So many travelers and commuters were thoroughly outraged by the placement of a Christmas tree and a wreath on the Holland Tunnel’s New Jersey entrance — where a tree was haphazardly installed over the “N” in “Holland” instead of over the “A” and a wreath was put over the “U” in “Tunnel” — that they started a petition. On Tuesday, they prevailed: The tree and wreath will be moved to a more logical location (that is, to the letters they more closely resemble, and in the case of the wreath, it will come down entirely). The New York Times has the story:
“More than 80 percent voted for change, so change there will be,” Rick Cotton, the agency’s executive director, said in a news conference outside the tunnel’s entrance.
The agency will also remove one of the wreaths from the U in “Tunnel,” where it obscured the letter, essentially turning it into an O, effectively making the sign read “HOLLAAD TONNEL.”
Boston Red Sox fans celebrate while watching a televised Game 5 World Series baseball game in a bar, in Boston, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018, moments after the Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1, in Los Angeles, to win the series 4 games to 1. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Seven Days’ Cathy Resmer will be moderating the panel with four people whose jobs didn’t exist 10 years ago: Phayvanh Luekhamhan, director of business development, finance and administration at VTDigger; VPR reporter Liam Elder-Connors; Seven Days digital editor Andrea Suozzo; and yours truly, Valley News web editor and UV INDEX sandwich expert.
Here’s the description:
Vermont’s media outlets still employ reporters and editors, but they also need data crunchers, podcast editors, online community managers and web video producers. In this panel discussion, staffers from some of the state’s largest and most innovative media outlets explain what they do, where they learned to do it, and how they keep up with whatever’s next.
The Associated Press posted this video last week, when we were on hiatus, so we are sharing it now. Kiah Morris, Vermont’s first black female legislator, stepped down earlier this year:
After she won the Democratic primary for re-election to the state Legislature in 2016, someone tweeted a cartoon caricature of a black person at her, along with a vulgar phrase rendered in ebonics. The tweeter threatened to come to rallies and stalk her, Morris said. She won a protective order against him but once that expired, the harassment continued, she said.
The harassment escalated into a break-in while the family was home, vandalism and death threats seen by her young son. Even after she announced she wouldn’t seek re-election, despite running unopposed, a group of youths pounded on her windows and doors at night, forcing her and her husband, convalescing after heart surgery, to leave town.
In this Oct. 3, 2018, photograph, Kiah Morris, a former Vermont state representative, discusses threats and harassment she’s faced, during an interview in Bennington, Vt. Morris, the only black woman in the Vermont legislature, has resigned. (AP Photo/Lisa Rathke)
New England, including the Twin States and a sunrise over New York, starts at 2:54. Can you recognize the Upper Valley locations in New London and Enfield, and just outside our coverage area in Reading, Vt.?
Shot by Ian Avery-Leaf (but I mean, really, “Leaf” ? ? ? ?) and posted around this time last year. “Although I didn’t catch peak foliage no matter how hard I chased it,” he wrote, “I found the pre-peak early changers, and the post-peak trees barely hanging onto summer, to be just as beautiful.”
In the weeks leading up to Kavanaugh’s confirmation this week, which senators are expected to vote on this morning, fact-checking projects like The Washington Post Fact Checker and Snopes started debunking viral social media rumors about Kavanaugh, Ford and sexual assault. Journalists at outlets like The New York Times, which recently launched an anti-misinformation project, and BuzzFeed News also documented wide-reaching hoaxes.
“Our emphasis in covering the hearings is giving readers clarity and context about what they’re seeing and hearing,” said Angie Holan, editor of (Poynter-owned) PolitiFact in a message. “It’s an important moment in the confirmation process, but we can’t assume that all readers are familiar with the issues or process.”
Still, the hearings have proved to be a little harder to fact-check than the traditional political event. And that’s because there’s still a lot that journalists don’t know, Holan said.
Click here to read the full piece with links to fact-checking projects.
Christine Blasey Ford, seated, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, September 27, 2018 on Capitol Hill. (Melina Mara /The Washington Post via AP, Pool)
