This truly is the Golden Age of cheeseball graphics, isn’t it? Although this one is perilously close to the line between “crafted by a top-shelf management consultant” and “xkcd cartoon.”

Anyway, to the matter at hand: the Vermont Journalism Trust hiring Brendan Kinney as its new CEO. Let’s stipulate off the top that I don’t know Kinney, have never met him, and have spoken to no one about him. This is me standing outside the forest, unencumbered and/or disempowered by inside information.

It seems like a great move in many important ways. But I do have some caveats, and some thoughs on how the announcement was covered.

Judging solely by resumé, Kinney has a lot going for him. He’s been a top executive at Vermont Public for a long time — before and after the merger of Vermont Public TV and Vermont Public Radio. (Not everyone survived that transition.) He was in charge of development, a.k.a. fundraising, for one of the most successful nonprofit organizations in Vermont. He knows the landscape and the audience as well as anyone, he knows what works and what doesn’t in terms of audience engagement in these parts.

And public media is the model for the nascent world of nonprofit journalism. For decades, public media have been raising enough money to build strong, vibrant enterprises. The new wave of nonprofit outlets is playing catchup, and could do far worse than emulate the development successes of public media

So, Kinney’s a home run, right?

Possibly. But I do have questions.

For starters, Vermont Public and VTDigger don’t exactly match in terms of mission or strategy. They’re both in the news slash information business, but Vermont Public is like a cruise-ship buffet while Digger is your favorite diner. Vermont Public offers a lavish and wide-ranging array. Digger is a meat-and-potatoes place with the occasional chef’s special.

I already have doubts about Digger’s apparent editorial strategy of trying to be all things to all people while trimming its Statehouse coverage. If Kinney brings a Vermont Public attitude to VTDigger, that could mean an even broader focus and even less attention on Digger’s core mission.

I mean, do we see Digger producing stuff like “Brave Little State” or “But Why?” Do we see the dreaded pivot to video, or greater emphasis on social media engagement? Vermont Public does a lot of great stuff, and is the local platform for the great stuff offered by public radio and television, but its actual journalistic output is pretty puny compared to the size of its news staff. Just compare how much reportage was produced by, say, Peter Hirschfeld or Lola Duffort before they got to Vermont Public compared to after. What they do is high quality, but there’s simply not as much of it. Public media in general has a highly rigorous editorial process and exacting production standards. It’s into quality at the expense of quantity.

It also suffers, in my view, from what they used to call “too many chiefs, not enough Indians.” There’s a lot of people in management and relatively few actual content creators. You get a high quality product that way, but it costs a pretty penny. I don’t know that Digger can be sustainable if it follows that model too closely.

Otherwise, about the only shortcoming in Kinney’s c.v. is that he’s been part of a larger organization for a long time but hasn’t been the singular person in charge. He’s been a team player; now he’ll have to be the head coach.

Having tossed out some caveats, I need to re-emphasize the main point: Kinney is at minimum a solid hire, and potentially a great one. Hopefully he will bring stability to an organization that badly needs it, and the revolving door will finally stop spinning.

Now a few notes on the coverage of Kinney’s hiring. Seven Days’ Kevin McCallum weighs in with an obligatory “We’ve got to get a story out there NOW” kind of piece that covers the basics and offers little insight. (Not blaming him; it’s the nature of the job. Sometimes you’ve just got to fill the news hole.) Vermont Public’s Mark Davis has a slightly deeper story that includes one howler: “[Kinney] takes over as CEO of the Vermont Journalism Trust, VTDigger’s parent organization, after a period of turmoil for the digital news operation.”

Yeah, about that. One can hope that the worst of the turmoil is over, but it’s quite a stretch to put the “period of turmoil” strictly in the past tense. Digger is still struggling to bring revenues in line with operating costs. The newsroom will be run by an interim editor-in-chief for the indefinite future. (Digger has said the search process won’t even begin until next year.) The news operation needs a refocus, and it won’t really get it until there’s a permanent EIC in place. And while VJT did manage to reach agreement with its reporters’ union, a long and difficult negotiation usually creates scars that aren’t easily healed.

Finally, we have Digger’s own account, which is a distressing exercise in spin. It carries the dreaded “”By VTD Editor” byline, and it reads like a press release. Florid self-praise, careful elision of undesirable facts, undigested and indigestible full-paragraph quotes from Kinney and VJT leadership. It’s a great example of corporate PR, and a gross disservice to journalism.

Is that the best we should expect from VTDigger? Couldn’t they turn loose one of their reporters and designate a single, identified editor to oversee the story independent of any input slash censorship from upper management? Or, if you don’t want a union member covering a management story, why not assign one of your editors to the task? They’re all experienced journalists.

One of my pet peeves about the industry is that it tries to exempt itself from the kind of scrutiny it brings to bear on any other institution. In my time as a Political Observer, I’ve annoyed plenty of people. But the thinnest skins by far are worn by our media outlets. They can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it.

I look forward with cautious optimism to Digger’s future under Brendan Kinney and the next EIC. There are many reasons to hope. And considering its crucial position in our news ecosystem, every reader should be rooting for its future success.