Big kudos to Seven Days "Fair Game" columnist Shay Totten for taking some prominent members of the Vermont blogosphere to task in his Seven Days column today over the way in which the "Pollina/NOFA/Douglas" dust-up played out in the Vermont blogoland's "snark pit" last week.

Burlington Free Press blogger/journalist Sam Hemingway, Green Mountain Daily point man John Odum, and PolitickerVT.com all come in for some criticism.

To be fair, Mr. Odum has acknowledged that maybe he ought to be more careful in the future - a BIG step for our man at GMD - and I'd say he gets it right about that mysterious PolitickerVT.com site.

Mr. Hemingway, on the other hand - well, we e-mailed him after he blogged about SPLC's attack on the Vermont independence effort several weeks ago to see if he'd like to talk more about SPLC's creative reporting and our views on the subject. 

We're still waiting to hear back.

My favorite moment from Shay's column:

"Here’s the problem: The PolitickerVT story (about NOFA and Pollina) appears to be more fiction
than fact. Curious about Wonnacott’s statements, “Fair Game” did what
journalists are supposed to do: pick up the phone and call the source
instead of repeating shit spewed on a blog."

Indeed. 

Imagine - going straight to the source to find out what actually happened, instead of simply channeling "blog-spewed shit"?

Good idea, Shay.

Thanks for the reminder.

Happy 4th, everyone.