I’d say I never underestimate the power of Vermont’s largest daily newspaper to disappoint us… except that every time I lower my expectations, the Freeploid goes even lower. Two examples Ripped From The Headlines:

1. They’re not nearly done celebrating their new, scenic, smaller and cheaper headquarters. A couple days ago I chronicled the total wankfest that was the Sunday Freeploid, with eight solid pages devoted to intense self-pleasuring. In response, GMD commenter “minotaur” contributed the following:

As someone who uses Twitter as their primary news feed, the last 24 hours was basically me scrolling past spam. The local reporters I follow to find out what’s going on in VT (especially when I’m traveling out of state) decided (I assume based on editor/publisher directive) to stop reporting actual news, and instead tweet views of Lake Champlain from their new offices.

Brilliant. The ‘Loid didn’t do enough to rub it into our faces in the Sunday paper with seven color photographs of their new office’s viewscape; they had their staff spend their Monday Tweeting more pictures. Good God almighty.

2. Today’s prime example of civic journalism on the Freeploid’s homepage: the reader poll. Perhaps the thin atmosphere in their new seventh-story digs is getting to their brains, because if you judge by the poll question, somebody up there thinks it’s 1963:

Now, if that isn’t hate-trolling at its finest, I don’t know what is. Given the typical caliber of newspaper comment sections, the last thing the Freeploid needs is to Awaken The Trolls. BurlingtonFreePress.com is already well-infested, thank you very much.  

And its online readership — or at least the portion thereof that wastes its time answering online polls — doesn’t disappoint. As of this writing, 58% believe that King Day should not be a public holiday.

Good old progressive Vermont.

Well, to be fair, some of those 58% are probably less concerned with pissing on Dr. King’s grave than with shitting on public-sector workers. The question is phrased in a way that lends itself to the popular pastime of government-worker-bashing. Note, for instance, that the question curiously omits banks from its list of MLK Day Moochers.

But the very act of running this as a poll… what exactly is the point? What could this poll question possibly do to advance civic discourse?

I know, I know: the Freeploid doesn’t give a damn about any of that. It’s all about the clicky-clicks.

Honestly, maybe now the Masters of the Seventh Floor could dispense with the wankfest and turn their attention to producing a quality product that reflects a dedication to the public good.

For a change.