Tag Archives: Burlington Free Press

Oh Gannett, don’t take your love to town

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Ah, the newsroom of the future, now in the process of assimilating Gannett newsrooms nationwide. Here’s another sign of the Borg Empire on the march, in the form of a job posting from the Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett property. 

Enquirer ad

Hoo boy.

Let’s bypass the thing about tailoring hard news coverage to a certain demographic and making a reporter become part of the story, and get right to the part that has Ben Bradlee turning over in his grave:

An investigative reporter who’ll be expected to “work with your advertising partner to grow and monetize the audience.”

In other words, “willing to put on high-gloss lipstick and red stilettos and loiter under a streetlamp.” Also, “willing to think of readers as saleable commodities.”

Well, at least they’re being subtle about it.

The Enquirer is going to hire an investigative reporter with an “advertising partner.” Really.

This soul-killing trend has not, as far as we know, reached the lakeview headquarters of Vermont’s Shrinkingest Newspaper. But judging by the aggressive rollout of Gannett’s new media strategies, it’s only a matter of time before the Burlington Free Press advertises for a content whore. Er, “investigative reporter.”

On the other hand, if the Freeploid already has someone on staff fulfilling these duties, we wouldn’t know about it. We only know about the Enquirer’s content whoring because they’re advertising for it.

Y’know, if this is the future of old-fashioned print journalism in the digital age, I suggest the legacy media just go ahead and die, and open up market space for new entities with some integrity.

And if I find out the Free Press is monetizing me, I will cancel my subscription so fast it’ll make Mikey Pom-Poms’ head spin.

Oh dear.

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Quiz time, kids!

Freeploid Executive Editor (and chief Gannett cheerleader) Michael Townsend is:

(1) drunk-Tweeting again

(2) forgetting his Picasso training

(3) Sending secret messages to Gannett HQ (more effective when done in plain sight)

And here’s what I’m talking about.

 

Messaging 101: Don’t make mistakes in press releases about education

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So this happened. Governor Shumlin’s office issued a press release on Monday about education funding — specifically its projection of a two-cent increase in the state property tax for the coming year.

And there was an oopsie. First to spot it was Dave Gram of the Associated Press (and now, apparently, chief Statehouse correspondent for the Burlington Free Press):

And here is the error in context:

“The bottom line is that education spending in Vermont is supported by a wide variety of state revenue sources, not just the property tax,” Gov. Shumlin said. “That’s why I do not think simply shifting more education spending to other sources will address the burden Vermonters feel. We need to tackle this first as a spending challenge because education costs have continued to rise faster than Vermonter’s ability to pay for it, even though our student count has declined.”

It’s bad enough when a gubernatorial missive goes out with a big fat juicy typo. It’s even worse when the subject of said missive is education. Does newly-minted communications chief Scott Coriell need a little proofreading help?

Seven Days puts on the big-boy pants

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I was wondering if someone would swoop in and pick up the pieces after the Burlington Free Press abruptly shuttered its Statehouse Bureau. And now, someone has.

As it expands its coverage of Vermont government and politics, Seven Days has hired veteran Statehouse reporters Terri Hallenbeck and Nancy Remsen.

I couldn’t be happier for Hallenbeck and Remsen personally or for news consumers in Vermont. Seven Days has been steadily upping its game in recent years, but this is a solid, decisive leap into the big time. The little alt-weekly now has a larger politics/Statehouse crew than the once-formidable Free Press. And, even more shocking, a more experienced crew.

The Free Press is supposedly hiring a couple new reporters, but you know what they’re likely to get: bottom-of-the-pay-scale twentysomethings who are proficient with multimedia technology but have little background or experience to inform their reporting. But even if the Freeploid does bring on a couple of seasoned reporters, they won’t be able to replace Hallenbeck and Remsen’s knowledge of the politics and governance of Vermont. They’ll be at the low end of the learning curve, whereas Hallenbeck and Remsen are at the peak.

At a time when newspapers and even many alt-weeklies are in full retreat, Seven Days has taken a bold step forward. Best wishes to the newly enhanced crew, especially to former scurrilous scribe Paul Heintz, now serving as Political Editor.

Mikey Pom-Poms gets pwned

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Really, I wasn’t planning on today being Bag On The Freeploid Day, but here comes Michael Townsend, Executive Editor and Chief Gannett Cheerleader of the Burlington Free Press, spending another sad Friday night drunk-Tweeting.

Or just being extra gullible.

Now, I love a good Sarah Palin malaprop as much as the next liberal, but this story is from The Daily Currant, a satirical website.

This story is a fake. Just like the other ones on The Daily Currant, such as…

Marijuana Overdoses Kill 37 in Colorado On First Day of Legalization

California approves $587 Billion High-Speed Rail Link to Hawaii

Pope Benedict Comes Out as Gay

Aw, Mikey, Mikey. Are you gonna unTweet that, let it lie quietly, or try to claim you knew it was funny all along?

Which, the latter, bullshit.

Really, Free Press? Really?

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I shouldn’t spend so much time bagging on the Burlington Free Press, but they just keep doing bag-worthy stuff. Like this — the current homepage on its website. Featuring News!!

Screen Shot 2014-11-21 at 1.40.26 PM

Yeah, we’re all, like Diogenes, in search the perfect pumpkin pie.

There are two additional bitchslaps to the corpse of Joe Pulitzer here. The first is that the pumpkin pie article was written by Candace Page, who used to do a fine job covering the environment for the Free Press; her byline is a reminder of better days long gone. The second is the tiny headline at the lower right: “Food donations ‘critically low'” at Burlington food bank. The gourmet foodie thing gets top billing, while the plight of the poor gets the shortest possible shrift.

But after all, the plight of the poor makes lousy clickbait.

This, on top of the Freeploid’s announcement of its new btvfoodie app, part of its ongoing pivot away from serious journalism and toward audience-friendly “content.” I have to say, this makes me feel that much better about reducing my subscription — er, sorry, account. “Subscription” is so 20th Century, isn’t it?

When I first dubbed the Free Press “Seven Days Lite,” I was half kidding. But it looks more and more like I was dead-on. The Free Press is doing its best to poach Seven Days’ ad-friendly endeavors while decreasing its serious coverage to alt-weekly levels.

I know, I know: the Free Press is in a tough spot, with decreasing revenues and a profit-hungry corporate parent mandating its every move. Given the situation, it makes sense to reposition the Free Press as a Burlington-centered, feature-oriented newspap — sorry, multimedia content platform.

I get that. What I don’t like is Michael Townsend insisting that the Free Press is still a serious force. It is, in fact, becoming largely irrelevant to those of us who (1) are interested in solid coverage of state politics and policy, and (2) don’t live in Chittenden County.  For us, the Free Press has fallen to fifth place, behind VTDigger, VPR, the Mitchell Family Organ, and — yes, I’ll say it — Seven Days.

Thank you for calling the Burlington Free Press. How may we ruin your day?

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The newspaper business is in trouble for reasons beyond its control: new technology, changes in consumer preferences, and especially changes in advertiser preferences.

But beyond all that, the newspaper industry seems hellbent on killing itself.

call-centerI just had a most unpleasant interaction with the Burlington Free Press’ “customer service” system. Not the call center employee I finally managed to talk to after about 20 minutes of voice-mail slogging; she was perfectly fine. But everything else, good God.

Here’s my situation. I’ve been a subscriber to the digital service plus home delivery Thursday through Sunday. What I wanted to do was cut back to Sunday only delivery because, since the Free Press shut down its Statehouse bureau, it’s become less relevant to me. And the Sunday paper is basically a freebie, thrown in with digital access because they want me to get all the advertising in the Sunday paper.

First of all, I went online to the “My Account” page, and there was a button that offered me the chance to Manage Account. But when I clicked on this button, it offered me three options: “Increase delivery frequency,” “Update credit card,” and “View account history.”

See, you can increase your subscription, but you can’t decrease it or cancel it. It’s the Roach Motel of online customer service.

So I called the toll-free Customer Service line, and went straight into voice-mail hell. Early on, there was a nasty surprise: a recorded voice informed me that the Thanksgiving Day newspaper is automatically included in every subscription whether you usually receive the Thursday paper or not, and would cost more than the usual Thursday paper. You see, it offers so much “reader value,” i.e. advertising, that the costs of delivery are reputedly higher “because of the complicity of home delivery.”

Seriously, “complicity.”  That’s what the voice said. Representing a newspaper.

Aside from the sloppy illiteracy, that’s just a cheap-ass way to make your customers feel dumped on. And if I hadn’t called Customer Service for an unrelated issue, I wouldn’t have known about this extra charge until it was too late.

The voice mail prompts went on and on. And after I’d provided all kinds of answers, including name, address, and phone number, I was asked whether I wanted a live operator or more voice mail. I chose “live operator” immediately. Whereupon I was informed that my wait time would be *nine* miinutes.

If I didn’t want to wait, I was offered the option of a call-back “within seven to twelve minutes.” When I selected that, I was asked to provide my name and phone number.

Seven to twelve minutes later, I got a call back. From voice mail! It asked me for my name and other information, again. Finally, I was connected to the call center.

Where, let me stress once again, the live operator was very nice and helpful. Didn’t even try to talk me out of reducing my subscription.

She did, however, note that I’d still get next Thursday’s paper. And be charged for it.

I declined. To her credit, she didn’t fight back; she just took my order and thanked me for calling.

So now the Free Press’ “customer service” has left me upset and feeling like the mark in a three-card monte game instead of a “valued customer.” And left me hoping I never have to call them again.

Really, does Gannett even want to be in the newspaper business? They’re not acting like it.

Say, what month is it? And when’s the election?

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Not to say that the Burlington Free Press has cut back coverage of state politics and policy since it jettisoned its entire Statehouse bureau… and not to say that its remaining staff is spead way too thin… but if you visit the Freeploid’s homepage, then click “News” and then click “Politics and Government,” this is what you’ll see.

Screen Shot 2014-11-16 at 4.42.56 PM

That’s a story from October 29, by since-departed Statehouse reporter Terri Hallenbeck, about the final pre-election gubernatorial debate.

Of course, the Freeploid has done some reporting on state politics since then. But this is an incredibly sloppy bit of work, especially for a newspaper publisher that fancies itself a multi-media content delivery service.

Wake up, Free Press webmaster.

A coward’s defense

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Had a little Tweetfight this afternoon with rabbit-eared Freeploid functionary Adam Silverman. I actually came in on the middle of Silverman defending his employer in the face of some critical Tweets from others. Long story.

Anyway, Silverman Tweeted that he was “done taking the BS.” By which he apparently meant the “social media” chatter about the Burlington Free Press “abandoning Statehouse coverage.” Which was the subject of a red-assed Editor’s Note from Mike Townsend, previously dissected in this space. 

Let’s pick it up here, with a question from former Seven Days staffer Andy Bromage and Silverman’s reply.

There were a couple more rounds of this, Bromage asking for specifics and Silverman offering nothing but generalities.

Since I’m part of the social media crowd that’s been slamming Silverman’s employer, I chimed in, pointing out that I’d never claimed the Freeps was “abandoning” the Statehouse, but that they were clearly cutting back. This is what ensued:

Screen Shot 2014-11-10 at 5.32.17 PM

Aww, too bad. He “didn’t catalogue it.” So he can’t give a single specific incident. Which means he can deny that any specific outlet was guilty of a false claim, even as he tars us all with his broad brush.

How journalistic.

As for blaming Heintz for fueling “numerous tweets, FB posts, etc.,” well, that’s worse than blaming the Freeploid for the godawful crap that appears in its Comments section. “Worse” because the Freeploid has some curatorial oversight of its Comments, while Heintz has absolutely no control over what’s said elsewhere on social media.

Besides that, Silverman also fails to specify what was “inaccurate” in Paul Heintz’ reporting. Paul’s written a whole bunch of pieces on the Free Press in recent months. But let’s take the single assertion that Michael Townsend was most upset about: that the Free Press was “abandoning Montpelier.” Here’s what Heintz wrote in his piece on the departures of the Free Press’ entire Statehouse bureau: 

It’s unclear whether the paper will maintain a presence in the Statehouse. Tim Johnson, a 16-year veteran of the Free Press who was laid off last Thursday, told Seven Days on Saturday, “There’s not going to be a city hall beat. There’s not going to be a Statehouse beat. There’s not going to be an education beat.”

Heintz didn’t say the Free Press would stop covering the Statehouse. He didn’t even claim the Free Press was shutting down its bureau. He questioned “whether the paper will maintain a presence in the Statehouse,” meaning a consistent daily “presence” by a dedicated reporter or reporters. He then quoted former reporter Tim Johnson saying “There’s not going to be a Statehouse beat,” which is true. The Statehouse and state government will be under the purview of a “transparency/watchdog” team with numerous other responsibilities.

In that passage regarding Statehouse coverage, Heintz was absolutely on the mark. And if his past reporting has been inaccurate in any way, then Townsend only has himself to blame, because he has steadfastly refused to speak to Heintz.

I can understand why knickers are so tightly bunched at the Freeploid these days. They’ve lost a shitload of talent, they’re having to reinvent the newsroom on orders from above, and they are besieged by criticism. Those who remain at the Free Press are almost certainly working harder than they ever have before.

I can also understand why Silverman is so motivated to defend his employer, since he was one of the Golden Four who were exempted from the “demeaning and degrading” reinterviewing process.

But in doing so, he abandoned the tenets of journalism. He and his boss made general criticisms, failed to provide any examples or evidence, and used their lack of evidence as a defense against counterattack.

We have our answer: Don Turner is a hypocritical opportunist

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Or “opportunistic hypocrite,” take your choice.

To reset the stage, House Minority Leader Don Turner yesterday said he would vote for Scott Milne for Governor if the race goes to the legislature, in spite of a century and a half of precedent that lawmakers ought to opt for the top vote-getter instead of, as the Burlington Free Press charitably put it, being “free to vote their consciences.”

"Let me tell you about my unique personal definition of 'conscience.'"

“Let me tell you about my unique personal definition of ‘conscience.'”

To which I can only say, if their consciences lead them to any other conclusion than Peter Shumlin, then either they’re not listening closely enough to that still small voice, or their consciences are on the fritz.

Anyway, I speculated on how Mr. Turner had voted the last time this very question was before the legislature. Well, the answer comes to us courtesy of Terri Hallenbeck, soon to be late of the Burlington Free Press.

Turner acknowledged that’s a different stance than after the 2010 election, when the Legislature ratified Shumlin’s election over Republican Brian Dubie after Shumlin had a plurality but less than 50 percent of the public vote. That year, lawmakers also ratified the results of Republican Phil Scott, who received the most votes but less than 50 percent of the total for lieutenant governor.

Which means that virtually every lawmaker (including Don Turner) presumably voted against his/her political interests, and in favor of established precedent, at least once. Republicans ratified a Democrat, and Democrats ratified a Republican. It’s worked both ways over time. But now, Turner is pulling a brand-new rationalization out of his butt because it suits him politically.

Gee, I thought Republicans were the guardians of traditional Vermont values.

Or, as somebody who was on the short end of this Vermont tradition put it:

Doug Racine, a Democrat who lost the 2002 governor’s race to Republican Jim Douglas in a campaign that was also decided by the Legislature, said Democratic legislators told him at the time they felt compelled to vote for Douglas, who received the most votes in the election. “For a lot of legislators and for Vermonters it became about fair play,” Racine said.

Perhaps “fair play” is out the window for Republicans who suddenly see an unexpected opportunity to grab the biggest prize. In other words, they’re a whole bunch of Gollums.

p.s. We’re starting to get a glimpse at the future of a clickbait-oriented, post-Remsen-and-Hallenbeck Freeploid. Its coverage of Friday’s important developments consisted of two short articles from the Associated Press. Plus, those stories were pretty much buried on the Freeploid’s website, while more pressing matters — the LL Bean grand opening, a ladybug-infested house, a moose shooting — were given due prominence.

And the crudification of the Burlington Free Press is only just beginning.