Tag Archives: Seven Days

Honest government, if not honest elections

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Now comes a brief spurt of outrage from the Kingdom, in the form of a belatedly-organized “group” (mainly one guy, William Round, with some money and a grudge) agitating for the election of Scott Milne as governor by the state legislature.

Newly-minted Seven Days political reporter Terri Hallenbeck says Round told her that “the group started over coffee among friends and includes more than 50 Vermonters he described as ordinary residents.”

Only one of the 50 shows up on the group’s FCC filing, and that would be Mr. Round. His filing asserts that VfHG has no officers, executive committee, or board of directors, so I have to assume that its organization and funding begin and end with William Round.

The lion’s share of the $30,000 ad buy is on WCAX. The ads will run from Dec. 30 through Jan. 7, the day before the legislature will hold its usually ceremonial election. Ad buys are targeted on WCAX and CBS news programming.

The ad says nothing about the close outcome of the November election; it simply recycles Republican complaints about Gov. Shumlin — high taxes, overspending, “broken promises,” etc.

VfHG’s emergence does give Milne the opportunity to deny the validity of the November vote:

“It points out to the people that we’ve got a constitution that essentially says we’ve had no election for governor. That happens on January 8,” Milne said.

Ah, so the votes cast by nearly 200,000 Vermonters? They don’t count. Sorry. We failed to cast them with sufficient clarity of purpose.

Well, it’s just more of Milne’s self-interested pseudo-logic, nothing new there.

As for Mr. Round and his willingness to spend $30,000 in a doomed effort to re-litigate the election? I fully support his Constitutional right to waste his money.

Finally, I suppose it would be churlish of me to reproduce the evidence of ungrammatical haste in filling out an official form? Yes, it probably would.

William Round FCC form

 

Just wake me when it’s over

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Scott Milne, eyes wide shutAs predictable, and as tiresome, as the early-autumn snowfall that sends everybody running to get their snow tires on:

Milne to Delay Gubernatorial Decision — Again

That utterly unsurprising word comes from Mr. Politics Editor, Paul Heintz, who helpfully recounts Scott Milne’s oft-delayed decision on whether he will actively promote his gubernatorial candidacy before the Legislature. When last we heard from Mahatma’s secret redoubt, he was promising a decision this week. But now?

On Thursday, he told Seven Days by text message that the announcement was “sliding into next week.”

And I’ll believe that when I see it.

 

 

 

Some backstory on the militarization of our police

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Last week, while I was out of town for a family Thanksgiving, Mark Davis wrote a nice little story in Seven Days about Vermont police agencies picking up a whole lot of military-grade weaponry, thanks to a federal program designed to shore up military contractors’ bottom lines provide local police with “military equipment left over from America’s foreign wars and stockpiles.”

Which brought to mind some of my own past coverage of specific events tied to this story: a small New Hampshire community talked into buying an assault vehicle by a Rush Limbaugh-listenin’, Tea Party-believin’ salesman, and the small-scale invasion of a small Vermont town.

Instrument of peace?

Instrument of peace?

First stop in the Wayback Machine is February 2012, when Keene, NH had received a $300,000 Homeland Security grant to buy an eight-ton armored vehicle called the Lenco Bearcat. This, for a city with a population of 23,000 and virtually no history of violent crime.

But there was all that federal money dangling in front of the city fathers…

During a City Council meeting, the Mayor was heard whispering to a City Councilor “We’re going to have our own tank.”

Better than Viagra. Of course, the grant won’t pay for operating costs like maintenance, training and insurance.

The most fascinating part of the story, to me, was Jim Massery, salesman for vehicle manufacturer Lenco. His pitch was laden with fearmongering about the need for high security everywhere. In fact, one of his quotes was the following:

I don’t think there’s any place in the country where you can say, “That isn’t a likely terrorist target.” How would you know?

There was a whole lot of that, and you can read more in my 2012 post on Green Mountain Daily. Massery, as I discovered, was a true-blue conservative who believed that President Obama was trying to steal our freedoms, and that the government was spending us into oblivion. And yet he had no problem helping the government militarize local police and wastefully spend $300,000 on a Lenco Bearcat that nobody needed. (The notorious Free Staters of Keene probably thought he was an enemy agent tasked with bringing the power of the police state to their own little community.)

One of Massery’s other pitches went like this:

When a Lenco Bearcat shows up at a crime scene where a suicidal killer is holding hostages, it doesn’t show up with a cannon. It shows up with a negotiator.

And, he might have added, that negotiator shows up in grand style, hunkered down in eight tons of steel. Which brings me to story #2. In June of 2012, a man named Alfred Perreault unknowingly touched off a minor invasion of his town of Washington, VT…

A summer scene befitting a Norman Rockwell portrait was spoiled Monday morning when more than a dozen police cruisers, an armored vehicle and the big box truck that houses Vermont’s equivalent of a S.W.A.T. team set up shop in Washington to take what proved to be one unarmed man into custody.

That armored vehicle was, as it happens, a Lenco Bearcat. Purchased by the Vermont State Police with, you guessed it, a Homeland Security grant.

Perreault was known to possess a goodly quantity of firearms, hence the heavy-handed police response. Which must have triggered (sorry) a sizeable panic reaction among townspeople who suddenly saw this caravan o’death roll into town and set up roadblocks.

It all ended peacefully. But as I wrote at the time, there’s an old saying: To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Our police agencies have been outfitted with military-grade, up-armored hammers. So naturally, Alfred Perreault looked like a nail.

It’s a lot easier for the authorities to escalate a response when they have the tools of escalation close at hand — indeed, when they may well feel a need to justify the purchase and upkeep of all those hammers. Alfred Perreault clearly needed to be dealt with. But did he warrant such a robust response?

You can bet we’ll be asking these kinds of questions again in the future.

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.

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.

How long will our pickle party go on?

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For a very liberal state, Vermont’s got a surprisingly lousy record on electing women to our highest offices. We’ve got the #1 state legislature for gender equity, but there’s a distinct glass ceiling above that. A recent survey ranked Vermont a dismal 39th in the nation on gender equity in political office, thanks to women’s under-representation from the state Senate and top mayoralties, their almost complete absence from statewide offices, and their complete absence from our Congressional delegation.

Dismaying, then, to read the recent words of Seven Days’ Paul Heintz in speculating on the “next generation” of Democrats who might seize the next opportunity to move up the ladder should, say, Sen Patrick Leahy retire from office:

The most obvious contenders would be Congressman Welch, 67, and Gov. Shumlin, 58, though both men feign disinterest, perhaps out of respect for Leahy. If either was to leave his current job to run for Senate, that would provide openings for the next generation of Vermont politicos — including, presumably, Speaker Smith, Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, Sen. Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger.

No offense to any of those worthies, but four names, four men.

Sigh.

I checked in with Heintz to see if his list was meant to be comprehensive in any way, and he responded thusly:

That list definitely wasn’t meant to be comprehensive. I included a few up-and-coming officeholders whose names are frequently mentioned as potential statewide candidates. But there are plenty of others who would be equally strong candidates, including a number of women.

There’s no question that Vermont has elected too few women to statewide office. It’s pretty shocking that we’re one of just four states to have never sent a woman to Congress. I would certainly hope that Vermont’s next crop of congressional candidates is more reflective of our population than the current crop of incumbents.

Unfortunately, when you get down to it, the longer list of ambitious Democratic politicos is almost entirely male as well. The most prominent woman on the list, and just about the only one, is former State Rep. and current Deputy Transportation Secretary Sue Minter, while the amount of testosterone on that longer list would be enough to gag a goat.

Not sure what that means, but I’ll carry on.

When that gender equity report came out, Sarah McCall of Emerge Vermont, a group trying to encourage and train female candidates, expressed concern that the next few years are a critical time. If the upcoming round of political retirees are replaced by more men, she noted, we might have to wait another generation for female leaders to take their rightful place. And we’ve already lost a generation since Madeleine Kunin was our one and only female Governor.

In response to Heintz’ list — and really, to the unbalanced reality behind it — McCall offered these comments:

…this is certainly a conversation that Vermont politicos will be having frequently between now and 2016. In Vermont, we are lucky to have such strong leaders in our federal delegation and statewide offices; and whoever follows in Senator Leahy’s footsteps has some very big shoes to fill.

… I have no doubt that there are qualified female leaders in this state who aspire to serve our state in Washington, DC and Emerge Vermont will continue to train female leaders so that women running for public office at all levels of government becomes more commonplace.

It’s a hard thing to ask a qualified male to limit his own ambitions for the sake of equity. But breaking Vermont’s glass ceiling is long overdue. And I’d ask this of Vermont Democrats: Do we have to depend on the Republican Party, which might very well feature Heidi Scheuermann on its 2016 ticket? Or are you going to actively seek to remove the glass ceiling instead of simply bemoaning its existence, while allowing Business As Usual to continue?

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.

The girlfriend non-issue

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Seven Days’ political columnist Paul Heintz made a rare trip into the office this weekend — well, maybe he just filed from home — to post a thumbsucker piece about whether or not the media should report on Governor Shumlin’s private life.

Specifically, the fact that he’s been, ahem, dating a much younger woman for some time now.

“Dating,” Heintz’ term for it.

Going to the drive-in, hanging out at the malt shop, playing miniature golf, “running out of gas” on the way home. Takes me back.

Madame X, some guy, some guy,some other guy. From some guy's Facebook page.

Madame X, some guy, some guy, some other guy. From some guy’s Facebook page.

Heintz examines the issue because last Thursday, VTDigger’s Anne Galloway posted a very thorough Shumlin profile. And near the very end, she disclosed the open secret that Shumlin has been, uh, “dating” 30-year-old Katie Hunt. In his piece, Heintz explores the Vermont tradition of not addressing the private lives of public figures, and ponders whether Galloway did the right thing.

In the process, he gave himself a chance to say, well, we knew about it too, so it wasn’t a scoop; we’d just decided not to publish it. (I eagerly await Paul’s email explaining how I’m off base, in 3…2…1…)

But the core question: is Hunt’s identity fair game? Was Galloway within her rights to publish it?

To which I say, of course it is and of course she was.

And if, as Heintz implies, the Shumlin camp is upset about it, I suggest they stop whining and concentrate on real stuff. If they’re mad at VTDigger, they should stop taking media coverage too personally.

Really, it’s downright strange that the Shumlineers are hot and bothered about the G.F. when, in the same piece, Galloway has people describing the Governor as two-faced and opportunistic. And within 24 hours, VTDigger also published a long piece exposing all kinds of problems in Vermont Health Connect. All this, plus an election, and you’re upset over the girlfriend? Perspective, people.

The whole notion that Shumlin’s girlfriend’s identity is off limits is just silly. After all, he hasn’t even tried to keep it a secret. The two have been seen together in public, obviously acting as a couple. For God’s sake, there’s a photo of them on Sen Dick Sears’ Facebook page. In light of all that, why the hell should the Governor have any expectation of privacy?

If it’s a Vermont tradition, then it’s one of many Vermont traditions that ought to be dragged out back, shot in the head, and buried as a relic of a bygone age when the media pretended that Babe Ruth didn’t drink and Warren Harding didn’t sleep around. And vice versa.

Besides, if I were Ms. Hunt and I’d been the Governor’s steady for a while now, I’d be wondering why he feels the need to conceal my identity. Am I a little piece on the side, or a real partner?

Also, Galloway framed it responsibly. It was not, as UVM prof Garrison Nelson put it, “tabloid stuff.” It was part of a detailed, comprehensive picture of Peter Shumlin the politician and the person. Family ties are part of the mix, The media routinely mention parents, spouses, children, and other relatives when relevant. There should be no controversy about naming Katie Hunt and then getting on with our business.

Although I do have one question. Do Shumlin’s college-age daughters call her “Mom”?

And the first one bites the dust

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The seasonal slasher flick that is the Burlington Free Press has claimed its first victim. Reporter Lynn Monty has been kicked out the door for refusing to go through the “degrading and demoralizing” experience of “interviewing for a job I already had.”

Last week, Freeploid staffers had to re-interview for newly-defined jobs as part of Gannett’s Newsroom of the Future initiative. Seven Days’ Paul Heintz reports that Monty had an interview scheduled, but at the last minute she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it.

“I opted out of the interview process and they laid me off. …I loved my job, but I don’t love Gannett. I will make a new way for myself that doesn’t compromise my integrity.”

… According to Monty, Gannett plans to pay her the difference between unemployment insurance compensation and her full salary for six weeks — one for each year she spent at the paper.

Ooooh, six whole weeks! That’ll take her right into… mid-December.

Merry Christmas!

One other note that strikes me as extremely convenient:

An internal document obtained two weeks ago by Seven Days indicated that final decisions from Gannett were due this week, though Monty said she expected them next week.

Yeah, we’ll expect you all to work your asses off through Election Night, but no guarantees after that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A peek into the Freeploid’s grim, dark future

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I’ve been a harsh critic of the Burlington Free Press because (1) it occupies such a prominent space in our media market, (2) its performance is spotty at best, and (3) it thinks so highly of itself.

But I read something yesterday that has me feeling nothing but sympathy for the denizens of the Freeploid’s famously picturesque seventh-floor offices. It was a story in Nashville Scene, which appears to be that city’s version of Seven Days. The subject: trouble at the city’s daily newspaper.

Remember the Nashville Tennesseean? It’s one of the Freeploid’s fellows in the Gannett chain, and it was one of the first to adopt Gannett’s “Newsroom of the Future” initiative, complete with smaller news staffs, little to no copy editing, staffers forced to reapply for redefined jobs, and clickbait-oriented journalism.

Well, the initial returns are in, and it’s bad. Really bad. The implementation of the NOTF included a few staff departures; but since then, there’s been a mass exodus of talent that’s left the newsroom so understaffed that Gannett has had to fly in temp help from its other papers.

First went Brian Haas, the cops and courts reporter, who bolted for a spokesman job with the fire department. Then came the shocker: Michael Cass, the longtime Metro reporter, exited for Mayor Karl Dean’s office, even though Dean has only a year left in his administration.

And then there was Metro editor Steve Stroud:

After arriving from San Antonio three years ago, he developed a reputation as a good editor who wrote sharp analysis pieces on politics and state government on occasion. One by one, though, he watched almost his entire team of reporters walk out. A group that had spent the past year winning multiple awards for the company was virtually gone: investigative reporter Walter Roche left in July and political reporter Chas Sisk in August, followed by Haas and Cass.

Now, after passing him over for any of the new leadership positions in the newsroom, management offered Stroud a new role — tourism reporter.

There’s your Newsroom of the Future: a talented, experienced editor busted down to “tourism reporter.” Unsurprisingly, Stroud declined the honor.

Stroud’s bureau was left with a single reporter. That’s when Gannett bussed in some temps — who are being asked to instantly cover a major city they’ve never lived in, with the bureau’s institutional memory almost entirely gone. That’s quality journalism. Not.

But wait, there’s more:

Last week came news that Peter Cooper, the paper’s star music columnist and go-to writer for chronicling country music legends, was leaving too.

In Nashville, as you can imagine, the post of “music columnist” is kind of important. There were other departures as well.

… The firing/rehiring process that got the paper into this situation has created deep distrust of current management. One staffer referred to the entire process as “Kabuki theater.”

“If they were going to go with ‘more’ reporters, why did so many get eliminated in the restructuring?” the staffer said. “It was clear there were favorites and directives. The process was just a fancy way to let go of people.”

The Tennesseean, whose first edition under the NOTF featured a front-page article on price cuts the city’s biggest supermarket chain — a major newspaper advertiser, natch — must now be a mere shadow of its already pathetic self.

Imagine what Seven Days would be like if Paul Heintz, Mark Davis, Kevin Kelley, Alice Levitt, Dan Bolles, and Margot Harrison all left at the same time. Well, we may not have to imagine, because I suspect the Burlington Free Press will be similarly depopulated by Christmastime.

And the NOTF’s journalistic mandate?

“At the daily news meeting, [chief editor Stefanie Murray] begins by asking, ‘What are people talking about today?’ ” one former staffer told the Scene this summer. “Time was editors would be asking, ‘What do we have that people WILL be talking about tomorrow?’ “

Local Girl Makes Good. (Hey, I can do clickbait too, y'know.)

Local Girl Makes Good. (Hey, I can do clickbait too, y’know.)

Coincidentally (or not), today’s Freeploid contains a clickbait-friendly article about a former Barre high schooler (now a college senior in North Carolina) who just did a Playboy photo shoot. Quick, call the Pulitzer committee!