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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“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.