Media+Politics

Nobody, but nobody, can top six-year winner Tom Messner for Best Meteorologist (we dropped the alliterative “Wisest Weather Watcher” and just got right to the point this year). Must be that megawatt smile. Even with all this summer’s rain, he manages to be the most cheerful person in Vermont. Ever consider politics, Tom? One look at Eva Sollberger’s recent “Stuck in Vermont” on the guy will make you appreciate the reach of his celebrity.

Meanwhile, Messner’s station, WPTZ Ch. 5, can’t seem to budge competitor WCAX Ch. 3 from the number-one spot. This year we tweaked the category a little — from Best Newscast to Best Newscaster — to see what would happen. WCAX News Director Marselis Parsons won, that’s what happened. And the station’s J.J. Cioffi pulled into runner-up for Best Sportscaster, a new category. Too bad he’s retiring.

Corm & the Coach, a.k.a. Champ’s morning-show cutups Steve Cormier and Tom Brennan, managed to nab first place in the Sportscaster category — though the ballot answers led us to suspect a strong on-air “encouragement” campaign. At least the Coach used to have something to do with sports. Too bad he retired, too.

Speaking of which, Peter Freyne ended his Seven Days political column “Inside Track” this year, but that did not deter readers from voting him Best Print Journalist. (Seven Days staff writer Ken Picard came in a strong second.) Look on our website this week for a video tribute to the longtime, love-him-or-hate-him columnist. What’s next for Peter Freyne, besides a much-deserved rest? We propose a Ben & Jerry’s flavor . . .

In blog land, last year’s winners held on: Philip Baruth’s vermontdailybriefing.com in the political category, and Bill Simmon’s Candleblog in the non-political. Runners-up were greenmountaindaily.com and houseoflemay.com, respectively. Hello, ladies.

On the airwaves, Vermont Public Radio finally crested. This year the Champ . . . wasn’t. But the feisty 101.3 came very, very close to another KO. Some readers were disappointed that we deleted Best Politician this year, but what can we say, we just got tired of it. Respondents suggested ways to fine-tune the category, though, and we’ll take them under advisement.

Finally, we’d be remiss not to point out that, despite the Al-Jazeera brouhaha, Burlington Telecom won both of two new categories: Best Cable TV Provider and Best Internet Provider.
-Pamela Polston