It’s been a bad month for “print” media between the abrupt shutdown of Sports Illustrated, the purchase of the Baltimore Sun by a right-wing rich guy, mass layoffs at the Los Angeles Times, and the assimilation of music review site Pitchfork by GQ. There are signs that the already parlous state of journalism in America is about to get a whole lot worse.
Here in Vermont, we are relatively blessed on that front. We have robust nonprofits like VTDigger and Vermont Public and a reduced but still energetic Seven Days, plus a number of daily and weekly newspapers that are battling to produce meaningful reportage on a shoestring. A lot of energetic, smart people are doing their best to keep us informed.
But over the past couple of weeks, our media have repeatedly failed us. I feel compelled to point this out because the worse they do, the less informed we are. In the words of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
So, our putatively moderate governor went and endorsed the very conservative Nikki Haley for president.
Well, kinda, but not really.
VTDigger reported it as an endorsement; Seven Days cast it as a rebuke of Donald Trump. I have to say Seven Days got it right here. He didn’t say he’d vote for Haley. All he said was that New Hampshire primary voters should choose Haley as the only viable alternative to Trump, in hopes that the November election would offer two candidates “with character and integrity, who respect the rule of law, the rights of all people, and the Constitution.”
That’s a depressingly low bar, but Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party has left Scott in the position of endorsing an ardent anti-choicer, an advocate of building the border wall, cutting taxes for the rich, increasing the age for receiving Social Security, and imposing something stronger than Ron DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” bill, among other things. Not to mention that whole playing footsie with the cause of the Civil War thing.
In short, Haley may be more presentable and less aggressively anti-democratic than Trump, but policy-wise there’s not much distance between her and her former boss. She’s no Phil Scott, that’s for sure.
But Scott, who clings to his partisan identity like a toddler with its favorite plushie, desperately wants the Republican Party to offer something, anything, of value to the American electorate.
Well, we suspected that the Scott administration’s plan to create new shelter space would be cheap and bad. But they have outperformed expectations, and that’s not a good thing.
The full plan will be unveiled Tuesday morning before the House Appropriations Committee, but the outlines have now been reported by Vermont Public and VTDigger — oh wait, they each published the same report by the same reporter. Sigh. Our press pool isn’t shallow enough, and now our two leading nonprofit news organizations can’t even produce their own original work? Gaah.
But I digress. The plan, as outlined in the identical stories with identical titles, is just a horrific mess. Inadequate in all respects. It’s of a piece with the administration’s — and the Legislature’s — approach to homelessness: It seems to be aimed at covering official asses than in actually addressing the problem. And covering them with a teeny-tiny fig leaf at that.
It is to be hoped that the Democratic majority in the Legislature rejects this plan outright and devises a robust alternative. Housing advocacy groups are working on their own plan, which may be out by the time you read this.
The Vermont Republican Party held its biannual, or possibly biennual, convention on Saturday. (Above screenshot from the VTGOP’s own website, although they might get around to fixing it after they read this post.) They actually had kind of an impressive speaker lineup, including Reagan-era anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (who must have been wondering how the hell his career descended to the point where he was sharing breakfast with a few dozen graybeards in frickin’ Burlington), Scott Brown, who’s gotten an incredible amount of mileage out of one lucky victory thirteen years ago, and Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor, who switched her affiliation from Democratic to Republican after differing with her former party’s caucus on some high-profile issues.
All of which makes me think that there are some conservative deep pockets underwriting the travel schedules of far-right figures, because ain’t no way the VTGOP could have pulled this level of “star” power in the past. But anyway…
Speakers also included professional troll Scott Presler, a gay conservative dudebro who was touted as a get-out-the-vote activist. Not mentioned in your convention program: His stint as a lead organizer for an anti-Muslim hate group, his description of the January 6 “Stop the Steal” election denial gathering as “a civil rights protest,” and his promotion of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Oh, and his version of GOTV includes the all-out promotion of “ballot harvesting,” a common conservative complaint about Democrats collecting and delivering ballots en masse. If you’re unfortunately enough to remember the film “2,000 Mules,” which focused on unsubstantiated claims that liberal activists were harvesting huge numbers of questionable ballots, well, Presler wants to take that idea up to 11: “”I don’t want 2,000 mules. I want 2 million mules,” he told a GOP voter training session in Pennsylvania.
I can’t tell you whether he brought the same message to the Waterfront Hilton, but it seems likely.
There must have been some serious conversations in Vermont newsrooms on Tuesday. Good God, I surely hope so. Because the results were split, unusually: Our three commercial television news outlets and Seven Days chose to reveal the name and face of the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shooting of a fellow teen, while VTDigger and Vermont Public opted to keep his identity out of it.
There is no hard and fast rule in journalism, or in the law. But identifying a juvenile offender is generally approached with great care and deliberation. The Associated Press’ policy is to not identify juvenile suspects, but there are exceptions: “It may depend on the severity of the alleged crime; whether police have formally released the juvenile’s name; and whether the juvenile has been formally charged as an adult.”
At first, this case seemed to fit the AP’s criteria. The suspect was charged as an adult, a conviction could bring a life sentence, and authorities did nothing to guard his identity. In court on Tuesday, he was wearing shackles and a bright red prison jumpsuit.
Problem is, the circumstances may change in a way that would have argued for concealing his identity. The prosecutor, Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos, seems to be struggling to explain her rationale for bringing a murder charge and treating the suspect as an adult.
Our two most prominent #vtpoli news outlets, VTDigger and Seven Days, are always eager to pounce on any sign of scandal regarding money in politics. They seem especially set on tagging a “For Sale” sign on the reputation of U.S. Rep. Becca Balint.
And now the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried has produced new documentation about his efforts to connect with the Balint campaign, so we have articlesrecounting the lurid details of his internal communiqués and Raising Questions about Balint’s integrity — and even the legitimacy of her resounding victory in the 2022 Democratic primary.
Well, color me unimpressed. There is no scandal. I’ve never thought so, and these latest stories don’t change my view at all.
Sure, Balint’s team dallied with SBF — who, lest we forget, was considered a financial savant at the time. No one knew he was — allegedly — a fraudster of the highest order. They met with him, they accepted donations from his associates, and they benefited from a huge contribution made to a national PAC that spent the money for ads touting Balint’s candidacy.
But there is no hint that Balint changed her positions to suit SBF and his friends. And there is abundant evidence that his largesse had no meaningful effect on the outcome of the primary campaign. If the new revelations show anything, they show that SBF is one cynical bastard.
Well, okay then. VTDigger has confirmed what was originally reportedeleven days ago by Guy Page of the Vermont Daily Chronicle: Miro Weinberger, the outgoing mayor of Burlington, is thinking about a run for an unspecified (but almost certainly gubernatorial) statewide office.
Digger might have had the decency to credit Page for being first, but the standards for crediting rival news outlets around here are, shall we say, highly elastic. The first and last rule seems to be, “Avoid giving credit at all times if at all possible.”
Anyway, so what about a Miro run for governor? You won’t be surprised, given my view of his tenure as mayor, that I’m not doing any cartwheels, metaphorical or otherwise.
But sure, what the hell, why not? Assuming Gov. Phil Scott seeks a fifth term, and why wouldn’t he, then the Democratic nomination will be about as valuable as an expired pet food coupon. Might as well be Miro as anybody else. Any Democrat with serious statewide aspirations is going to sit this one out, just as they did in 2018, 2020, and 2022. But in Miro’s political condition, taking that coupon to the checkout could be a gamble worth taking. He’s got nothing else going on.
This post is about three very different attempts to cover the same story. But before we pick over the bones, let’s address the meat of the matter. For whatever reason, the Scott administration is not only rushing its search for a new education secretary, it’s spent a shockingly small amount of money on the task.
Seven Days’ Alison Novak got the goods, revealing that the administration has spent a measly $495 on a search now scheduled to close, um, tomorrow. By comparison, she noted, school districts routinely invest 20 times that much on a basic search for a superintendent, and often spend far more.
The only flaw in Novak’s story was the headline, written in the form of a question: Is Vermont Doing Enough to Find the Right Leader for Its Education Agency? Remarkably timid header for a story that clearly identifies the answer as “Fuck, no!”
I mean, they posted the opening on professional job sites and that’s about it. Maybe they also taped a photocopied listing to the agency’s front door (complete with little “Contact Us” tabs at the bottom), but whatever, it’s simply pathetic.
Okay, there’s the substance. Now let’s take a somewhat speculative walk down the Memory Lane of journalism.
Generally speaking, VTDigger is a reliable, vital source of news, a rare oasis in an ever-expanding desert of serious media. But this one? I can’t explain how it got assigned, written, edited, approved or published.
The story in question is about a new option in mental health care for those insured by BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont, and it reads like a press release from the Blues’ comms team. The only person quoted in the story is Tom Weigel, the Blues’ chief medical officer. No other viewpoints are presented. Most of the story is just a recitation of all the supposedly wonderful features of this development.
The “news,” such as it is, concerns a deal between the Blues and Valera Health, a Brooklyn-based provider of mental health telemedicine services. The agreement will increase access to mental health services by giving patients a remote option, which is nice since Vermont doesn’t have enough mental health professionals.
But c’mon, the Blues are the fifth health insurer in Vermont to partner with Valera Health, following in the footsteps of Cigna, MVP Health, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare. This isn’t some dramatic innovation. In fact, the Blues already offer mental health care through a Boston-based telehealth firm, so this is just another iteration of an existing effort.
Sometime in late August, very quietly, the Kurn Hattin Homes for Children released an astonishingly vague statement about allegations of child abuse within its walls. Repeatedly referring to itself in the third person, Kurn Hattin announced that some number of allegations about Kurn Hattin turned out to be true, while some other accusations about Kurn Hattin were not. Yep, that’s about it.
VTDigger reported the statement on September 8, but it was posted on Kurn Hattin’s website at least two weeks earlier without notice. I’m sure that Kurn Hattin would very much like us to accept this statement at face value and turn our attention elsewhere. Any elsewhere will do. HEY, LOOK! SQUIRREL!
But I’ll tell you, this had better not be the last word on the subject. Kurn Hattin needs to be held accountable. Department of Education? Agency of Human Services? Attorney General’s office? Legislature? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
The Vermont Political Observer. 