…and no, I can’t say with any certainty why. From his column this week:
So who started the GMD rumor? GMD bloggers?
The line refers first to the buzz that Senator Ed Flanagan was eyeing a Lieutenant Governor’s race. Totten continues from there, euphemistically piling onto the other rumors mentioned on this site – that Dubie is considering not running and Barre Mayor Lauzon is considering running in his stead, that former Vermont CARES Director Tim Palmer is considering a run – with phrases like “aren’t entirely accurate” and the like.
In an unhappy email exchange with Mr. Totten over the matter, he simply avoided the matter with a mocking insistence that he hadn’t actually used the l-word. Honestly, one of the last things I care to engage in since I’ve become a grown-up is strange, petty little word-parsing games. Totten sent a thesis message loud and clear: Euan and I (and by extension everyone on the site?) just make shit up. He went on to present his supporting “evidence.”
Obviously, I’ll let Euan respond herself, but for my part, a response to such an outrageous charge is clearly called for.
Everyone here at GMD – or any other comparable, equally masochistic I-don’t-get-paid-for-this-so-why-do-I-put-myself-through-it hobby – have different motivations. For me, I realized recently that I have a deep, primal loathing of bullies. More often than not, GMD has been my way to stand up to the bullies and sometimes – if I’m very lucky – get them to back down.
But regardless of our individual motivations, we take this very seriously.
When I go up with a rumor, I’m clear about it. I characterize it as “rumor” or “buzz” or “hubbub” to be clear that’s what I’m talking about. If I feel even more solid, I won’t label it at all. I consider it reportable if I hear it from three different sources – or if I get it from a source that I consider super-credible. On the Lauzon/Dubie issue, I was not the first front pager to hear that statehouse rumor – but I did get it’s veracity confirmed by one of those super-credible sources. With Palmer as well, I wasn’t the only front pager who was aware of the rumor, but I did get it confirmed from a credible source who had, in fact, heard it from the source. The Flanagan buzz came from Euan first (I only posted it before she did because she wasn’t near a computer and put it out there for the group to post), and she has revealed that her sources were, again, super-credible. Euan, of course, is a former editor of the late publication Out in the Mountains, so suggesting she is making things up in print is even more outrageous.
Seriously, folks. We’ve been around for years, now. Our information almost always pans out, and if something doesn’t add up, we come out and say so.
In this case yesterday, Totten’s column spurred a flurry of emails among front pagers. After another round of laying out of the sources of the collected buzz to each other, the suggestion was made that we return to these sources and push to get them on the record. But these sources – and others – only passed along the information with the understanding that they wouldn’t be connected to it. If we go running to them and lean on them to give more just because a bully is kicking sand in our faces, we will simply lose their confidence in the future – and rightfully so.
Here’s the thing; Totten is no political novice. He knows how rumors work. They wouldn’t be “rumors” if the subjects were prepared to go public. They would be headlines. When he asks, they dodge – naturally. To use this as evidence to an accusation of lying is bizarre. He knows how it works. He chose to pretend he doesn’t in order to perpetuate a smear to tens of thousands of his readers.
As to the claim that he didn’t actually use the word “liar,” well, he’s also a professional writer, and no amount of smug word-parsing changes the message that he very specifically and intentionally communicated.
As I said, I can’t say why Totten would smear us in print like this. Yes, there is some personal history there, including a breach of personal trust on a pretty spectacular scale (especially when you consider that a journalist deals in the currency of trust and confidentiality). Perhaps a story that will get told one day.
But let’s be serious. GMD has thousands of weekly readers, Totten has tens of thousands. GMD is a completely amateur, volunteer-driven labor of love, Totten works for a professional operation. Euan and I are those dreaded pesky bloggers, sitting around doing this in front of the TV (okay, Euan was also a professional journalist – an editor, even), while Totten is the serious professional and expert.
The other little irony here is this: Totten seems to have gotten himself into a bit of a pot/kettle, “glass houses” position. Last month Seven Days ran a very long article about Ed Flanagan in the Senate, and whether he is too disabled to serve based on the sequelae of his motor vehicle accidents. They caught some heat for that article, not least because it was, shall we say, very lightly sourced. They had their reasons for running the story they ran, even without sources willing to go on the record, and they’re entitled to use their news judgment for that.
But that’s what we do, too. We report the facts we have, we report on the buzz when in our judgment the buzz is a legitimate news story, and the result is that GMD is recognized nationally as required reading for people who want to know what’s happening in Vermont politics.
So we bug him. Or at least we do from time to time. Fair enough. We bug a lot of people. It’s what we do.
But choosing to sink to the level of bully? That’s low. And it should be beneath him.
