Oboy, oboy! Let there be dancing in the streets! The Green Mountain State now has its own putrid little outlet for James O’Keefe-style “new journalism” devoted to exposing the excesses of the public sector!

It’s called Vermont Watchdog, and its arrival was trumpeted almost two weeks ago by Robert Maynard of True North Reports. (Sorry, I don’t check TNR very often because it so rarely posts new material. Example: the aforementioned post, dated November 22, is still at the top of the TNR homepage. Sad.)

So what is Vermont Watchdog? It’s one of a bunch of cookie-cutter state “journalism” projects funded and controlled by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a 501c3 nonprofit that’s definitely in the Koch Brothers/Americans for Prosperity/ALEC collection of popup institutions that push hard-right ideology. And, thanks to the regulations governing 501c3’s, don’t reveal their funding sources.

To give you an idea of The Franklin Center’s journalistic bona fides, it frequently employs the notorious James O’Keefe as a speaker and trainer of would-be far-right muckrakers. Yep, it’s hoping to raise up a whole generation of O’Keefes, God help us all.

VW’s reporter, and sole staffer, is a nice young man named Jon Street. I know he’s young, ‘cuz he just graduated last year, and I know he’s nice ‘cuz he attended an oppressively Christian college, and all those folks are just shittin’ niceness. Since getting his sheepskin, he’s been a busy little bee, according to his Franklin Center bio:

Jon has worked in a variety of media environments, from covering Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to handling digital marketing for a Fortune 500 company. His previous works have been featured on The Drudge Report, Fox Nation, and discussed on air by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

Mmmmmyep, I think I know what kind of “journalism” we can expect from Young Mr. Street.  

Oh, and about that college education: he’s a proud graduate of Missouri Baptist University, a strongly Evangelical institution. How strongly? Here are some comments by students and parents posted at College Prowler, a website for information and reviews about colleges and universities:

Since my school is a Baptist School,there isn’t any parties nor dances on campus as there would be with non-religious schools. However, they do have religious events and other things of that sort on campus for people who enjoy things like that.

… Very little things can students get away with, no walking with someone of the opposite sex at night! No hand holding

… Alcohol is not allowed…period. This is not your typical University. When you sign on to attend, you sign an agreement to the rules you will be held to uphold. I don’t live on campus, but my daughter was offered a scholarship there and we learned of many ‘rules’ that you had to strictly adhere to, and one of theme was that all main campus students WILL attend chapel every Thursday, it’s not optional.

… The religious environment is really pushed on non-religious students and at times it is uncomfortable.

It remains to be seen what kind of impact Young Mr. Street will have on the humanistic wasteland that is Montpelier, because he hasn’t yet written a damn thing for Vermont Watchdog. Maybe he’s house-hunting. Or maybe his MoBap-trained purity has already been corrupted by the countercultural blandishments of My Fair City.

So far, all the items posted on Vermont Watchdog — all four of ’em — were written by one Yael Ossowski, another Young Conservative Snot who apparently lives in Vienna, Austria. To judge from reading his Vermont Watchdog posts, he’s clearly scanning the wires for news items about Big Government and rewriting them with his brand of spin. That’s a long ways away from the brand of reporting promised by the Franklin Center:

Our established investigative journalists and capitol news reporters across the country are doing what legacy journalism outlets prove unable to do: share information, dive deep into investigations, and provide the fourth estate that has begun to fade in recent decades. …Watchdog.org promotes a vibrant, well-informed electorate and a more transparent government.

Yeah, when pigs fly.