Fired Vermont AP Bureau Chief Gets New Job As Corporate Spokesman

By: Joe Strupp Nearly six months after being fired, in part for distributing a column on open government by Sen. Patrick Leahy, former Vermont AP bureau chief Chris Graff has taken a corporate communications job, according to an alternative weekly.

The Vermont Guardian reports that Graff, a former 27-year AP employee, has signed on as communications chief for The National Life Group. The hiring comes months after Graff's March 20 dismissal that sparked a statewide backlash by newspapers and editors.

Graff, who starts the new job in December, will leave his post as moderator of Vermont Public Television's "Vermont This Week" after 14 years on the program, the Guardian added.

"I feel my new responsibilities will require my full attention and it would be difficult to keep up on the news and issues to do 'Vermont This Week' justice," Graff told the paper. "I am sad to be leaving journalism."

When Graff lost his job, rumors that he had been fired for allowing a column by Leahy to circulate on the Vermont AP wire drew sharp criticism among the state's journalism leaders, and some elected officials. Eventually, Graff and AP officials agreed to release his termination letter, which indicated the Leahy letter was among the reasons for his dismissal.

The other reason, according to the letter, was that Graff allowed one of his reporters to write a chapter in a 2003 book about Howard Dean, the former governor and one-time presidential candidate.