Monthly Archives: June 2025

Phil Scott Doesn’t Give a Fuck About the Homeless

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I try to limit my use of bad language, I really do. But there are times, and this is one of them.

Gov. Phil Scott, alleged “nice guy” and “moderate” who has insisted that protecting Vermont’s most vulnerable is a pillar of administration policy, just went and did what we expected him to do all along: He vetoed H.91, the Legislature’s carefully crafted replacement for the motel voucher system Scott has been complaining about for years.

Our mainstream media outlets have been saying for weeks that Scott’s stance on H.91 was unclear. In doing so, they ignored the obvious signal from Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson that a veto was in the cards from jump street. Almost a month ago, Samuelson delivered a memo to legislative leaders expressing serious concerns about H.91. That should have been all the foreshadowing needed to conclude that we were inevitably going to end up where we are today, with Scott killing a good-faith effort by the Legislature to do the thing he and his administration should have done long ago: Propose a voucher replacement plan of his own.

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News You Should View, Local Hijinks Edition

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This post is a bit later than usual* because it’s taken me a while to get my feet back under me after an exhausting but rewarding trip last week. I attended a conference organized by the Institute for Nonprofit News, one of several organizations dedicated to fostering a new wave of nonprofit journalism.

*I’m only including items published on or before Sunday, June 8 in hopes of returning to my usual schedule with the next installment.

It was intense, and I’m still processing what I learned. But my single biggest takeaway is that there’s an amazing amount of talent, energy and dedication in this relatively brand-new field. People all over the country are creating nonprofit news outlets at local, state, regional, and national levels, and coming up with novel strategies for achieving sustainability. (There are also a lot of organizations and foundations eager to promote and invest in this new, nonprofit model of journalism.) It’s not easy and success is not assured, but I was blown away by the quality of the people involved in this effort. Made me more optimistic about the project.

INN’s membership includes about 500 organizations. More than 400 people gathered in Minneapolis for three days of panel discussions, workshops, and one-on-one meetings with experts. I was there as a board member of the Hardwick Gazette, and I was determined to bring back as much information and as many ideas as possible. That meant taking full advantage of everything I could fit in. Let’s put it this way: I’d never been to Minneapolis before, and I still feel like I haven’t. Almost all my time was spent within a couple blocks of the conference hotel.

Coincidentally enough, this week’s edition of NYSV is heavy on content from Vermont’s own local outlets, many of which are now nonprofit. Some of the stories are about the local repercussions of state policy debates, while others are about the vagaries of small-town politics. These are services that only a grassroots outlet can perform, and Vermont is lucky to have as many small “papers” as we do.

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So This Is What Mega-Corporate Cosplay Looks Like

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So, this landed in my mailbox last week.

It’s an extremely transparent attempt by the world’s biggest corporation to try to make itself seem all Vermonty: Cozy, human-scaled, not at all the most voracious shark in the ocean. Problem is, the flannel shirt still has a sales tag on the collar and the jeans and work boots are unsullied by exposure to dirt, mud, or physical labor.

I have to assume this is a PR blitz related to the ongoing controversy in Essex, where Amazon wants to build a 107,000-square-foot distribution facility in an industrial park, a proposal that has outraged many area residents. Now, I live nowhere near Essex, so I don’t know why Amazon is trying to convince me that its purpose in life is enabling human-scale entrepreneurship. Probably the difference between a mass mailing to Essex and a mailing to the entire state of Vermont is mere pocket change for Jeff Bezos. (I’m imagining him cackling softly and caressing a snow-white cat while approving this piece of corporate greenwashing.)

Do I have to critique this thing? Well, I guess I do. I am the one writing about it, after all.

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Oh No! The Scrappy Little Dyke Said a Bad Word!

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I really wish that U.S. Rep. Becca Balint had said something short, sweet, and sacrilegious when VTDigger called to ask her about her recent deployment of the word “ass” in a public setting. I really wish she hadn’t taken the politic route and apologized.

Honestly, I don’t know why Digger even pursued this story. Well, that’s not true. I do know. It’s low-hanging fruit. But sometimes you need to leave that apple on the tree. Seriously, we’re talking about an organization that, so I’ve been told, hasn’t bothered to report on Lt. Gov. John Rodgers being a right royal asshat to his small-town neighbors, threatening to close access to a public road and take his town to court if they don’t accede to his wishes, because Digger doesn’t have the capacity.

And yet they had the capacity to publish a story on this ridiculous, trumped-up “controversy.” Ugh.

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In Lieu of News You Should View

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My usual Sunday roundup of noteworthy journalism is taking the week off, as I prepare to head out of town for most of this week. I’m attending INN Days, a conference for nonprofit news organizations organized by the Institute for Nonprofit News. This is a still very new but immensely consequential field; it’s really the best option we have for a vibrant journalistic future.

I serve on the board of the Northeast Kingdom Public Journalism, the nonprofit operator of The Hardwick Gazette. The “paper” (now a digital weekly) is very successful in terms of journalism, but struggling to achieve financial sustainability.

Not unlike just about every other nonprofit journalism organization besides public radio and television. Well, the broadcasters have their own struggles, but for nonprofit “print” reporting on paper or digital, the challenges are very much existential. We still don’t know if this model actually works.

So I’m traveling to Minneapolis in search of ideas, answers, and connections. No pressure, though.

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