Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, along with tools that measure readership on every VTDigger article, make it easy to see which stories resonate the most with our audience.
Earlier this week, we posted our editors’ picks for the most significant stories of 2017 and a selection of pieces about inspiring Vermonters. This list represents the top VTDigger articles of the year, as chosen by you. We tallied up the page views on every article and took into account the shares, comments and reactions we see on social media. Here’s what you picked:
Top stories on VTDigger.org
1. Investigating Burlington College
VTDigger’s coverage of the federal investigation into Jane Sanders’ tenure as president of Burlington College accounted for five out of the 10 most-read stories on the site this year. The story that confirmed the FBI inquiry was picked up by sites including The Washington Post, The New York Post and the Drudge Report. Later stories also made national news, including interviews with former college employees and donors, information about Sanders’ legal team, and a deep dive into allegations of nepotism around the college’s arrangement with a woodworking school run by Sanders’ daughter, Carina Driscoll.
2. A body found in Poultney
Alexandra Rooker, a 26-year-old woman from Fair Haven, was reported missing on March 8. One week later, police found her body wrapped in a tarp in a shed behind Wayne Oddo’s home in Poultney. Oddo later said he believed Rooker died of a drug overdose and that he didn’t know what to do with the body. He admitted that Rooker’s remains sat near his back door while police interrogated him on his porch, just days after her death. Federal prosecutors initially charged Oddo for being a drug user in possession of a firearm, but after further investigation, they added two new felonies: impeding a police investigation and unauthorized burial or removal of a body.
3. A father’s tragedy
When John Halligan’s son Ryan killed himself in 2003, it opened the father’s eyes to the world of cyberbullying Ryan faced every day. Two years later, Halligan told his son’s story at a high school in Jericho, which led to some 3,000 school assemblies and counting. He spoke to VTDigger in March ahead of a series of engagements in his home state, and readers helped him spread Ryan’s story far and wide. “Every school here in VT needs to hear this,” one commenter wrote.
4. A corrections officer falls
In 2015, Corey Beaudet was honored as Vermont’s Corrections Officer of the Year. Two years later, he died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Another officer, Craig Sabourin, died in a similar incident just months earlier. Both apparent suicides put a spotlight on the difficulties that corrections staff face every day, which lead to above-average rates of post-traumatic stress and suicide. “The job beats good people down hard,” wrote Stanley Wood, a commenter who said he had worked with both officers.
5. Marchers take Montpelier
In what may have been the largest demonstration ever in Vermont’s capital, thousands of people gathered on the Statehouse lawn to protest the policies of the newly inaugurated U.S. president, Donald Trump. VTDigger’s recap of the event, which included quotes from attendees, a photo gallery and audio of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ surprise address, was one of the year’s most widely shared stories across multiple platforms.
6. Jared and Ivanka land in Vermont
A report that the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were visiting Barnard’s Twin Farms resort actually originated on Instagram: A blurry photo of a helicopter that appeared to be Donald Trump’s coincided with rumors that the couple was vacationing nearby. Between the cellphone image and another photo captured by Geoff Hansen of the Valley News, VTDigger was able to confirm that the aircraft was indeed a Trump family chopper. As Middlebury professor emeritus Eric Davis noted on Twitter, and VTDigger history columnist Mark Bushnell expanded on, the reports placed the vacationing couple at a historic location: the home where author Sinclair Lewis penned his cautionary novel about fascism in America, “It Can’t Happen Here.”
7. Scott sets priorities
Gov. Phil Scott’s first budget address to lawmakers in January set the scene for a legislative session that would repeatedly return to education financing. The speech drew early criticism from House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, who said Scott’s budget proposal put “irresponsible” pressure on the state’s education fund.
8. A traffic stop goes viral
In August, Rabbi Berl Fink and his family were pulled over for speeding on Interstate 91 in Fairlee. What happened next was initially unclear. VTDigger’s report on the traffic stop garnered both anger and skepticism: Some readers concurred with New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s allegation that troopers discriminated against the Jewish family in using overly aggressive tactics, while others hesitated to pass judgment without evidence. When we acquired and published the full dashcam video two weeks later, over 400,000 viewers — our biggest YouTube audience to date — were able to weigh the driver’s initial failure to pull over against the officers’ response. While Trooper Justin Thompson was cleared of wrongdoing, Fink plans to fight a charge of attempting to elude police.
9. The Great Hosmer Pond debate
A debate over the use of motorized boats on Great Hosmer Pond had readers choosing sides: Some agreed with the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, which said motorized boats disrupted scullers and rowers, while others sided with Sarah George, who claimed the scullers were monopolizing the water. Though she said she was acting as a private citizen, George’s stature as the state’s attorney for Chittenden County colored the conversation.
10. “Cats and chaos” in Coventry
In a wrapup of VTDigger’s coverage of embezzlement allegations in the Northeast Kingdom town of Coventry, Selectboard member Scott Morley provided an insider’s perspective on what he observed while Treasurer Cynthia Diaz fought officials over the town’s finances.
Top Facebook posts
1. Trump’s travel ban
Vermont officials have vocally opposed numerous policy changes brought by President Donald Trump’s administration, but no single action garnered more of a response from readers than Trump’s initial executive order to close the U.S. borders to people from seven Muslim nations. VTDigger’s piece on the responses from Gov. Phil Scott, Attorney General TJ Donovan and Rep. Peter Welch kicked off a lengthy conversation that made this our most-shared Facebook post of the year.
2. Leahy spars with Sessions
“There’s no way I can support him,” Sen. Patrick Leahy said in January of then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, who at the time was awaiting confirmation to become attorney general of the United States. Leahy’s interview with VTDigger ahead of the vote drew hundreds of reactions from Facebook readers. After Sessions was confirmed, Leahy continued to press him over the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, while other Vermont officials face off with Sessions’ Justice Department over immigration policies.
3. Should Vermont consider SIFs?
Last month, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George held a press conference to announce the findings of a commission that studied whether safe injection facilities, where drug users can inject substances under medical supervision, could work in Vermont. The answer was a resounding yes: “It was not so much a question of whether we should do this,” she said, “but a question of when.” VTDigger’s report touched off a debate among readers, with some arguing that SIFs send the wrong message and others advocating for their proven effectiveness. The response from incoming U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, who threatened prosecution for anyone operating SIFs in Vermont, indicated that the conversation is likely to continue in 2018.
More top videos
1. Protests put Middlebury in the spotlight
The announcement that controversial author Charles Murray would speak at Middlebury College generated concern among students, faculty and VTDigger readers alike. Murray’s 1994 book “The Bell Curve” proposed racial differences in intelligence and put him on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of white nationalists, leading some to believe the college was wrong to host him. But these arguments were just a preview of the national conversation prompted by the reaction to Murray’s appearance. Protesters prevented him from speaking and injured a professor who was escorting him away from campus. VTDigger’s firsthand report included video footage that became a key document in the ensuing debate about campus free speech, which resurfaced when a fake student group promoted an appearance by another controversial conservative speaker, James O’Keefe, in Middlebury this November.
2. Leahy talks about McCain
Shortly after Sen. John McCain returned to the Senate to cast the vote that would kill a proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Patrick Leahy, a longtime friend of McCain’s, gave an emotional response to a reporter’s question about their relationship.
3. Teflon Town
VTDigger and the Bennington Banner’s five-part investigative series explored the impact of PFOA contamination around the ChemFab plant in North Bennington. This 15-minute companion video documents the challenges residents face in living with an invisible problem that may not be resolved for years to come.
