By Sam Douglass
On February 24, Alison Novak of Seven Days published a hastily written, poorly proofread and fact-checked article about my new employment with the Vermont Daily Chronicle. And her editors let her do it. The article contains numerous serious errors.
For one, I did not resign my position in the Senate because of “the racist group chat”. I was very clear in my statements last year.
I resigned because people were mailing me threatening screenshots of my home from Google street view.
I resigned because people were harassing my extended family.
I resigned because Democrat activists across the state of Vermont were contacting me and threatening to “darken my footsteps with pain”.
I resigned because Vermonters were calling me and telling me to resign or they would kill me.
I resigned because people on FaceBook were talking about visiting my home and dragging my wife and me to death behind a moving vehicle.
I resigned because people were discussing openly on social media how they could have my child taken away.
She also claimed that the first story under my name for the Vermont Daily Chronicle was about Sen. Bongartz’s (great guy, by the way) education plan. That is definitely not true and shows that she didn’t scroll even a short way back considering the first story under my name was about the scourge of antisemitism in our schools at the end of last week.
Additionally, I checked with my editor and not once in the couple hours that she worked on her story did she ask or confirm if it was the same “Sam Douglass”. The Vermont Daily Chronicle listed no other information than my name for her to assume that it was me. I dearly hope no other Sams get into trouble and leave my name holding the bag.
Instead of detailing me, my work at the Chronicle, my life over the last few months, or even mentioning the hundreds if not thousands of very specific and credible death threats that my family received, Alison Novak decided to simply call me racist. I think I offended her by daring to be employed, and for buying my ink in bulk. She even pried into my personal life and tried to find out my salary.
Alison Novak did not email me or call me for a comment on her story. When she texted me, she gave me fewer than seven hours to respond to her text message and she didn’t give a timeline for a response. She knows that I have a child. She obviously knows that I have a job with deadlines and a time crunch. For all she knew, I got a new phone number and never saw her singular text. Also, presumably, it was far fewer than seven hours considering that stories tend to go through an editing and fact-checking process after they’ve been written.
As a new reporter myself, I have been very careful about my accuracy and getting stories correct. When I contact sources for my stories, I’m not just checking a box and then writing whatever I want before they can respond. I have strict standards for how I treat people. Her conduct belies a lack of journalistic ethics. And I’ll be honest, her story reads like someone with a vendetta.
The job of the media is to inform the public with the simple facts so they can draw their own conclusions, not to air personal partisan grievances and create your own narrative out of those facts. We cannot claim to belong to a noble profession when we pick and choose which material facts are relevant based on their convenience for our own bias. This is why journalists are listed among the least trustworthy professions, and why confidence and trust in the media fell to all-time lows in 2025 for the majority of Americans across all political parties, according to Gallup polls.
I am seeking corrections or the removal of the story and I am filing an ethics complaint with the management of Seven Days. Errors are common and mistakes happen, but not in these amounts. But I’ll leave you with one last thought, would Alison have reported about me if I had gotten a job at McDonalds or a gas station or really anywhere else than at her competition?