Solomon: report of demise of Globe's health/science section greatly exaggerated

Published Feb 05 2009, 12:25 PM by Adam Reilly

Yesterday I posted an internal Globe memo on the elimination of the paper's weekly health/science section--and suggested that, with this move, the paper seemed to be stepping back from an important coverage area.

But according to Caleb Solomon, the Globe's managing editor, that's not the case.

"I think you misinterpreted a small staff note and got the emphasis wrong," Solomon told me a few minutes ago. "We are shifting personal health coverage to the cover of our enormously popular 'g' section every Monday. What we're doing is, we're taking two pages of health coverage out of the A section and putting it on the cover or a newly launched section--and we know reader reaction to 'g' has been extremely positive."

Roughly speaking, Solmon says, the paper will have about as much personal-health coverage as it did before. And the same goes for science coverage. "We do a Monday business and innovation section, and as you know, a significant portion of the innovation economy is science driven," he says. "Is coverage of a biotech company business coverage or science coverage?... There will probably be increased science content inside the Monday business section, because that seems to be a natural alignment with the innovation economy of Boston."

Citing the paper's ongoing Spotlight series on Partners Health Care, and Lisa Wangness's role covering healthcare reform in the paper's Washington Bureau, Solmon adds, "Our entire healthcare coverage is enormous.... We're doing a boatload of stuff."

Solomon acknowledges that the migration of health/science coverage could bump other stuff out of the paper. "We're not growing a news hole in Monday's 'g,'" he allows. "But it's not as if we're not going to be doing the same kind of coverage during the week elsewhere in 'g'.... There aren't actually huge content changes as a result of this."

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Globe to kill Health/Science section

3 Comments

Ron Newman said:

No retraction is called for here. Clearly, a section of the Globe is being eliminated and some of its content parcelled out to other sections. Will health and science coverage keep its current focus once it has been moved to 'G' and Business respectively?

February 5, 2009 4:51 PM
Sabutai said:

Oh Gods no. The Globe's strategy is to cut everything that isn't Metro, Sports, or Wire Service and cram it into "g"? "G" is reviews, tv listings, comics, and crap, and that's too often a redundant list.

We need less g and more news, not the other way around. And if the Globe thinks it's going to sell papers with it's "too hip for capitalization" appeal to 20-somethings, they've been asleep for the past ten years.

February 5, 2009 6:33 PM

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Solomon: report of demise of Globe's health/science section greatly exaggerated

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