Is anyone else sick and tired of the speeding ticket story? When the largest and therefore most influential newspaper in our moderate to left-leaning state belongs to Gannett Press, can we expect anything else?  Jim Douglas can thank his multiple terms of office largely to the oxymoronic “Free” Press.  Argue as they might that the Freeps is a “local” newspaper, the fact remains that a vast out-of-state corporate empire with a right-leaning agenda controls our front page news.

We can take polls and make projections; we can extrapolate how the “independents” will break; but on November 2, the outcome may well depend on the perpetual “undecideds,” many of whom tell persuasion callers quite frankly that they’ll make-up their minds as they enter the voting booth.  It’s not difficult to guess that those voters will abdicate their responsibility for an informed decision to the front page that they glance at as they drink their morning coffee.

You won’t get much front-page real estate dedicated to Brian Dubie’s whopper about the non-violent offenders’ list, a true character barometer if ever there was one; but you will get a week’s worth of front-page speculation on Shumlin’s paid and uncontested speeding ticket!

For all the posturing superior that print journalists do as they stand proudly at the bow of their sinking ship, with independent papers largely a thing of the past and unbiased news coverage a myth there is little to be smug about.