Friday, August 9, 2019
The first issue of the New England Cannabis Guide was published last month and will be supported by a launch party at the Harvest Farm Jam in Brattleboro next month.
The Vermont cannabis media and events company plans to publish the new regional magazine annually, accompanied by a New England-branded digital platform.
The guide will promote New England's burgeoning legal weed industry by featuring local businesses and providing state-by-state policy information and tourism ideas from Maine to Rhode Island, according to a company news release. Portions of the magazine are also available to peruse online at HeadyNewEngland.com.
“Now that all the New England states have, at the very least, some form of legal cannabis ... we thought it would be exciting to start talking about cannabis in New England the way we already talk about craft beer, organic produce, flatbread pizza, and locally-made ice cream," CEO Monica Donovan said in the release.
According to the guide's website, copies can be purchased at the Bern Gallery in Burlington, Vermont Hempicurean in Brattleboro, AroMed Aromatherapy in Montpelier and Clover Gift Shop in Woodstock.
The guide has a list price of — you guessed it — $4.20.
Tags: Cannabeat , New England Cannabis Guide , Heady Vermont , media , Business People , Monica Donovan , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
WPTZ-TV, better known as NBC5, merged its Plattsburgh production studio and cramped Colchester news bureau into a new South Burlington headquarters in mid-July.
And Vermont PBS is making a similar leap in mid-August when staff decamp from their longtime home at Fort Ethan Allen for vibrant downtown Winooski.
In both cases, the station officials say the new digs will give them access to better production and broadcast capabilities.
WPTZ-TV’s move to Technology Park at 30 Community Drive in South Burlington accomplished several important goals, said Justin Antoniotti, its president and general manager.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Gannett and GateHouse are the two largest newspaper companies in America. The combined entity will be by far the largest, with 615 papers with a combined circulation of 8.7 million. (The second biggest chain will be McLatchy, at 1.7 million.) The Free Press is Gannett's only Vermont property; GateHouse has no holdings in the state.
New Media will reportedly pay $12.06 per Gannett share in combined cash and stock. News of the deal sent Gannett's share price up by 3 percent, while New Media's fell by nearly 8 percent.
The goal of the deal is to cut costs by combining operations. According to the Wall Street Journal, the companies hope to save up to $300 million annually.
Much of the savings will come from cuts in business and back-office operations. Consolidations in management, sales, printing and purchasing are likely to provide most of the savings. But newsrooms, as ever, will be under pressure.
The Poynter Institute's Rick Edmonds wrote last week that both companies have been consolidating editorial and layout functions and moving toward more regional journalism, with teams of reporters contributing to ambitious investigative projects. Which is fine, but it means even fewer resources for meat-and-potatoes local journalism — which is already in short supply at the Free Press.
Tags: Rick Edmonds , Gannett , GateHouse Media , Burlington Free Press , Web Only , Image
Monday, July 22, 2019
The order by Washington Superior Court Judge Howard VanBenthuysen was issued in February of 2018 but had remained sealed until Friday, when a Vermont Supreme Court ruling made it public.
Tags: Vermont media shield law , WCAX , Howard VanBenthuysen , Web Only , Image
Friday, July 19, 2019
A secret judicial order that upheld press freedom from prying state investigators must be made public, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The February 2018 order in question was the first test of a state media shield law enacted in 2017 after lobbying by Vermont journalists, who were worried that law enforcement could compel reporters to disclose their sources or notes.
But the landmark ruling has remained sealed for more than a year because it came as part of a closed-door inquest regarding a police shooting.
Police shot and killed Nathan Giffin, a suspected bank robber, in January 2018 after an hourlong standoff outside Montpelier High School. WCAX captured the shooting on video, which state prosecutors subpoenaed in the course of determining whether the shooting was criminal.
Tags: shield law , Vermont Supreme Court , WCAX , inquests , Rory Thibault , media , First Amendment , Web Only , Image
Thursday, July 18, 2019
News of merger talks between the two companies first broke in late May, not long after Gannett's board rejected a takeover bid from hedge fund Alden Global Capital.
Gannett and GateHouse are the two largest newspaper chains (by circulation) in the country. As industry analyst Ken Doctor of the Nieman Journalism Lab wrote in May, "Totaled up, 267 dailies would fall under a single ownership and management. That's an unprecedented concentration of control in the history of the American press." (The combined firm would also own more than 1,000 weekly papers. None of GateHouse's properties are in Vermont.)
Doctor wrote of a "megaclustering" trend in the journalism industry, as newspapers suffer continuing declines in advertising and circulation and seek ways to streamline operations through regional sales and reporting efforts.
That's "regional" as in "not local."
Tags: Ken Doctor , Dan Kennedy , Burlington Free Press , Gannett , GateHouse Media , Web Only , Image
Monday, June 17, 2019
Harrington announced the move in a June 10 post on the company website, writing that the business has "stayed true to the core mission: that ALL people with interest, passion, and knowledge of cannabis in Vermont should have news, a political voice, and spaces where they could meet each other."
Harrington and cofounder Monica Donovan started Heady Vermont in 2015. What launched as a blog about cannabis evolved into a full-fledged business that now features memberships, reported stories, analysis and advocacy. Harrington was a familiar face at the Statehouse, where he’d lobby for weed legalization and, more recently, regulation. Last month, the company hosted the two-day Vermont Cannabis & Hemp Convention at the Champlain Valley Exposition.
Tags: Cannabeat , Vermont , Heady Vermont , pot , weed , marijuana , cannabis , blog , events , Monica Donovan , Eli Harrington , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Last June, the Burlington School District had a small but potentially costly decision to make. Adam Provost, the Burlington Technical Center's interim director, had resigned in January 2018 after months on administrative leave, citing medical reasons. Seven Days requested a copy of the resignation agreement between Provost and the district.
District officials believed the resignation agreement was a public document. Provost did not, and he threatened to sue the district if it gave the unredacted agreement to Seven Days.
Rather than respond to the records request, the district asked a judge to decide, by making what in legal parlance is known as a request for declaratory judgment.
Tags: public records , Burlington School District , Adam Provost , Seven Days , Supreme Court , Web Only , Image
Monday, May 13, 2019
But because the judge's decision was part of a secret investigative procedure, the ruling's very existence has gone undisclosed to the public — until now.
On Tuesday, WCAX is scheduled to argue before the Vermont Supreme Court that the judge's order ought to be unsealed. "This case presents a straightforward question," the TV station's lawyers argued in a brief filed with the court. "Are members of the public allowed to see the court decisions that interpret and apply Vermont's statutes and shape its common law?"
Washington County State's Attorney Rory Thibault, whose office sought and failed to obtain video of the shooting, thinks the answer to that question — at least in this case — is no. Though he "recognizes the value of transparency and fairness in the justice system," Thibault wrote in his own brief, "transparency must yield and defer to public safety considerations in the context of criminal investigations."
Tags: Vermont media shield law , WCAX , Washington County State's Attorney , Rory Thibault , Jay Barton , Vermont Supreme Court , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 10, 2019
The adviser, former Sanders campaign manager and Senate chief of staff Jeff Weaver, made the charge as VTDigger reported on the past criminal conviction of another Sanders aide, Chuck Rocha, who is Latino.
“Sadly, like too many others in our society, the Vermont Digger wants to brand people like Chuck Rocha for life — an attitude that disproportionately impacts black and brown people and poor people,” Weaver told the online news outlet in a written statement. “This is just another way systemic racism works. It’s disappointing that VTDigger is helping to uphold it.”
In an interview Friday with Seven Days, VTDigger founder and editor Anne Galloway rejected the claim and called Weaver's words "a bullying tactic."
"These are the kind of tactics you'd expect from the Trump administration," she said.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Jeff Weaver , Anne Galloway , Chuck Rocha , Web Only , Image