Congratulations to “Mr. Microphone,” VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld, for taking home the About Damn Time Award for Journalistic Creativity, given whenever I feel like it by… er… me.

The award is bestowed for Hirschfeld’s amazing accomplishment of doing a story on health care reform WITHOUT resorting to tireless quote machine Darcie “Hack” Johnston. Instead, he used HCR skeptic and Chamber of Commerce head Betsy Bishop, and HCR opponent and House Minority Leader Don Turner, both of whom are far more central to Vermont’s policy debate than the Hack, whose sole qualifications are (a) heading an underfunded, one-person anti-reform policy shop, and (b) being instantly available for any reporter at any time.

As it says in the title of the award, it’s About Damn Time.