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Holy terror?

Cutting through the muddled thinking about Nidal Malik Hasan's faith and its role in the Fort Hood shootings
On the afternoon of November 5, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a building at Fort Hood, the sprawling military base in central Texas; sat briefly in solitary silence; and then opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol, shooting roughly a hundred rounds and killing 12 soldiers and one civilian.
By ADAM REILLY | November 16, 2009

Collateral damage?

Was Hasan suffering from PTSD?
Was Hasan suffering from PTSD?
By ADAM REILLY | November 11, 2009

Difference of opinion

Peter Canellos reinvents Globe ’s editorial page. Plus, Tom Menino’s campaign gets late-breaking help from the Banner and Herald .
It’s been three months since Peter Canellos replaced Renée Loth as editor of the Boston Globe ’s editorial page.
By ADAM REILLY | November 09, 2009

The importance of being Ernie

What drives Howie Carr’s anonymous tormentor?
Media feuds don’t come any nastier than the metastasizing spat between Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr and one “Ernie Boch III,” the pseudonymous blogger at the liberal Web site Blue Mass. Group. (Note: the blogger is no relation to the car dealer.)
By ADAM REILLY | October 19, 2009

Latter day taint

How Glenn Beck is driven by Mormonism — and why his fellow faithful (including Mitt Romney) should be worried
Fifteen years ago, Glenn Beck was a small-market DJ with a drinking problem, no friends, and bleak professional prospects. Today, he’s a Fox News superstar averaging 2.4 million viewers, an inexorably successful author, and the leader of a popular movement that condemns government in general and President Barack Obama in particular.
By ADAM REILLY | October 10, 2009

Philadelphia Story

What Steve Taylor needs to know if he succeeds in buying the Globe
The local-media story line of the moment is the push by Stephen Taylor — Milton resident, Yale media lecturer, and former Boston Globe executive VP — to recapture the paper his family ran for more than a century, a goal he's pursuing with the backing of (among others) his cousin Benjamin Taylor, the former Globe publisher.
By ADAM REILLY | October 01, 2009

Menino's junked mail

The Globe ratchets up the intensity in Boston's mayoral race. Plus, the Times Co. gets some love from the Globe newsroom and BU books blowhard Bill O'Reilly.
Two years ago, when I wrote a column griping about the Boston media's apathy-inducing disinterest in city politics, Boston Globe metro editor Brian McGrory told me his paper had given the lackluster 2007 elections as much coverage as they deserved, but hinted that things would be different in 2009.
By ADAM REILLY | September 16, 2009

Blowhard, interrupted

If Curt Schilling runs for Senate, will he keep his sports-media perch?
Former Red Sox great Curt Schilling isn't the only prospective US Senate candidate agonizing over whether to run for Ted Kennedy's old seat. But unlike some of his potential rivals the Bloody Socked One seems determined to share his Hamlet act with the biggest possible audience.
By ADAM REILLY | September 11, 2009

The end of the affair?

Mitt Romney's right-wing-media problem. Plus, Michael Bloomberg's blind spot.
During Mitt Romney's failed bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, he demonstrated a potent knack for wooing the conservative commentariat.
By ADAM REILLY | August 27, 2009

Defaming Twitter

Illogic and Cronyism Dept.
Hate Twitter? Then you're probably loving a new, buzz-generating study — released last week by the Texas market-research firm Pear Analytics — which found that the vast majority of Twitter messages, a/k/a tweets, are pretty much worthless.
By ADAM REILLY | August 19, 2009

Mr. Respectable

What's behind Rupert Murdoch's paid-content push? Plus, the ambitions of BoMag's new editor.
Last Wednesday, oft-vilified media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corp. — parent company of (among others) the Times of London, the New York Post , and Fox News — will soon begin charging readers for access to all its news sites.
By ADAM REILLY | August 12, 2009

Brave New Advertorial

When is a news story not a news story? When it becomes a Starbucks ad.
This week's reminder that journalism isn't in Kansas anymore comes via a funky advertising concept showcased at nytimes.com/magazine — where, as you'd expect, the contents of the New York Times Magazine are available for Web readers.
By ADAM REILLY | August 12, 2009

Big story

Did the Globe drop the steroid ball?
On July 30, the New York Times revealed that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez — heroes of the Red Sox' 2004 and 2007 World Series wins — are on the (supposedly) secret list of a hundred-plus major leaguers who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in 2003.
By ADAM REILLY | August 07, 2009

The Times Co.'s super-potent silent treatment

If a tree falls in the Forest Dept.
In an earnings conference call last week, Janet Robinson, the president and CEO of the New York Times Co., had choice words — make that one choice word — for published reports on the Times Co.'s attempts to unload the Boston Globe.
By ADAM REILLY | July 29, 2009

Personal fouls

ESPN's odd double standard on sex
The biggest story in sports media last week was the discovery of surreptitiously shot nude-video footage of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, whose comeliness has made her a favorite — and sometimes a fetish — of the online sports commentariat.
By ADAM REILLY | July 29, 2009

Gates-Gate

Banner come back
If there was ever any doubt that race and perception are intimately linked, the bizarre arrest of Harvard superstar Henry Louis Gates Jr. — which hit the news this past Monday — should dispel it once and for all.
By ADAM REILLY | July 22, 2009

Corporate parent kills WBCN

Closing time
WBCN-FM, a/k/a the “Rock of Boston,” has as storied a history as any Boston radio station, but its 41-year run on the local airwaves is ending with a whimper.
By ADAM REILLY AND MIKE MILIARD | July 17, 2009

Who's next?

What the Banner 's closure means for Boston's African-Americans
If Melvin B. Miller has his way, last week's shutdown of the Bay State Banner — the African-American-focused weekly paper Miller ran as editor and publisher for nearly half a century — won't be the end.
By ADAM REILLY | July 21, 2009

State of the State House coverage

Letters to the Boston editor, July 10, 2009
Adam Reilly made an erroneous assumption when he bemoaned the loss of State House news coverage with the downsizing of the Boston Globe . Fortunately, Boston is still a two-newspaper town.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | July 08, 2009

Tweet-Fighting Man

To what extent did social media shape Iran's so-called Twitter Revolution?
Is Twitter driving the ongoing political crisis in Iran?
By ADAM REILLY | July 06, 2009

Weakened watchdogs

If the Globe shrinks, will Beacon Hill run amok?
The ongoing crisis at the Boston Globe shouldn't be troubling just to devotees of the sports pages and "Coupling." Citizens who prize strong coverage of the Massachusetts State House ought to be fretting over the paper's fate, too. With its four-person State House contingent, the Globe has a stronger presence under the Golden Dome than any other major Boston media outlet.
By ADAM REILLY | June 19, 2009

The New York Times Co.'s baffling Globe strategy

The Times Co. actually seems intent on not getting to yes with Guild members
It's no mystery why the New York Times Co. threatened, two months ago, to shutter the Boston Globe unless the paper's unions provided $20 million in concessions.
By ADAM REILLY | June 10, 2009

Shoddy work or just sensational?

Letters to the Boston editor, June 5, 2009
Unless you are transgender yourself — and given the content and tone of your article I would venture a guess that you are not — you have no right or privilege to discuss issues regarding disclosure of trans status. Much less do you have the right to discuss how disclosure, or lack thereof, may relate to issues of shame or truthful disclosure.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | June 03, 2009

Mixed messages

Letters to the Boston editor, May 29, 2009
I’ve always thought it bizarre that an aggressively conservative, Republican-channeling TV network such as Fox would be so enthusiastic about featuring sex (and other sensationalism), but I guess they know their audience.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | May 27, 2009

Trans fact

When a person in the center of a media maelstrom has had a sex change, is it fair game for the press?
Aiden Quinn used to be a woman. Now he's a man. It's a titillating detail — but is it news?
By ADAM REILLY | May 20, 2009

Deal or no deal?

Will the Globe 's biggest union balk at the Times Co.'s offer? Plus, the Christian Science Monitor 's quietly successful re-launch, and sportswriter Bill Simmons's GM jones
When the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Boston Globe 's largest union, decided to take the New York Times Company's latest contract offer to its members last week, ratification seemed like a done deal.
By ADAM REILLY | May 15, 2009

Die another day

The clock starts now on a potential Globe sale
Now that the New York Times Company and representatives of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Boston Globe 's biggest union, have agreed to a deal that will keep the paper alive (more on that in a bit), the great unanswered question becomes: what, exactly, does the Times Co. plan to do now ?
By ADAM REILLY | May 07, 2009

Will the Globe survive?

Sizing up the paper's future as it approaches the deadline from hell
What would Boston's media landscape look like without the Boston Globe ?
By ADAM REILLY | April 30, 2009

Political sucker punches

Letters to the Boston editor, April 10, 2009
David S. Bernstein’s story about Governor Deval Patrick is an example of going for the easy political jab rather than providing thoughtful analysis.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | April 08, 2009

All quiet on the Times Co. front

The Globe crisis leaves New York speechless. Plus, Morrissey Boulevard's problematic political fan club
When I heard this past Friday that the New York Times Company had delivered a radical ultimatum to the Boston Globe 's 13 unions I called Globe spokesman Bob Powers to check it out. He wasn't talking.
By ADAM REILLY | April 09, 2009

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