Vermont’s online political arena moved a notch to the left Tuesday as the state’s most prominent conservative blog, Vermont Tiger, announced it’s ceasing regular publication.
Dorset writer and editor Geoffrey Norman (pictured right; photo by Lee Krohn), who launched the blog in January 2007, said that competing professional and family obligations are forcing him to scale back from posting new content on a daily basis.
“I made a point when I started this thing: there was going to be something fresh up every day and there was — including the day my mother died,” he says.
Over the years, the blog has featured a host of voices promoting free market principles, including University of Vermont economist Art Woolf, Ethan Allen Institute president John McClaughry and St. Albans Messenger publisher Emerson Lynn.
Though Norman moved to Vermont nearly 35 years ago, the Alabama native told Seven Days in 2010 that he didn’t start paying attention to Vermont politics until his property taxes tripled in 2006.
Norman says that after years training his fire on many of the same issues — Vermont Yankee, Act 160, Act 250 — he’s struggled recently to find fresh things to write.
“I just wonder if I have anything original to say about them,” he says.
Woolf, one of the site’s more prolific contributors, feels the same.
“I thought I was repeating myself from things I’d written months or even years ago,” he says. “It’s just a little case of burnout after five years of doing this. The mood wasn’t striking me as often as it has in the past.”
The site will remain online and both men say they’ll write every now and again — “when the mood strikes me,” as Woolf says. Norman characterized it as “a kind of modified sabbatical.”
Vermont Tiger’s semi-retirement is the latest shift in the state’s ever-evolving online news and commentary arena. The Tiger was one of five sites featured in a January 2010 profile of up-and-coming online outlets written by Seven Days’ Cathy Resmer. Now three of them are gone: Vermont Daily News’ Alden Pellett moved on to become a producer at WCAX-TV. Vermont News Guy’s Jim Margolis folded up shop in November 2010 and became a columnist at VTDigger, another of the sites profiled.
VTDigger, which was founded by former Barre-Montpelier Times Argus editor Anne Galloway, has thrived in the years since, adding staff and freelancers and closely covering Statehouse doings. A fifth site profiled in the piece, the liberal blog Green Mountain Daily, remains active — despite recent personnel changes: publisher John Odum stepped back from the site after being elected Montpelier City Clerk and front-pager Julie Waters passed away.
Eddie Garcia, a Green Mountain Daily cofounder who regularly posts on the site, says that he, for one, isn’t sad to see Vermont Tiger go.
“So what? No one reads it anyway. They don’t really have any effect on the political sphere here,” he says. “Conservatives historically don’t do as well with social media as liberals do — for the same reason they do so well with AM radio and Fox News: because these are one-way shout channels. Conservative messaging comes from the top.”
Norman, for one, says he disappointed by the dearth of conservative voices in Vermont — online, in print and in office — but he’s hopeful others will step up to fill the void.
“I grew up in a one-party state. I’m from Alabama. There was a time when if you could find a Republican in Alabama, you could shoot him and claim a bounty,” he says. “I think it’s unfortunate and not healthy for the state of Vermont that we’re moving toward one-party government. That is hugely enabled by the media of the state.”
So has Norman enjoyed his time in the blogosphere?
“Enormously. I’ve been in media since 1969 and this is one of the most fun things I’ve done. Vermont is a fascinating place, and I’m not through writing about Vermont.”
This article appears in May 16-22, 2012.
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Eric Garcia is wrong, the passing of the Tiger will have an impact on Vermont politics. Without the Tiger we will have to rely on the “Rag of Caledonia” for a look into the world of Vermont conservatism and that is not a very reliable source. Plus, no one does read the Rag. Geoff Norman is also wrong in his thinking that Vermont is rapidly becomimg a one-party state. The Democratic party in the state in itself is at least two parties, one blue dog (aka moderate Republican) and one almost Democrat. Aside from a couple of social issues one is hard pressed to define the real differences between and among Dean, Douglas and Shumlin. Those sociai differences are important, very important; but have little impact on economic growth, job development and so on.
Best line of the article is “Norman says that after years training his fire on many of the same issues — Vermont Yankee, Act 160, Act 250 — he’s struggled recently to find fresh things to write.” Conservatives really have run of things to say, and they admit it. Bye bye.
“I made a point when I started this thing: there was going to be
something fresh up every day and there was — including the day my mother
died,” he says.
This tells me everything I need to know about Geoffrey Norman.
oh, and also that he lives in Dorset and thinks he lives in Vermont.
Kinda hard to take anything you say seriously when you can’t even get my name right after seeing it in print. And, by the way, Geoff Norman is a regularly featured contributor at the Caledonian, which I read on a daily basis (occupational hazard), contrasted with Tiger, which I looked at maybe four times in the course of the last 12 months.
-kestrel9000, on the off chance you didn’t know……
Just found out they even existed, that’s a bummer.
Cutting through all the economic and
regulatory arguments of Geoff Norman, Art Woolf, John McClaughry, et al., this,
from a leading and early 20th century progressive best describes the
noble fight of these men and of the millions of men and women who gave their
lives in past wars in securing and defending the freedoms bequeathed to us by our
forefathers; freedoms that Vermont’s Progressive-Democratic Party now wants to usurp
as it attempts to enslave an entire people, aided and abetted by the vast
majority of Vermont’s major media outlets, two of these larger outlets include the
Burlington Free Press and WCAX:
– “In a word, man is regarded now… as primarily
a member of society and secondarily as an individual. The rights which he [an
individual] possesses are, it is believed, conferred upon him, not by his
Creator [God], but rather by the society to which he belongs. What they are
[man’s rights] is to be determined by the legislative authority [government] in
view of the needs of that society. Social expediency, rather than natural
right, is thus to determine the sphere of individual freedom of action.”
– Frank Goodnow, Leading 20th
century Progressive and former president of John Hopkins University, “The
American Conception of Liberty,” 1916
If you looked at the Tiger maybe four times, the why do you feel qualified to talk about it.
“No one reads it anyway. They don’t really have any effect on the political sphere here,”
You obviously have zero clue about who reads it and what effect it has, you don’t even visit it. But hey, what do you expect from the founder of GMD… talking out their ass and making shit up… as long as it sounds good.
Kind of makes it hard to take anything you say seriously Eric.
@ Lassy2: Hey, Comrade, Annette Smith lives in Dorset and she thinks she OWNS Vermont.
How irrelevant of you.
Youre the one who irrelevantly — and arrogantly — stated that someone who lives in Dorset doesn’t live in Vermont. What does that have to do with the Tiger? Nothing. Do you know the meaning of the word hypocritical?
On that subject, it’s actually Burlington, not Dorset, that isn’t in Vermont, my arrogant Prog friend. And have you lived here for 35 years, Comrade?
And newsflash: Dorset is closer to our state’s capital than is the home of our own Vladimir Putin, the millionaire, fast-talking, speeding-ticket-evading, crony-capitalism-loving Peter Shumlin.
What, that you’re morally superior to him? We already knew that.
I’m sure his dead mother would be glad he saved time to make a political statement on the day she died. I think that makes most people morally superior to him.
You don’t have any idea what his mother would or would not have wanted. So far, you’ve attacked him: a) for putting up a post on the day his mother died (which is none of your business to make moral judgments on), and for the fact that he lives in Dorset (simply a foolish thing to say). Congratulations for your substantive commentary.
But, again, we all know that Progs are morally superior to everyone else.