A senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) presidential campaign accused the nonprofit news organization VTDigger.org on Thursday of “helping to uphold” systemic racism.
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.
The story in question, written by reporter Kit Norton, focused on Rocha’s recent work negotiating a first-of-its-kind union contract for Sanders campaign staffers. It noted that Rocha had been convicted in 2013 of embezzling funds from the United Steelworkers union, for which he had previously served as political director.
As Politico reported in February 2016, Rocha pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement and accepted responsibility for 17 other counts after he was caught diverting funds and falsifying records. Rocha used the money for Stanley Cup Final tickets, golf trips to Florida and South Carolina, and travel to London. As part of his plea deal, according to Politico, he was barred from serving as an officer of a labor union until 2026.
The Sanders campaign did not make Rocha available for comment.
In an interview with Seven Days, Weaver said his statement had been “a very measured response” and not “an indictment of VTDigger as an institution.”
Asked whether he believed news outlets should never report on the criminal backgrounds of senior presidential campaign aides, Weaver said, “I didn’t say they didn’t have the right to write it. I didn’t say they shouldn’t write it. I just made the observation that when you engage in this kind of call-out reporting on a story that’s been previously reported … all it does is reinforce an unfair system.”
Weaver said that while he had not spoken to Sanders himself about the matter, he had been speaking for the campaign when he made the remarks to VTDigger. “I will tell you that [Sanders] is a big believer in people having second chances … And that’s why, on our campaign, we have given many people second chances and will continue to do so.”
According to Galloway, Rocha’s ethnicity did not factor — and should not have factored — into VTDigger’s decision to cover his past wrongdoing. She said it was newly relevant because he’d been negotiating a union contract. “We weren’t thinking about his race,” she said. “We were thinking about the conviction and what that meant in this context.”
Galloway said her organization had been called plenty of things over the years — including “the National Enquirer,” by former governor Peter Shumlin — but that this was “definitely a new line of attack.”
“It’s not like we’re a bunch of babies here,” she said. “We have pretty thick skin.” But, she said, Weaver’s allegation was the latest in a “pattern” of negative behavior from the campaign.
“Weaver has been belittling and nasty to us on the phone, so this isn’t the first time,” Galloway said.
Weaver declined to directly address Galloway’s counter-charges. He did go out of his way to note that he’s “not a regular reader of VTDigger.”
“I’m trying to remember the last time I talked to Anne Galloway,” he said. “Maybe never.”
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
so you can’t report on facts about black and latino people if the facts are negative? if the shoe fits…
“7DVT” is absolutely correct: VTDigger blocks reader comments it finds too hot to handle.
Especially comments critical of VTDigger’s work.
Racist? No, Digger isn’t, despite Bernie’s claim.
Sensitive to criticism? Absolutely.
Critical comments submitted to Digger’s “footnotes” section never see the light of day.
Digger’s editor, Anne Galloway, continues to refuse requests to review her antiquated “moderator” policy.
Jeff Weavers sophomoric “systemic racism” rant to Vermont Digger strays so far from the universally accepted definition of the term that it is an embarrassment to “systemicists” and “racists” alike. Can anyone envision a starker example of the political risks involved with public pontification and schooling the press on issues so far removed from ones wheelhouse as a political handler, dark money bagman, and comic book purveyor?
Recall that Mr. Weaver was never an Oscar nominee for his masterful exposition of nuanced race relations in Driving Mr. Sanders. Nor would familiarity and heart-felt personal identification with the likes of or Jug-Head, Reggie, Betty, or Veronica in Archie Comix’ racially-segregated Riverdale provide meaningful insight into anything remotely resembling systemic racism.
If anything, Hispanic embezzlers are most likely significantly under-represented within Vermonts lily-white embezzlement community, and, truth be told, I cannot recall a single cautionary media tale about sensationalized and excessive, negative coverage of Hispanic embezzlement in the Green Mountain State. “Wheres the Systemic Racism?”, the feisty, elderly woman at the Wendys drive-up window might have barked, had she lived another 35 years following the TV commercial battle for the 1984 Democrat Presidential nomination between Walter Mondale and Gary Hart.
Ultimately Weavers “systemic racism” admonition comes across as that of a self-absorbed, egotistical bully to whom racism is defined by and measured in favorable or unfavorable polling numbers, a dark, liberal version of infamous Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who squandered his 15 minutes of Wharholian fame when he strayed from his anti-government folk-hero path to expound on race-related issues:
“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro.” proffered Bundy.
Et tu Weaver?
“Digger is anti-Bernie just as Seven Days is.”
I call major BS. Neither of them is “anti-Bernie.” If anything, 7D has for years given Bernie way more press — mostly flattering press — than he deserves. Year after year, look at the weekly columns going all the way back from Freyne up to the present with Walters, and you see week after week, year after year, of Bernie glorification when he’s accomplished virtually nothing after almost 30 years in Congress. All of a sudden 7D publishes a few articles about Jane Sanders and Burlington College and Bernie gets all temper-tantrumy and won’t talk. What is NOT “anti-Bernie”? News stories that only flatter him? That never question him? That never say anything critical? Gimme a break. Bernie and Trump and their sycophantic followers both want a completely uncritical, flattering press.
I don’t believe this accusation of racism is particularly credible within the present context, but I have found the politically motivated censorship of reader comments on VTDigger’s web site to be quite severe and unjust on many past occasions — yet the casual observer will never notice this censorship because they do let some of the less important and relevant comments go through. Their pet peeve seems to be anonymous comments: they are fully cognizant of the fact that whistleblowers and other critics of public officials are frequently subjected to many forms of harassment, yet they still insisted that legal names be used (which often makes candid, free speech impossible.) I don’t know if this policy has continued because I got so turned off by the ham-handed censorship and excessive editorial pandering to corporate sponsors that I just quit reading the rag altogether, and stopped forwarding articles to my associates. So I had to laugh when I heard they were asking for people to donate $156,000 in the next two weeks. They will get nothing from me, ha ha!
Digger is anti-Bernie just as Seven Days is. It’s all clickbait, just like Paul Heintz’s articles. They’re dying to get picked up by Politico or some other outlet (and apparently the editors don’t care that Heintz’s writing is always words rearranged from other people’s articles.)
Parroting and repeating something really dumb, or a lie, doesn’t make it true.
Doesn’t Bernie know VT Digger can’t be racist. It’s hard left leaning and Leftists can’t be racist. I thought he knew Republicans are the racists that’s why the paper leaves out conservative voices. *eye roll* In case it’s not obvious this is dripping with sarcasm. Everyone is looking to blame the boogie man rather than take personal responsibility. If everyone is a racist, then no one is a racist.