Former Democrat Speaker of the House Named President of State’s Most Prominent News Outlet
Former Democrat Speaker of the House Named President of State’s Most Prominent News Outlet
VTDigger no longer bothering to hide the bias!
Vermont’s largest online news outlet, VTDigger, announced on December 7th (probably some irony there in the day that will live in infamy) that they brought on Gaye Symington to be the organization’s board president. Symington, of course, was a Democratic representative for twelve years and served as Speaker of the House from 2005 to 2009, responsible in that role for delivering the Democrats’ legislative agenda.
In 2021, Emerge Vermont, which describes itself as having “a proven track record for getting Democratic women elected, offering training programs that deliver the skills, tools, and network necessary to run and win,” named Symington the winner of their Governor Madeleine M. Kunin Achievement Award.
Symington will helm a team led on the field by Editor in Chief Paul Heinz – who used to be Congressman Peter Welch’s communications director. So, there’s that, too.
If VT Digger ever really set out to be a fair and balanced news source, they are no longer trying. There’s no attempt to even hide it. “News in pursuit of Truth”? Yeah, right. More like “Propaganda in support of achieving the policy and electoral goals of the Democratic Party.”
In the press release announcing Symington’s appointment, CEO Sky Barsh praised the new president’s … “unfailing commitment to fundraising.” Given Symington’s political background and pedigree, we can guess who she’ll be hitting up for big bucks and what those donor’s politics are.
Also worth noting, the press release discusses other changes at VT Digger, including a shift in priorities to “more reporting firepower on flood recovery, equity, substance use disorder, broadband deployment and the social safety net, among other topics. Not, you will observe, our economy, taxes and state spending, the housing crisis, the cost, quality, and safety of our education system, rising crime, energy policy, or even climate change policy – a good example of bias through omission.
Digger should be embarrassed to have a partisan politician leading their board. Their readers should be appalled. Are there enough grains of salt to take with their reporting as we enter a critical policy year for the legislature? Let’s hope more Vermonters start looking for alternative sources to get their information. To that end, please….
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.
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Event Notice: Rob Roper will be a panelist for a “TownHall on Energy: Discussion of GWSA, Home Heat, Carbon Tax, Fossil Fuels, and the Electric Grid” on Tuesday, December 19, 2023, at the Colchester Meeting House, 830 Main Street, Colchester, 5:30 pm. Other panelists are ANR Secretary Julie Moore, Matt Cota of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, Neale Lunderville of Vermont Gas, JT Dodge of No Carbon Tax Vermont, and Rep. Mark Higley. Attend if you can!
They are all merely NY carpetbaggers in the tradition of Bernie Sanders, Madeline Kunin, Howard Dean, Zuckerman, etc., rounding out their career in fulfillment of their indoctrination -- I mean education and training -- in socialist editorial propaganda. It's easy to fundraise within their woke corporate donor and dark money connections, much like their go-to rag, the New York Times. Running on advertising and subscriptions alone is so hard when not enough people cooperate.
I still look at Vt Digger mostly to be aware of how naive and out of touch with most Vermonters (outside of Chittenden County perhaps) their opinion pieces usually are. I stopped taking it seriously once they removed readers ability to comment on their articles. A self-styled news organization that at first encourages readers comments, then obviously not liking the tone of most comments proceeds to ban all comments is an outlet to be derided.