Plagiarism Press

*Last Update 4:20 p.m.

Good morning!

Tuesday's my day for writing the print "Inside Track" column in Seven Days. And yes, you're right, there's been a lot happening this week and it's only Tuesday. I think it's fair to say this will be a week GOP Congressional Candidate Martha Rainville will not forget. The Rainville plagiarism story got front page coverage in The Burlington Free Press this morning. Very embarrassing, eh?

However, Marvelous Martha's campaign plagiarism story was completely and totally ignored by Vermont Chamber of Commerce TV News, a.k.a. WCAX-TV - Channel 3. I'm not making this up. Just double checked the Ch. 3 Monday news scripts. The top Vermont political story of the day, a story showing GOP Candidate Rainville in a very bad ethical light, got absolutely no coverage Monday evening by Vermont's top TV news operation, the one I've called WGOP-TV for years!

Hey, if the shoe fits......

But even with WGOP-TV, er, WCAX ignoring Candidate Rainville's problems (and more are coming, folks) the former adjutant general of the Vermont Guard has a very steep hill to climb. Stay tuned.

Over on the gubernatorial side, there was an excellent debate on environmental issues last night between Jim Douglas and Scudder Parker at the Capitol Plaza in Montpeculiar.  About 200 people turned out for the debate which was sponsored by the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC),  Vermont Public Television President John King did an excellent job moderating. A few shaky moments for Gov. Scisssorhands, who was not exactly speaking to a crowd of supporters. From "wind energy" to "wilderness," Vermont's current governor does, at times, seem a bit out-of-touch with mainstream Vermont.

Unfortunately for Candidate Parker, WCAX-TV News did not cover the VNRC debate.

Interesting "news" judgement over there, eh?

Five weeks left until Election Day.

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*UPDATE 10:45 a.m.

Press Coverage Comparison:

Did something I don't do very often these days - I went out to buy the daily newspapers. You now, the ones made out of paper?

Wanted to compare the news judgement at Vermont largest daily newspapers to the news judgement at Vermont largest TV news station - our fave: WCAX.

Worlds apart!

Newswise, both The Burlington Free Press and the Rutland Herald - Vermont's two largest-circulation papers - feature the Candidate Rainville Plagiarism story and the VNRC gubernatorial-debate story on Page 1 - above the fold! Vermont Public Radio did its own original plagiarism story, too, just like the papers. John Dillon had it on the air before 6 p.m. on Monday.

However, both "news" stories were totally ignored by "award-winning" Ch. 3 News Monday night. Not a whisper. Not even at 11 p.m., despite the fact the Rainville plagiarism story moved on the Associated Press wire at 8:29 p.m.  The Douglas v. Parker environmental-issues debate moved at 9:14 p.m.  All 11 o'clock anchor-chair teleprompter news-readers Roger Garrity and Kristin Kelly had to do was rip and read either one. No heavy lifting. 

Hey. Do you think if an aide to a Vermont Democratic congresssional candidate was caught swiping quotes from Republicans to post online in the mouth of the Democrat, that "award-winning" Ch. 3 News would have ignored it, too?

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*UPDATE 4:20 p.m. corrected

In case you missed the broadcasts, as I did, you may not know how WPTZ-TV News covered this Monday. Got this email from Ch. 5 veteran Stewart Ledbetter:

"We had the story on Monday's 5pm newscast. Didn't get Rainville on the
phone until 4:45 so it was tight, and we combined the Welch/Foley story and
plagiarism charge. At 6pm we ran a shorter version only on the plagiarism
and staff employee's responsibility for it."

Comments

[elguapos ghost]

I usually watch CAX at six. It was reasonable that the Rainville plagiarism scandal didn’t get any airtime – maybe they are just lazy and didn’t have time to cover the story. But for it to be a left out of the 11 o’clock cast is inexcusable.

[Frank]

From the Freeps article: "Eric Davis, political science professor at Middlebury College, who used to serve on the college's plagiarism committee, said he didn't think the incident would have long-term implications. 'That Martha Rainville admitted it was plagiarism and took responsibility, that sort of puts an end to it.'"

Everywhere but in "Freyne Land," of course.

[Fronk]

It's great to see how low a standard the Republicans set for their leaders.

[tom]

I'd bet some dems who were leaning toward Rainville are no longer leaning toward Rainville. In a close race, this could be a deciding factor.

[Sarah]

I caught the Rainville plagarism (and Hastert) story on Channel 5 at 5pm, actually. They quoted Rainville. So it was possible for TV to do it.

[john]

Douglas' site is down as well, the free press claimed it was due to a fire at Sovernet but don't these companies colocate their web servers in case of such an occurence? Freyen make some calls! Scudder, start digging up the old cached versions of the website!

[wdh3]

I'm no techie, so maybe this isn't connected, but I just checked the email of a sover.net account, no problems. . . .

[Julie Waters]

E-mail and web sites are often hosted on different servers. I checked another site I know happens to be hosted by sover.net and got the exact same message as Douglas' site: "This site is currently down. Please check back soon." Believe me, I was suspicous as well, but this appears to be unintentional. --Julie

[tom]

I bet his web site comes back with about 6000 less acres, I mean lines.

[john]

Julie! Julie Waters who broke this story! You should be proud!!! We need more progressive watch-dogs like you. Freyne has said in the past how easy it is to break down conservative lies with some simple Google searches on things such as plagiarism and ummm property tax filings... Now what of Douglas' trickery can we dig up?

Also, sovernet did have a fire that brought down all of their hosted websites.

[Bonnie]

No Rainville coverage appeared on either WCAX newspot yesterday. But that pig farm got covered, and posted on the WCAX website as well.

[Jimbo]

If you visit WCAX's web site, you still (10/4) can't find any mention of the Rainville plagiarism scandal on either their home page or the local news page, despite tons of stories being listed. You actually have to do a search on "Rainville" to turn up a brief story:

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?s=5490619

Even then, its last two paragraphs are largely an attempt to dismiss the scandal as just "politics as usual" and "everyone does it":

(WCAX)
Democrats were quick to criticize Rainville calling it "unethical." Rainville responded saying there will be some who will want to make "political hay" out of this and use it as a reason to detract from talking about the issues.

The Vermont GOP claims Vermont Democrats were guilty of plagiarism in some of their literature as well.
(/WCAX)

[Garry]

I would say that Martha's plagiarism would go away under ordinary circumstances, but not now-the all prevasive atmosphere of Republican immorality, corruption and coverup in Washington will spill over to Martha, particularly if the VT National Guard "porngate" story gains more substance. Does anybody know if the RCCC was running ads for Mark "Tailgate" Foley? It would be truly ironic if they did and the ads are similar.

[Frank]

"particularly if the VT National Guard 'porngate' story gains more substance."

Interesting that that one wasn't posted here, so it could be commented on. Probably because the "story" associates, then immediately disassociates Rainville - yet somehow winds up in a column about Vermont politics. Sad.