Anne Wallace Allen’s puff piece on the Vermonters who attended last Wednesday’s riot in Washington, D.C., is a perfect example of how not to cover a story like this. It’s nice that they felt comfortable in the supportive atmosphere of being among other like-minded folks, and that they all deny being among the mob who actually trashed the Capitol.
But a decent piece of journalism would have pointed out that they were part of a mob that literally (pooped) in the Capitol’s hallways after laying siege to it for hours, killed one police officer and injured numerous others, caused four deaths in addition to that, roamed the hallways with twist-tie handcuffs seeking out members of Congress, stole and defaced property, broke windows, may have been connected to two pipe bombs on timers placed nearby, and all in the name of disrupting a constitutional process at the core of democracy.
These people were not part of some casual, benign weenie roast. They participated in deadly right-wing terrorism, even if only as “innocent” supporters.
Promulgating without vigorous challenge their depiction of events as a sort of low-key tailgate party is irresponsible and borders on misinformation. You really, really dropped the ball on this one.
Seth Steinzor
South Burlington
