On April 30, 2015, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft crash-landed on the surface of Mercury, ending its four-year mission. After 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk!” finally dropped to the No. 2 spot. And in theaters the previous weekend, Furious 7 barely edged out Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 as the nation’s highest-grossing film.
That afternoon — 1,000 days ago Wednesday — also marked the last time Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) granted an interview to the largest newspaper in his home state, Seven Days.
Sanders, who announced his presidential candidacy that morning on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, took roughly 10 minutes to explain to Seven Days by phone why he was seeking the Democratic nomination and how he’d balance the task with his job representing Vermont in the Senate.
“I am a hard worker and I will — we have a very strong staff, and I will devote a considerable amount of time to Vermont’s issues as I run for president,” he said.
In the 1,000 days since, Seven Days has made dozens of interview requests. Each time, the independent, locally owned newspaper has been rebuffed or ignored — even as Sanders has made time for the out-of-state “corporate media” he regularly slams.
That hasn’t stopped Seven Days from doing its job. Since April 2015, the paper has published 482 articles about its home-state senator, including five in-depth cover stories. Its reporters traveled to eight states — some, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, multiple times — to cover his presidential campaign and even dropped by his brother’s home in Oxford, England.
Seven Days‘ coverage has, at times, been tough; at other times, it’s been glowing; occasionally, it has defended him; and sometimes, we admit, it’s been a little ridiculous. The paper has always sought to be fair.
In that time, Vermont’s junior senator has gone to great — and sometimes comical — lengths to avoid Seven Days staffers. He has blown off reporters and columnists at an Iowa parade, on a chartered jet over Nevada, in a Montpelier hotel lobby and even at a Burlington holiday party. Last November, when Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly found herself sitting next to him on a plane from Washington, D.C., to Vermont, Sanders gave her the cold shoulder — though the two have been casual acquaintances for decades.
“I said, ‘You might not recognize me with my hair up, but I’m Paula Routly from Seven Days,'” she recalled telling him. “And he said, ‘You’re one of the copublishers?'”
When she answered in the affirmative, Routly said, “He literally grunted and turned away.” Sanders uttered not another word for the rest of the flight.
Sanders’ silence is highly unusual for a Vermont politician. His fellow congressional delegates, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.), regularly make themselves available to reporters, over the phone and in person. Gov. Phil Scott, like his predecessors, holds at least one free-ranging press conference a week and accepts most interview requests. Top-ranking state officials happily hand out their cell phone numbers.
Seven Days was hardly the only local news outlet to get shut out during Sanders’ presidential campaign. As we reported in December 2015, he largely ignored interview requests from most of the state’s press corps, with the occasional exception of Vermont television stations that also broadcast in the early primary state of New Hampshire. And as we reported in March 2017, the streak continued for several news outlets — including Vermont Public Radio and VTDigger.org — long after the campaign ended.
Sanders has since mended fences with those two organizations. After a two-year hiatus from live appearances on VPR’s “Vermont Edition,” he returned to the show last June and has appeared at least once more since then. VTDigger.org’s Washington, D.C., reporter, Elizabeth Hewitt, said she snagged her first of two phone interviews with Sanders in November and has managed to catch up with him in the halls of the Capitol since.
But 1,000 days later, Sanders still hasn’t taken an interview with Seven Days.
Why not? Is it because Seven Days was the first Vermont news outlet to raise questions, in June 2015, about whether his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, committed federal loan fraud during her presidency of Burlington College? (Federal authorities later launched an investigation, which was active as recently as December 2017.)
Asked again this week why Sanders won’t talk to Seven Days, spokesman Daniel McLean declined to comment — and the senator himself ignored our latest interview request.
So how long is 1,000 days? To celebrate the anniversary of Seven Days‘ blacklisting, we thought we’d remind you of what the world looked like on April 30, 2015:
Donald Trump was still just a mediocre real estate developer and reality TV star. (He wouldn’t ride a Trump Tower escalator to his presidential campaign announcement for another month and a half.)
Sanders rarely made the Sunday morning news shows. (Though he’d served in Congress for 25 years, Sanders didn’t score an invite to NBC’s “Meet the Press” until September 2014. By 2016, he was the most frequent guest on all of the Sunday shows.)
Prince was alive.
So was David Bowie.
Ariel Quiros and Bill Stenger were running Jay Peak Resort. And Peter Shumlin was governor of Vermont.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18,035 points. (In the 1,000 days since, it has climbed 45 percent, to roughly 26,200 points.)
Josh Earnest was White House press secretary — and nobody had ever heard of Anthony Scaramucci.
Gay marriage was illegal in many states. (And Justice Antonin Scalia, who would dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized it, was still living.)
But one thing hasn’t changed since April 30, 2015: Sen. Bernie Sanders was and remains Vermont’s junior United States senator. And it’s still his responsibility to speak with the press.
Correction, August 14, 2019: The NASA spacecraft and the planet it crashed into were misidentified in an earlier version of this story.
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I guess this story won out over another fellate the mayor piece. Thanks, Vermont’s “independent” voice. I can’t wait to read the piece slamming the boy who rejected you for the prom.
@ Philo
I think you mean, this story won out over yet another article giving free, undeserved publicity to Bernies stepdaughters campaign for Mayor. You know, the woman who is collecting left wing endorsements without actually saying why shes running. You know, the woman whose sole reason for running is because she thinks she can win because shes Bernies stepdaughter.
Stories in 7D about a black man running for Mayor: 1
Stories in 7D about a celebrity white woman running for Mayor with no known platform: 4.
The free press can’t go around questioning Der Kommissar
Seven Days, particularly Paula Routly needs to get over itself/herself. Maybe then it can grow up beyond the provincial, self-serving publication that it is.
I am sure Bernie has his reasons, but my personal experience is that Seven Days would not even print a respectful letter to the editor about biomass simply because the content did not fit the editors world view.
Chris Matera
Are you gonna pretend you dont know why, Seven Days? I love you guys, you are my favorite local new source, but this is a whiny pity party
You went and made an article where you interviewed a bunch of Bernies old disgruntled co-workers and gave them a lot of space to trash him. There were some pretty terrible things said in that article. Theres reporting and theres opposition research and maybe you dont know the difference? As a news organization you need to ask yourselves why the other news didnt go this route. Answer: because its trashy tabloid crap. So Bernie decided to speak to other news orgs and I cannot blame him at all. You Berned your bridge. GET OVER IT
Before too many more people comment defending Bernie because of what Seven Days has of has not published, let’s back up:
The Free Press:
* The free press is an extension of the people.
* Generally, reputable papers strive to publish unbiased articles.
* “Unbiased” does not mean “without a viewpoint” because everybody has a viewpoint
* “Unbiased” does mean to accurately represent facts and to only represent facts for which it can cite reputable sources
* the free press has a duty to publish stories that fall into under the public interest
* sometimes public interest stories will be negative and sometimes they will be positive. Always they would be unbiased.
Elected Officials:
* Elected Officials, including U.S. Senators represent the people who elected them.
* Because the free press are an extension of the people they represent, they have a duty to talk to the free press.
* It does not matter what the story is, Elected Officials, in their official capacity, represent the people’s interest, not their own personal interest.
Sanders is a fraud who accomplishes little for the people of Vermont. I wish that weren’t true, but it is. He’s a bit like his presidential campaign: a lot of the same talk over and over, with nothing to show for it ion the end. There’s more than one emperor in this country right now without any clothes on.
Bernie does not do interviews with Vermont publications because Bernie does not care about Vermonters. Vermonters only pay his salary other than that he has no need for Vermonters.
#timetovotethebaldguysout
He wont talk to Seven Days? Lucky, lucky 7 days! Its too bad the rest of us cant say the same! Sanders insipid ramblings have been going on for years with nothing to show for it. The man is a nasty, mean, piece of work who doesnt have a practical bone in his body. Vermonters need to wake up, Sanders is running a long con on the people of Vermont.
Feel the Bern, 7 Days, feel the Bern!
Cute article, and nice reminder of how much better life was back in 2015!
Maybe it’s just his way of making a statement about you two gals taking money from American Aparrel ..Not taking a stance of woman abuse practices is seldom attractive
Copied from a previous comment from “Who Elected You”:
Are you gonna pretend you dont know why, Seven Days? I love you guys, you are my favorite local new source, but this is a whiny pity party
You went and made an article where you interviewed a bunch of Bernies old disgruntled co-workers and gave them a lot of space to trash him. There were some pretty terrible things said in that article. Theres reporting and theres opposition research and maybe you dont know the difference? As a news organization you need to ask yourselves why the other news didnt go this route. Answer: because its trashy tabloid crap. So Bernie decided to speak to other news orgs and I cannot blame him at all. You Berned your bridge. GET OVER IT
Actually, Jack Mccourt, you did not copy and past that text from me. Please don’t falsely attribute such stupidity to my name. Thanks.
Also, Jack, maybe if you read for facts, you wouldn’t be so angry at Seven Days. Just say’n.
Bernie aligned himself with the Democratic Party just to be able to complete in the election process, no great love of any of them, including Leahy and Welch who may well soon have some explaining to do of their own with their engineering in the mess of our government. The Democratic Party is now seen as a criminal syndicate, taking money from the public, ignoring their bylaws and carter to cheat and steel for Hillary by pilfering money contributed to Sanders. He then flipflopped and trotted along to support Hitlery. Was he paid off? The suspicion is, yes, of course, and he enjoys yet another home in Vermont. And yes, his better half is under investigation. Well, some of us have had way too much of him, and the further he stays out of the press the better for all.
A course The Socialist refuse to talk to 7 days, because, in his pea size brain 7 days isn’t big enough for him to bother with.. Maybe if 7 days would pay him off like Clinton did he would talk, you know how those Sanders like money, even the stepdaughter. To me and a lot of others the more we don’t hear his pea brain mind the better.
7 days don’t waste your time with the socialist blowhard. After all, he did vote to shut down the Government…
We need to say Bye Bye Sanders, go back to NY where you belong.!!!
Whose Bernie Afraid of at Seven Days ?
Well let’s look at the question carefully ! VTDigger has political pussy cats like Mark Johnson throwing softballs while Seven Days has real reporters like Paul Heintz and John Walters on the beat – Is there any question why the duplicitous and self-absorbed Bernie refuses to sit down with the 7 Days folks ?
Seven Days reporters have a better chance of getting an interview with Elvis than the “recluse” Senator Sanders !
“Sanders still hasn’t taken an interview with Seven Days.
Why not? Is it because Seven Days was the first Vermont news outlet to raise questions, in June 2015, about whether his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, committed federal loan fraud during her presidency of Burlington College? “
Ding ding ding – I think we have a winner !
It would be interesting to know just how much money Bernie received from the Clintons.
Bernie has burned middle class Vermonters so badly that we dont want to hear any thing about him in any publication. Be glad he ignores you. Try to ignore him.
To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw: We all know what Bernie is; were just quibbling over the price.
If only Bernie would actually keep his fat mouth shut. NO MORE FREEBIES BERNIE!!!!