For the past month, Caity Coyne, a state government reporter at the nonprofit newsroom West Virginia Watch, has dabbled in something akin to endurance art. Each day, she photoshops Babydog—West Virginia governor Jim Justice’s celebrity bulldog—into a famous painting: Babydog sniffing the carnage of Guernica, awaiting scraps beneath the table at The Last Supper, or frolicking naked in The Garden of Earthly Delights. In one, Babydog’s face becomes the head of a Van Gogh sunflower. In another, the dog is perched atop God’s back as he stretches his finger toward Adam, endowing him with the spark of life.
I Photoshop Babydog Justice into a different piece of art every day until I forget: Day 26 pic.twitter.com/AephwvhYDJ
— Caity (@caitycoyne) July 17, 2024
I Photoshop Babydog Justice into a different piece of art every day until I forget: Day 27 pic.twitter.com/tTemlpyn1v
— Caity (@caitycoyne) July 18, 2024
I Photoshop Babydog Justice into a different piece of art every day until I forget: Day 23 pic.twitter.com/No6BaYgDOm
— Caity (@caitycoyne) July 13, 2024
Coyne tweets these images daily. They’re silly but also pointed—a response to a stranger-than-fiction incident back in June, when Babydog’s likeness was spotted in a historical mural that had just been unveiled at the state capitol. For a few days, reporters struggled to get basic answers from the Justice administration about how and why Babydog was in the painting, so Coyne’s dog Photoshops are a droll critique of the governor’s chilly relationship with the press.
Now, Coyne’s durational performance has lasted more than a month; Day 31 was Babydog in a Breugel painting, among a pack of 16th-century greyhounds. I called her to chat about what these images mean and when (if ever) she plans to stop.
Washingtonian: Why don’t we start with how you got this idea.
Caity Coyne: So, about a month ago we had this whole fiasco with a mural in the state capitol. One of my colleagues, Amelia Knisely, noticed that there was an English bulldog in this mural. It started this sort of ridiculous, like, “Did the governor know?” “How did this bulldog get in there?” “Is it appropriate for Babydog to be there?”
The new murals at the Capitol show Civil War battles, Harper’s Ferry, glassblowing, quilting … and it looks like Babydog. pic.twitter.com/7ONF2hsVcX
— Amelia Knisely (@ameliaknisely) June 21, 2024
And I thought it was funny, honestly, so I was like, you know what, I’m going to start putting Babydog in different pieces of art and let’s see how long it goes.
But you meant it as satire, right?
Yeah. The problem with the mural is not that Babydog is there—I don’t think anyone really cares about that. But it’s taxpayer funded, so those are our taxpayer dollars. And we’re still really unclear on whether these murals were legally installed or not.
As reporters in West Virginia, we’ve been talking about how the Justice administration shrouds very important, high-stakes processes and leaves us with a lot of questions. The mural is a low-stakes example. Nobody is harmed by this; no one’s dead, there’s not someone who can’t drink their water, or someone in a jail who’s being abused. But it’s a good, silly example of how these things play out—now, we can say, “When I say [the administration] is not transparent, let me point you to this.”
Yeah, it seems pretty difficult to get information from the Justice administration.
I’ve been reporting in Charleston for about seven years now, and it’s always been hard to get direct answers from the governor. I mean, literally last week, one of the best reporters in the state—Brad McElhinny—wasn’t allowed to join the governor’s weekly press briefing because the governor doesn’t like the questions that he’s been asking. They’re about very legitimate things: Justice’s personal businesses, or different policies that affect a ton of people in the state.
So the governor’s office has this power right now to choose not to let the press participate in briefings, which are basically the only time that we get to ask him anything. The briefings are via Zoom, and it’s not a good way to communicate: You can’t ask follow-up questions. There’s no clarifications. But it’s the only access that we, as the press, are given.
How does Babydog factor into this?
Babydog is very cute. She is very sweet. I, too, would tote that dog around everywhere. But what are we losing when we focus on her? I think a lot of us [in the press] are pretty fatigued by it. When we do get to see the governor in person—he’ll occasionally go to like, economic development announcements, or campaign events—Babydog is always there. It gets really frustrating.
I think you were there on election night, actually—
I was.
Right. And that night, me and another reporter had, I think, some really good questions: “Is Justice going to put his businesses in a blind trust when he’s elected?” “How can you say his family businesses are thriving when he’s getting his wages garnished?” And I don’t know if you heard this, but when there was time for one more question, a reporter from a TV station yelled out, “What’s Babydog’s favorite chicken nugget?”
It’s like, we’re not getting answers to legitimate things. We have this one opportunity to ask these questions of Jim Justice—the first that we’ve had almost this entire election cycle—and we’re wasting it on that.
Jim Justice and Babydog seem headed to the Senate. What would you tell DC journalists?
One thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is the reactions from national politicos and journalists following Jim Justice’s RNC speech. [Justice brought Babydog onstage, and there were lots of articles about it. I wrote one of them.]
I have covered him for seven years, and it’s not easy. I mean, getting answers to the most innocuous questions is really difficult. And I really, really want to see journalists in DC hold his feet to the fire the same way that we have been trying to do here. It’s really easy to get sucked into, like, “he’s just spitting colloquialisms, maybe he doesn’t know what’s going on.” But Justice is a very smart man, and I think he can handle the fire. I hope to see journalists bring it to him.
Do you have a favorite Babydog photoshop that you’ve made?
My favorite is probably The Birth of Venus, because I think that Babydog looks kind of silly and ridiculous in those goggles.
When you post these, what response do you get?
I think it’s been positive—but positive to an almost disappointing degree, because I feel like the satire has gotten lost. There are people who see it and are like, “Oh man, this is great, I can’t believe Babydog’s going to be in the Senate soon.” And for me, that’s not the point.
I have struggled with whether it’s responsible to keep doing this and bringing more attention to Babydog. I don’t think we need to lose all sense of comedy about what’s going on with the government. And from a journalism perspective, if people are seeing Babydog, maybe they are also seeing some of what I’m writing that is a little bit more—I don’t want to say critical, because I don’t report to be critical—but honest, at least, about what’s going on in our state.
I don’t think that there’s really harm in [the Babydog pictures]. But ask me in two hours and I might change my mind.
How long are you going to do this project?
Oh, that’s a great question. I said a month, and then I kept doing it, so I don’t know.
What keeps you doing it?
A flaw of mine, perhaps, is commitment to the bit.
