Not gonna lie, it’s a bit of a thin crop from our ever-diminishing media fields. Maybe it was the runup to the first big holiday weekend of the season? Maybe it was the amount of MSM attention lavished — rightly — on the education reform debate in Montpelier? Whatever the reason, I had less than usual to choose from. Still, there’s definitely stuff worth consuming. Also, apologies for posting this a bit late; I was out of town for nine days, and I’m still in catch-up mode.

Just like the good old days. We’ll start with the comprehensive coverage given to the education reform issue. It was front and center in the Statehouse, and our major outlets delivered solid, blow-by-blow reporting. If you followed my personal Big Three (VTDigger, Vermont Public, Seven Days), you got a very good sense of what was going on. It was like we were suddenly transported back to the year 2010, when multiple outlets competed for the big stories.

My only complaint: As a whole, the coverage didn’t much question the fundamental assumption of the debate: that the rising cost of public education is the result of shrinking student population and Balkanized governance. Not addressed, or not enough anyway: the fact that Our Betters are failing to address the real cost drivers in the system: (1) the skyrocketing cost of health insurance, (2) the slow-motion crisis sparked by the state withdrawing its traditional support for school infrastructure almost 20 years ago, and (3) social services for schoolchildren being paid for by schools instead of the Agency of Human Services. Our Betters aren’t trying to solve the problems with the cost of public education; they’re just shifting the burden onto the schools.

A new podcast from the Democratic mainstream. Former state senator Andy Julow and Chittenden County Democratic Committee chair Joanna Grossman have teamed up on a podcast whose title they may come to regret: “There’s No ‘A’ in Creemee.” Cutesy, kind of an inside joke, doesn’t roll off the tongue. But hey, whoever thought “Amazon” was a good name for an online bookstore? Well, Jeff Bezos did.

Anyway, Julow and Grossman are companionable and knowledgeable hosts. They’re both mainstream Democrats and I don’t share some of their views or assumptions, but their first two episodes provide a worthwhile mix of friendly banter and good information. The second edition focused on how we got to this point in the public education debate, with Julow reviewing the school funding issue from the Brigham decision till now. (I have yet to listen to the third episode, which features an interview with Attorney General Charity Clark.) The ever-present caveat: It’s easy to launch a podcast and harder to keep it going. But they’re off to a promising start. I’m a follower.

Another effort at tracking Trump’s effect on Vermont. Earlier this month, the Public Assets Institute (which, according to the immutable rules of journalism, must be referred to as “left-leaning”) launched “Resources for tracking federal policy changes,” which aggregates all the things being done by our current administration that might impact Vermont. Like podcasts, this is an easy thing to launch and a harder thing to sustain, but PAI has a long track record of policy gruntwork, so they should be up to the challenge.

The UVM Community News Service steps into the breach. Having praised our mainstream outlets for covering the education funding issue, I will now ding them for not covering a major piece of climate news: Earlier this month, the Energy Action Network (which is not left- or right-leaning) delivered a new report on Vermont’s progress toward meeting its climate goals. Which, unsurprisingly, showed that the state has made progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but not nearly enough.

Did you hear about that? I sure didn’t. Not until the University of Vermont’s Community News Service posted a story about it. This is what the CNS is designed to do: help fill in the inevitable gaps in coverage that occur when you’ve lost more than 75% of your newsroom jobs in a quarter century. But this seems like a big swing and a miss by the outlets that we usually depend on to get the big stories from the Statehouse.

A worthwhile Memorial Day story. The Waterbury Roundabout posted a really nice piece about Bob Haseltine, Jr., who was appointed caretaker of the Fairmount Cemetery in 1939, and was buried there a few years later after being killed in murky circumstances during the Normandy invasion. The writer, Brian Lindner, takes his time unfolding Haseltine’s story, and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Just one example: Haseltine got married in 1943, and he and his bride got to spend less than two weeks together before he went off to military duty. Multiply that story times many millions, and you get a sense of the real cost of war.

Montpelier library opens youth space. The Kellogg-Hubbary Library just celebrated the reopening of its basement space, which was damaged by the floods of July 2023. It’s designed to be much more resilient, and as The Montpelier Bridge reports, it’s the home of the library’s used book sale and a new space for teens to gather after school and on weekends. A teen center operated by Elevate Youth Services had also been unhoused by the flood; now it has a new, “clean, well-lighted” home in the library basement. As city councilor Jim Sheridan noted, a library is not just a place for books, it’s a gathering place for the entire community.

Many fish bites if you got good bait. Finally, from the good folks at GNAT-TV, Vermont’s best community access TV operation, a lovely video piece about the Battenkill Fly Fishing Festival, held earlier this month. Sometimes you just need a few quiet minutes on a river, you know?