Category Archives: The media

The Reformer Steps Into an Ethical Quagmire

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There are certain words in our language that need to be replaced occasionally because of context. Think “used car” becoming “previously owned vehicle,” or “garbage man” becoming “sanitation engineer,” or “undertaker” morphing into “mortician” and then “funeral director” and probably “bereavement facilitator” next. Or the various, now-unspoken descriptors for racial and ethnic groups and people with disabilities.

And in this age of grasping for revenue in the news business, we have “advertorial” becoming “sponsored content” and now, apparently, “content revenue.”

So I gather from a recent Brattleboro Reformer story about the hiring of longtime radio personality Peter “Fish” Case as “director of content revenue” for the paper’s parent company Vermont News & Media — the outfit owned by not-at-all-fishy Belarusian currency trader Paul Belogour.

We’ll get back to the whole “content revenue” thing and how it might affect the journalism on offer at Belogour’s three papers, The Reformer, The Bennington Banner, and The Manchester Journal. But there’s a more immediate question about the ethics of Case’s hiring that goes absolutely unmentioned in The Reformer‘s story about the hire. (The piece carries no byline, which means it wasn’t written by a reporter or editor. It’s a glorified press release, is what it is. There’s a little red flag off the top.)

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House Leadership Suffered an Embarrassing Defeat Last Week, Not That Our Media Took Much Notice

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A former House speaker once told me that they never brought a bill to a floor vote unless they were certain of the outcome. Otherwise they’d put it off while they nailed down the necessary votes.

Last Wednesday, Speaker Jill Krowinski fell afoul of that maxim. Or ignored it, or didn’t care.

The full House was considering Act 181 dismemberment reform, which turned out to be a lengthy floor debate with plenty of amendments. And something happened that only rarely happens: the minority Republicans won a couple of votes. They actually had an impact on the process.

“In all of my 18 years, I can’t remember that happening,” Republican Rep. Mark Higley told the Vermont Daily Chronicle — the only media outlet to report on Wednesday’s events as a noteworthy, standalone story. Which is a depressing statement on the health of our media ecosystem, but we’ll get to that later.

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VTDigger Makes a Good Hire, I Think

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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.

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For Local News Day, I Dream of a Bottom-Up News Ecosystem

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Oh, looky here, we’ve got another billionaire with a plan to “save America’s newspapers.” Have we learned nothing from Jeff Bezos?

I mean, maybe Florida-based 73-year-old David Hoffmann is the real deal who will do what Bezos and Alden Capital and whatever Gannett brands its processed news-ish product these days have failed to deliver: A viable, profitable model for relevant journalism. But seriously, how many eggs am I willing to put in the billionaire savior basket? Especially since Hoffmann is a micromanager who daily pores over the 140 papers he’s invested in with a red felt-tip pen, thinks that the Associated Press leans “sometimes a little to the left,” and believes that ultra-local “boosterism” and “pivoting toward paywalls” are the keys to making money in the news business.

Oh, also, this is his “home.”

Just a regular guy. Puts on his pants one leg at a time. With the help of a valet, I’m sure.

But I digress, bigly. I’m here to spin a fantasy in honor of April 9, “Local News Day,” a “national day of action connecting communities with trusted local news.” (Maybe I’ll see you at the LND event at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library?)

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Here’s One Guy Who’s Glad Vermont Has No Ethical Guardrails for Local Officeholders

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Seems to be a bit of a kerfuffle down Chester way. It goes back a couple weeks, but it hasn’t been noted beyond local press accounts.

At its March 18 meeting, the Chester select board was doing a bit of routine annual business: designating newspapers of record, where official notices are to be published. And boy, did board chair Lee Gustafson try to pull off an unconstitutional power play. His behavior ought to warrant an ethics investigation except that, well, the underfunded, understaffed state Ethics Commission has washed its hands of local ethical issues due to a lack of resources. So he’s probably off the hook.

The select board ultimately voted to continue with two papers of record: The Chester Telegraph and The Vermont Journal. But Gustafson used his position of authority to try to kneecap The Telegraph’s journalistic independence. If he’d had his way, The Telegraph would have been cut out.

The Telegraph is a proud independent local paper that often punches above its weight. The Vermont Journal, generally speaking, is not much of a paper. It describes itself as an “upbeat” publication and most of its content is more fluff than substance. (Its “News” section consists largely of repurposed press releases.) However, it did itself proud in reporting on Gustafson’s attempted bullying of The Telegraph. The Journal’s was the most complete account, since The Telegraph took a very restrained approach for some understandable reasons.

But let’s get back to what happened, viewable on the select board’s YouTube channel.

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Oh, the Postality

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more desperate, pathetic hiring campaign than the one happening right now at the Montpelier post office. There are posters and flyers on every available wall, door, fixture, and column, plus a small stack on the service counter. The vast majority are black-and-white photocopies, so they’re obviously sparing every possible expense. There’s also one sad little bunch of slowly deflating helium balloons sitting off in a corner, communicating the exact opposite of gaiety and celebration.

It’s almost as if nobody with any options wants to work for a deeply troubled entity with terrible working conditions, a management focused entirely on cost-cutting, and a chief executive who just issued a warning that the enterprise is running out of money. All under a president who, at best, doesn’t give a damn, and at worst is actively undermining the operation in order to wreak havoc with mail-in balloting.

Yeah, if I were looking for work, I might opt for convenience store clerk (or trash hauler, see below) over mail carrier. Which is a damn shame, considering that the Postal Service used to be a haven of reliable, rewarding blue-collar employment.

The desperation of the hiring effort is reflected in the quality of service being delivered — or not being delivered — in my neck of the woods. The mail carrier on our route resigned about a month ago. On her last day, she told a neighbor that she’d been working 70 hours a week and couldn’t take it anymore. She also said there was no one in line to replace her, and we should expect to get deliveries once a week or so.

Neat. It wasn’t too many years ago that a USPS plan to end Saturday deliveries sparked so much outrage in Congress that it was quickly abandoned. Now, once a week? Maybe? Indefinitely? Forever? The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves?

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At VTDigger, the Outward Signs Continue to be Not Great

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Disclaimers and caveats first. I’m a supporter of VTDigger. It’s an essential piece of our diminishing news ecosystem. I shudder to think where we’d be without it.

Also, I have no inside knowledge. This post, as with my other writing about Digger, is based entirely on what I can see from out here.

And what I can see is disturbing, sorry to say.

The latest shoe to drop is the sudden departure of editor-in-chief Geeta Anand. She moved across the country to take the Digger job last spring, and now she’s moving back after less than a year. It follows on the heels of CEO Sky Barsch’s pending departure, announced in late January.

I don’t know why Anand is leaving so soon, and I’m not going to speculate. But her interim replacement, veteran editor and journalist Susan Allen, will be Digger’s fourth editor-in-chief in 16 months, including two interims. (Credit to Guy Page at the Vermont Daily Chronicle for being the only reporter to point that out.)

That’s… well, that’s just bad, for a newsroom that seems adrift from its original focus.

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The Fate of the Innovator Is Not Always Pleasant

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I’ve been thinking for a while about BETA Technologies, a.k.a. The Great White Hope for jobs and economic growth in the post-IBM era. Those thoughts have crystallized around a recently-published story by VTDigger’s Theo Wells-Spackman entitled “An Inside Look at Beta (sic) Technologies’ Big Plans for Vermont.”

(I guess we need an AP Style Guide ruling on whether the name is all caps or not but it’s listed on the stock market as BETA, so I’ll go where the money is.)

The story was well done. But it was an example of how an article can be diligently executed but still compromised by its concept. The most frequent offender in this regard is the class of story about “Local Residents Oppose [insert development plan here].” The usual evils are renewable energy installations, cell towers, and proposals for new housing. By their very framing, these accounts give more weight to the opposition — who get the lion’s share of the quotes and the column inches. Supporters are less often heard from if at all, and developers tend to stay away from active engagement because they fear it will just make things worse.

In the case of Wells-Spackman’s piece, “An Inside Look” is fun and exciting, but no matter how hard the reporter tries, the final product is going to make BETA Technologies look good. The shiny factory, the face time with company leaders and supportive officials, all nice. If you begin with “a private tour” of the factory, and you’re kind of already in the host’s back pocket. Access journalism, I think they call it.

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Is VTDigger In Trouble?

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Just can’t get enough of Diggerland, which sounds like a place that would appeal to a nine-year-old Phil Scott and very few others. It must have an audience or it’d be out of business, but I have no plans to visit.

Anyway. The latest from VTDigger seems… not good. Digger published a story on Monday announcing the resignation of CEO Sky Barsch, who arrived at the news nonprofit in April 2023 after the departure (ahem) of founder Anne Galloway. (The story was self-serving claptrap written by “VTD Editor” but read more like the product of a PR firm.)

Necessary disclaimer: I worked briefly for Digger in 2020 and was fired literally for using the word “dick” on Twitter. (Galloway found that distasteful.) Still, I am a financial supporter of Digger and wish them nothing but success. It is a vital component of our already meager media ecosystem.

Since my defenestration, I have had no significant contact with the organization or anyone who works there. What follows is my read of the situation from a completely outside perspective.

I can think of one benign explanation for Barsch’s exit: Perhaps it was simply time to move on for personal or professional reasons. Maybe she needs to move to Cucamonga to be closer to an aging relative. Maybe she’s gotten a better job offer from a larger organization here or elsewhere.

Any other explanation would reflect poorly on her tenure and on the state of VTDigger. I see many troubling signs, and I am concerned.

We know that Digger has suffered financial losses for three straight years, including all of Barsch’s time there. She inherited the issues causing those losses and there are no quick fixes. She did staunch the bleeding, but sustainable operation remains out of reach. Indeed, Digger’s problems seem remarkably consistent from Galloway’s tenure to the present. Her departure should have given the enterprise a chance to mature as an organization. It has yet to do so.

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Further Adventures in Fundraising Desperation

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Well, when I went looking for a cheeky illustration for this post about the fortunes of VTDigger, I didn’t plan on discovering Diggerland, “the one and only construction theme and water park in the U.S.!” (Exclamation mark theirs.) But that’s the internet for ya. The real Diggerland, complete with opportunities to “Drive, Ride & Operate specially engineered, real construction machinery,” is located in a New jersey exurb of Philadelphia, which sounds about right.

So no, our favorite nonprofit “print” news organization hasn’t opened a theme park. Not yet. But the idea doesn’t seem completely farfetched given the sweaty, sweaty nature of Digger’s current fundraising campaign.

If you haven’t visited VTDigger in the last several weeks, you’ve missed a huge number of fundraising messages competing for space with a shrinking number of actual news stories. You’ve missed messages directly from staff reporters, which rings ethical alarm bells among ink-stained wretches. You’ve missed pitches that tie support for Digger to the provision of heat and sustenance, which strikes me as a tad aggressive. The implicit message is if you don’t support VTDigger, you don’t care about the poor among us. Which is nonsense.

To me, if you can’t attract enough support for solid journalism as a worthy investment, then little tricks like “give today or someone will be left in the cold” or “give now or someone’s gonna go hungry” aren’t going to make up the difference. Also they just feel uncomfortably tacky.

But if the folks at Digger are a little desperate, a perusal of their latest IRS filing will tell you why.

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