It took all campaign season, but we finally got a photo of Lenore Broughton, the Burlington heiress who’s bankrolling the conservative super PAC Vermonters First to the tune of $1 million this election.
Despite her outsize influence on state elections this year, Broughton keeps a low public profile. She declines every interview request she gets and has turned away numerous reporters looking for quotes from her front door this fall.
Prior to a recent Seven Days story and others that followed, there wasn’t much known about her background or the source of her sizable fortune. And there don’t appear to be any photos of her on the web.
Our last attempt to photograph the elusive Broughton didn’t go so well. She walked away from a public meeting rather than be photographed. So we had to get a little more aggressive on the second try.
Seven Days hired freelance photographer Andy Duback to photograph Broughton at a public meeting of a board on which she serves. On Monday, Duback snapped this photo at Burlington City Hall as Broughton was getting on an elevator following the meeting. Along with being a member of the Burlington Telecom Cable Advisory Council, Broughton serves on the Burlington Board for Registration of Voters. That’s the volunteer panel charged with maintaining Burlington’s voter lists.
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Congratulations, guys!
Oh for Pete’s Sake…. I think I’d be feeling a bit ashamed of myself right about now…
“Welcome to the jungle we’ve got fun and games
We got everything you want honey, we know the names
We are the people that can find whatever you may need
If you got the money honey we got your disease …”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Really. Ok, so she’s a political figure. But if she really does not want to be photographed, why does Mr. Duback think it’s necessary or appropriate to hunt her down, stalk her, and photograph her? And why do the rest of you at Seven Days think it’s appropriate or amusing to participate in this? I didn’t need to see this woman’s picture, and nobody else did, either.
Some people can’t seem to get enough attention, and are happy to make a public spectacle of themselves. Others prefer not to have their images splashed across the newspapers. For those people, why don’t you just resist your urges and respect their wishes? This is Vermont, after all.
I don’t know why Ms. Broughton would feel like she has to hide. As far as I can see, she’s just an involved citizen (with some opinions that probably differ from my own). I tip my hat to her. The problem isn’t people who think differently, it’s people who don’t bother to think at all.
Still, not Andy’s finest moment as a photographer.
Ms. Broughton serves on two city boards, volunteers at the polls, and she’s a good neighbor, too. Let’s see, the complaint is… that she is going against “the system” by putting her own message out instead of giving money to a candidate. The shock is a little disingenuous. Money has always influenced elections. Ms. Broughton is a person who lives in our community, she’s not a faceless corporation. She chooses to control the message she pays for. The hypocrisy of complainers is hilarious, especially the complaints from members of the BTV group that is promoting the bonds. Let’s see their faces, Mr. Duback.
I say when you pump 1 mil into an election don’t go cry because you had a photo taken? really? what did you expect would happen? and why, and what do you have to hide, that you are trying to use money to influence. I don’t understand why fundraising alone and letting the truth stand on it’s own without money having to project it for all to see, is a problem. If she has no shame with herself, then why hide. I’d have a hard time looking my children in the eye, spending 1 mil on an election and walking by the homeless guy down the street, that 1 million could have furthered a lot of other causes that had nothing to do with wendy playing in the sandbox over house renting…how many of hundreds of thousands to fight over renting. Nope couldn’t look my kids in the eyes if I blew money on that instead of coming together and deciding upon a way to serve people face to face and bless them and fill a true need, hunger, help,education, wow…I’d hide too I guess!
I can understand why she would want to keep a low profile. The left are a bunch of intolerant thugs who resort to violence and character assassination when someone publicly deviates from their established talking points.
Now she’s a target.
Maybe she’s afraid of the lunatics out there that lean to the left. And yes there are a few out there on both sides. But it’s pretty easy to see why someone in Chittenden County who supports Republican Candidates does not want to be shoved out there on the internet for every wack job to see.
“She walked away from a public meeting rather than be photographed. So
we had to get a little more aggressive on the second try.”
No,
you didn’t have to get a little more aggressive. You could instead get a
little more respectful and responsible. The only news in this article
is the ongoing decline in maturity and sobriety of 7Days, which by now
isn’t news.
It’s absolutely true that by making publicly reported
donations Broughton became a public figure and object of curiosity, and
it’s absolutely true that she should have expected some pinhead to
stalk her, but that last is a sad truth. Her photo has 0 news value. 0.
Balancing the public right to know and right to privacy in this case is
no dilemma. There’s no glimmer of journalistic prerogative or craft or
service in this exposure. We don’t need to know what she looks like and
publishing the picture with details of where to track her down is
nothing short of intimidation. Calling Duback “awful” is being polite.
My
opinion of Broughton is immaterial (and generally unprintable) but a
paparazzo ranks much lower on the despicable scale and a news outlets
that supports and encourages him is a rung below that. The assertion that anything is justified if it isn’t illegal, that we’re entitled to whatever we want, is morally reprehensible.
What have we come to expect from 7Days? Any damn thing. Apparently, the adults have gone to bed.
Incredibly well said. This was a TMZ moment for 7D. And what’s surprising is that they actually brag about their accomplishment.
This episode is interesting because IMO the quality of the reporting in 7D (although obviously and consistently slanted Left) has actually gotten better. The quality of the Fair Game column is 1,000 times better than it was when the dishonest, name-calling, gossip-mongering, scandal-loving Freyne ran it.
True enough. I should have said *recent* decline in maturity. When PF was around there wasn’t much room to decline; he was the consummate bottom-feeder and snickering brat.
I was the photographer for this story. Broughton was a public figure, I knew, and was conducting public business in a public place (City Hall), so I felt very comfortable photographing her because she was the source of public interest. Photographing public figures in public is a common practice; I have photographed many public figures over the years. When I made the photograph of Broughton, I was not aware that I would be included in the story. I believed the story would be about one of Broughton’s public roles, perhaps focusing on her role as a committee member, public servant or funder of a political action committee. Had I known that the story was largely about the very act of photographing Broughton, I would not have accepted the assignment. I would not have accepted the story because my work is not political in nature. The goal of my work is to create images to illustrate stories unrelated to myself. In other words, my work is intended to compliment a story, not be the story. So, I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the assignment and I regret getting involved.
Whoa. 7D hired you to photograph Ms. Broughton for a story specifically about the act of catching her in a photo, and didn’t even tell you that. Nice.
“Broughton was appointed to the Board for Registration of Voters by the Burlington City Council on May 7, 2012” as the story states. She is a public figure and in therefor should have no expectation of privacy WHILE ACTING IN THAT ROLE. Mr. Duback did not visit her at her house, he did not chase her in her car, he did not peer in her window.
It is a shame that Seven Days should put an independent contractor such as Andy Duback through all of this, to mislead him on this assignment, to quote him from a conversation in which he has every reason to expect he was off the record, and then to hang him out to dry in this way. They have a photographer on staff who should have performed this assignment. As a photographer and photo editor who has worked with Mr. Duback for over 10 years and continues to do so, I’d like to say that I trust Andy to perform professionally in the most sensitive situations. I can think of no other photographer I would trust more with an assignment and with a subjects rights and best interests. I fully believe that the “editors” at Seven Days were misleading when assigning this story. And to not come to his defense when they have obviously overstepped is shocking, but not surprising.
And as for all of those that would lay out judgement here, it makes me laugh to see that only a few actually identify themselves. Most of you judge and comment in anonymity. How brave of you.