporting being done by nonprofits and small community newspapers in Vermont — and there are many more than those I just named!

To the Editor: Did your reporter use AI to write this story? Sure sounds to me like he did. And how much of an “employee” share will you be giving to Mr. or Ms. ChatGPT, or to their friends Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude? It won’t be long before they end up owning, operating, and writing all the “news” you publish in The Bricklyn Eagle. — Charlie B., South Bricklyn, VT.

Reply from the Editor: I discussed your concerns with Paul B. Macro, our long-time business correspondent who authored this article. He indicated that he used ChatGPT AI as an aid in conducting research, while also independently verifying sources noted by ChatGPT. This is in keeping with Bricklyn Eagle, as well as Realm of Bricklyn, policies for dealing with AI. For more on this, see On the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence by The Bricklyn Eagle (Dec. 8, 2025) and Preliminary Guidance on the Use of Generative AI by Media & Government Agencies (Mar. 1, 2024).

I should note that prior to publication we also run all articles through an AI detection check by Pangram. Here is a screenshot of the summary we received for Mr. Macro’s 726 word article (note the final word count varies from this due to some changes in my editing of his article).