(Cross-posted at Broadsides.org)

I’ve been homebound a bit more than I’d like lately. First, with a hideous chest cold and now to avoid the soggy ground and attempt to get some inside work done. And being inside for me usually means being a slave to the radio – talk radio to be precise.

In Central Vermont, local talk radio means WDEV to me. But I’m not sure how much more I can take – especially in the morning – as Mark Johnson of the not-so-cleverly-named “Mark Johnson Show” seems hell-bent in his milquetoast pursuit of playing the media lapdog to Vermont’s power elite.

If you’ve ever listened to Johnson, you’ll know what I’m talking about: He approaches his media role not like a probing reporter but more like a member – if not a leading member – of an insider’s club of Vermont’s media, economic and political elite. In other words, Johnson takes the exact opposite path of what the late, great Joseph Pulitzer saw as the true goal of the “fourth estate’: To have no friends.

For two hours a day, five days a week, Johnson brings forth a steady stream of his fellow club members, exchanging pleasant guffaws with them and lobbing softballs in their general direction, seemingly not bothered by the shallowness of it all. It is, after all, what maintains his membership to the “club.” Because we all know the quickest way to get kicked out of the Vermont media and political elite is to actually ask some tough questions of your fellow members. Bye-bye invites to “Vermont This Week,” for sure. And so long to those 15-minute puff-pieces with Leahy/Sanders/Welch/Douglas where allowing them to regurgitate their talking points masquerades as an “interview.”

If Johnson ever does demonstrate disdain for anyone, it’s usually the poor fool who dares to call into his show and criticize the media. Johnson will not tolerate it. Never mind that the Vermont media is an atrophied shadow of what the media really should be (and getting worse by the week given the layoffs and cutbacks), Johnson will not let even the mildest media critique get by without either a hang-up and/or a stern rebuke.

Most recently, for example, the leader of the Vermont Senate, Peter Shumlin, was a guest on Johnson’s show to discuss the Democratic leadership’s decision to put gay marriage on its priority list for this current session. The all-too-frequent and curmudgeonly old-guy callers (do these guys ever work?) to his show bombarded Shumlin with the Republican talking points, declaring that the gay marriage issue was a “distraction” to the real matters (read: economic) facing the state.

Shumlin hung in there quite admirably, trying – time and time again – to point out that the gay marriage bill wasn’t really taking up much time and, nevertheless, was merely one bill among dozens and dozens that the legislature was more than capable of considering.

But Shumlin crossed the Johnson line when he dared to venture into even the mildest of mild media criticism. “Well,” declared an almost exasperated Shumlin, “we held a press conference yesterday about our latest economic plan but you wouldn’t know it because the media didn’t cover it.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” interjected Johnson, “before you start criticizing the media…”

And Shumlin, being the good club member himself, knew that he had to back down, allowing Johnson’s rebuke to stand while shelving his very reasonable critique of the Vermont media and allowing its embarrassingly shallow coverage of the Statehouse go unchecked.

But Johnson’s at his all-time worst when he’s interviewing a fellow media club member. Take, for example, his interview today with WCAX’s Marselis Parsons. Johnson invited Parsons on after he read the news that Vermont’s own media dinosaur was considering retiring. The ensuing interview was little more than a mutual admiration love-fest: “Don’t you love what you do?”

Um, excuse me fellas, but you’re members of the media. So why don’t you loosen up your lover’s embrace long enough to ask a hard question in these incredibly hard times. You know, something like: How did the Vermont media completely blow it when it comes to the economic crisis? And why don’t we hold some of our life-long political figures accountable for fiddling while our economy burned?

Instead, we got things like: “Wow, you’ve been there for 42 years?” “I’ve only been around for half that time.” “Does it feel like it’s been that long?” “Tell me about your favorite interview?”

That, my friends, is how you remain in the club: lob softballs at your fellow club members, make no waves, and fantasize about all the accolades that might come your way after 42-years of doing little but shilling for the power elite. Oh yeah, Mark, you’re halfway there…

If Johnson ever does show disdain, it’s almost always for those who dare to criticize the media or hold Vermont politicians accountable. Instead of probing the power elite, Johnson acts as a firewall to seemingly protect them – thus assuring more bland interviews with his clubmates. “Tell me, Senator Leahy, how does it feel to be so powerful?” Yawn.

The only disdain Johnson ever shows is almost exclusively for those who dare to put a spotlight on the miserable state of the Vermont media. He simply won’t tolerate it. Much like he won’t tolerate any true people-based attempt to hold his poltical friends accountable for their dithering and/or outright assistance in bringing about the mess we’re currently in as a state and a nation.

Sadly, Johnson’s a proud member of the insider’s club and he’s not going to risk his next attempt to crawl into the laps of fellow members by – gasp! – asking some uncomfortable questions of them. There are rules, you know.

Johnson, of course, is no different than almost all of his fellow Vermont media brethren. They know how to keep buttering their bread, even if it means totally and completely bastardizing the real role of the media: Standing outside of the club so as to ask the tough questions and demand the real answers.

But one thing is for sure: Johnson gets his phone calls returned, especially when those on the other end know that little more than lobs will be coming their way. “Tell me, Senator Sanders, how does it feel to be so popular?”

Or maybe he’s just being honest because, after all, it is called the “Mark Johnson Show.” And it is, indeed, all about Mark Johnson and his cozy friendships with those who are willing to trade back-scratches and belly-rubs. Anything, that is, but make waves….

Sorry, Mr. Pulitzer, it’s a whole different era.

{The author can be reached at mcolby@broadsides.org}

From m-w.com:

id-i-ot…  Middle English, from Anglo-French ydiote, from Latin idiota ignorant person…

A large group of professional organizations have come out in support of same-sex marriage:

Same-sex marriage rights got an endorsement Monday from four Vermont professional organizations who cited research findings that “children of lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents to flourish.”

[…]

Their statement, which comes as the Vermont legislature prepares to consider same-sex marriage legislation, was released at a news conference called by the Vermont Psychological Association, the Vermont Psychiatric Association, the Vermont Association of Mental Health Counselors and the Vermont chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

This, however, is not good enough for everybody:

Steve Cable is the founder of the Vermont Marriage Advisory Council, a group opposed to gay marriage. The lack of any landmark study tracking the outcomes of children raised in same-sex households, Cable said, makes it impossible to determine how they fare. The groups’ endorsement of gay marriage, he said, uses inconclusive science to justify a political agenda.

First, I find it really funny to see Cable talking about science, as though he gives a damn what science actually says.  Ditto for the use of it as a political agenda.

Cable said large-scale studies have proven one fact – that children raised by a married mother and father achieve measurably better outcomes than children reared in nonconventional families.

So let’s talk about the actual science here.  Studies have shown that children raised by married parents do better than children raised by divorced parents, and that children raised by married parents do better than children raised by single parents.

A sidenote here: this does not mean that divorce is the problem.  It could be that being raised by parents who are not a good fit for one another isn’t the best thing for kids.  The divorce itself may just be a byproduct.  We also know that children do better when both parents present a consistent message, and though some divorced couples are great about this, there are probably more divorced couples who present an inconsistent message than married couples, if for no other reason than simplicity of contact.

Now, as far as the science goes, Cable is doing something a bit slimy here.  He is pretending that same-sex marriage is the functional equivalent of divorce:

Jackie Winestock, associate professor of human and family development at UVM, is quoted in the same article:

However, Weinstock said it’s inappropriate to assume that children raised by gay couples will mirror the statistical outcomes of those raised by single parents or divorced parents.

She pointed to a 2004 policy statement by the American Psychological Association, which concluded that “conscientious and nurturing adults … homosexual or heterosexual, can be excellent parents. The rights, benefits and protections of civil marriage,” according to the statement, “can further strengthen these families.”

An American Academy of Pediatrics study, meanwhile, concluded there is “ample evidence” to show that “children raised by same-gender parents fare as well as those raised by heterosexual parents.”

Cable is not an idiot.  He knows how to manipulate things to pretend they suit his agenda.  

What Cable is doing here is appealing to a cadre of useful idiots: trying to pretend that science supports him, giving them cover for their bigotry.  

Facts are on our side here, and he’s going to lose, eventually, but the real question is whether it will be in months, years, or decades.

Vermont was on the right side of history when this first came up, before anyone else in the union was.  Now is not the time to end up on the wrong side.