Tag Archives: Vermont Public

Promoting a Worthy Cause? Opportunism? Or a Little of Both?

7 Replies

Let’s start with this: VTDigger has been doing yeoman’s work since the skies parted and the rains descended on July 10. They’ve ramped up their coverage to meet the need for information and insight, and that’s been absolutely critical in this age of ever-diminishing traditional media. And as a nonprofit organization, Digger has to meet its costs somehow or other.

So why does its joint fundraising campaign with the Vermont Community Foundation make me a little bit queasy inside?

Because, I think, it either crosses an ethical line or comes very close to it.

The details: Digger and VCF are raising money by selling a line of “Better Together” merch. The proceeds, minus the cost of the goods, is split 50/50 between the two entities. VCF devotes its half to flood relief, while Digger covers the cost of flood reportage with its share. The graphic design is, to my uneducated eye, kind of lame — of a piece with Digger’s recent website reboot. But that’s beside the point, and I’m sure the simple, direct design has its adherents. I don’t do TikTok either.

As a longtime denizen of public radio, I’ve spent more than my share of time dancing around this particular line between journalism and fundraising. During pledge drives, I’d be delivering the news one minute and begging for donations the next. Still, this Digger/VCF arrangement feels different, I think because it’s happening in the middle of a dire emergency — and looks like it’s capitalizing on the crisis. I’ve been part of public radio pledge drives, which take huge amounts of planning and organization, that were halted or postponed because of breaking news.

So I asked Digger CEO Sky Barsch about it, and she offered a strong rationale for the joint campaign. I wasn’t completely mollified, but I see her argument.

Continue reading →

Not Good Enough, WCAX. Nowhere Near Good Enough.

1 Reply

WCAX-TV is still in the doghouse, if not the outhouse, for its handling of the situation at Randolph High School. The station aired, and later took down, a story based on one single interview with a volleyball player who claimed to have been harassed by a transgender teammate. The reporter made no effort to fact-check or even talk to anyone else. WCAX aired the inflammatory accusation. Or, as the trans girl’s mother put it, they set a bomb and lit the fuse.

The station’s handling of the situation has been a disgrace. The original decision to run the story, the initial denials that the station was in any way at fault, the cowardly removal of the story from its website without saying a word about it, station manager Jay Barton’s belated blame-everbody-else statement, and the station’s refusal to take part in a “Vermont Edition” show about the story and the damage it has caused. (As of this writing, early afternoon on October 19, the show has not been archived online. It will be later this evening.)

Extra bonus: Barton’s non-apology aired during the news on October 13, and as far as I can tell, it is not accessible anywhere online. By its actions, it’s clear that WCAX is embarrassed. Otherwise, they wouldn’t conceal the story and Barton’s statement.

Continue reading →

How Not To Be a Stealth Candidate

Leave a reply

Gregory Thayer and John Klar are both running for office this year. Thayer, for lieutenant governor; Klar, for state senator. And as is the current strategery for far-right candidates, they are trying to present themselves as mainstream conservatives.

This can work for a relative unknown like Liz Cady, who lied her way to a seat on the Essex-Westford school board (and resigned earlier this year). But Thayer and Klar? They’ve been in the public eye far too long. What’s more, their hearts and minds really aren’t in it. The cray-cray leaks out all over the place.

Let’s do Thayer first. I thought I’d check in on the trainwreck race for the Republican LG nomination, which features serious human being Sen. Joe Benning versus Thayer, who attended the January 6 insurrection (heck, he helped organize a bus tour to the thing) and put together a nice little anti-critical race theory road show. Both VPR — err, Vermont Public — and VTDigger have hosted LG debates recently. Digger’s suffers from horrible audio quality, so I watched the Vermont Public Ra — cough, sorry — event.

Benning, of course, ran rings around Thayer logically. But Thayer’s demeanor was curiously subdued because he was trying to be someone he’s not.

It didn’t work very well.

Continue reading →