Statement on Scalia Photograph
by:  Peter A. Smith

 
Thanks for your interest in this story.  It sounds like the focus today is on the Boston Archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot and their editor's decision to fire me.  Technically, that is incorrect usage of language.  As a freelancer without a contract, I was not an employee of their newspaper.  They can choose not to give me assignments in the future and this is not of large concern to me. 

My prime obligation is to my students at Boston University where I am assistant professor of photojournalism.  All actions that I have taken to date concerning the release of the photograph of Justice Scalia, have been made based on journalistic principals and ethics.  The photograph is mine.  The copyright is mine.  The image was being misrepresented and a reporter was also being misrepresented.

On Monday, March 27, I had a conversation with Pilot Editor Antonio Enrique explaining that I had not released the photograph to the press and had no intention of doing so.  However, as of Wednesday, March 29, the story evolved and required that I speak up and provide some clarity to it.  I therefore felt obligated to release the photograph.  I notified the Pilot in advance, concerning my intentions to go forward with the photograph, explaining my situation with News Editor Gregory Tracy.

I understood the moment that I released the photograph that The Pilot would in all probability not use me to cover their events in the future, but I had already decided that that was a sacrifice that I was willing to make to do the right thing.  My students read newspapers too and they looked to me to understand the ethics involved with this situation and it wasn't academic but being played out in real time with their professor becoming increasing involved.  I couldn't say one thing to them and then do another when the facts were so clearly laid out.

Though we disagree on this particular matter I still feel that The Pilot has been a wonderful paper to contribute to.  Everyone there that I have worked for and worked with have been professional and very decent people.  I will miss my association with them.

Sincerely,
Peter A. Smith
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
College of Communication, RM: B37D
Boston University

BOSTON, March 29, 2006 - Richard J. Daniels, president of Boston Globe Media, announced the retirement of Bruce S. Bennett, publisher of the Worcester Telegram &  Gazette. Mr. Daniels also announced that Bruce Gaultney, publisher of the Star-Banner of Ocala, Florida, will succeed Mr. Bennett as publisher of the Telegram & Gazette, effective May 1, 2006.  

Mr. Bennett, 61, made his decision to retire late last year after a career of 34 years at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 14 as publisher.  He began his career as a general news reporter.  As publisher he guided the Telegram & Gazette to financial and editorial excellence.  Under his leadership the T&G was named newspaper of the year by the New England Newspaper Association several times.  He oversaw the opening of a new production plant in Millbury and the creation of the Web site Telegram.com.  

Mr. Gaultney, 49, has been publisher of the Star-Banner, part of The New York Times Regional Media Group, since 2002.  Prior to that he had served in a variety of roles at the paper, including executive editor, and general manager.  During his years as publisher and general manager the newspaper has seen dramatic changes including the creation of three weekly newspapers, a regional magazine, a direct mail operation, a thriving commercial print operation and the launch of Ocala.com, a web community portal.

• 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed in the first three years of the war in Iraq, making it the deadliest war for journalists since WWII. (About 60-65 journalists were killed covering the conflict in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975.)
• 38 journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq, 5 of those were executed, and 3 are still being held.
• 92 percent of those killed were men. The average age of those killed was 35.5 (The large majority of those killed were Iraqis.)
• 67 percent of the journalists killed worked for a TV news outlet.
  
• 44 percent of those killed worked for Iraqi news outlets, 39 percent were from the foreign press, and 17 percent were from the Arabic-language press.
• 53 percent of the killings were committed by unidentified forces, 35 percent were committed by armed groups, and 12 percent were committed by the US military.
• 76 percent were killed by gunfire and 14 percent were victims of car bombs or other explosions.
• 24 percent of those kidnapped were Iraqis, 42 percent were from a coalition-member country, and 34 percent were from another foreign nation.

A little more hard info is out today -- courtesy of the New York Times Co. -- about the financial situation at the company's New England Media Group, which includes the Globe. In a report on how Feb. 2006 ad revenues stacked up to the same month last year, the company reported that revenues at the New York Times Media Group were up 3.3 percent and jumped 5.9 percent in the Regional Media Group.

New England Media Group - Advertising revenues for the New England Media Group decreased 12.0%. National advertising revenues decreased on softness in national automotive, travel, telecommunications, entertainment and financial services advertising. Retail advertising revenues decreased primarily due to the consolidation of the group's two largest department store advertisers. Classified advertising revenues were lower due to softer automotive and help-wanted advertising.

"In February performance varied across the News Media Group," said Janet L. Robinson, president and CEO. "While The New York Times Media Group and the Regional Media Group posted gains, the New England Media Group's print advertising continued to be adversely affected by consolidation among its advertisers and spotty economic growth in the greater Boston market."

Channel 5 (WCVB) announces the hiring of a new reporter for "Chronicle."  Here's the release:

Boston – WCVB-TV Channel 5 President and General Manager Bill Fine announced today a new addition to the Chronicle staff.  Shayna Seymour will join the award-winning nightly newsmagazine in mid-April as a reporter and producer.  Seymour joins Chronicle from WGGB-TV, Springfield, where she served as anchor of the morning and noon newscasts and general assignment reporter.  While at the ABC affiliate, Seymour honed her reportorial skills covering breaking news events, education and health issues.  Her experience covering education was invaluable in scoring several exclusive interviews with renowned comedian and philanthropist Bill Cosby. 

Having just gone through a wrenching series of buyouts that claimed 32 newsroom jobs (see "Globe-al Anxiety" in the Jan. 13 Phoenix), the word on Morrissey Boulevard is that additional budget-cutting measures are under consideration as economic and circulation problems continue to plague the Boston Globe. Among the more stunning bits of speculation percolating around the newsroom is that the Globe actually lost money in the first two months of 2006. (While company officials had declined to give specific numbers, it had previously been reported that the New York Times Co's New England Media Group -- which includes the Globe, Boston.com, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and has been struggling -- was still generating profit margins in the double digits as of the end of last year.)

Whatever the actual numbers, the first months of the year are traditionally difficult times for the newspaper industry. And Globe executive vice president and spokesman Al Larkin declined to discuss the reports of operating deficits, stating that “we just don’t comment on anything like that.”

One major snafu that occurred earlier this year and did wreak some financial havoc was the Globe’s and Telegram & Gazette’s accidental release of confidential customer financial information that generated a reported 180,000 phone calls to the call center, including 4000 canceled subscriptions. (In the numbers released for the six months that ended last September, the paper had already seen daily circulation drop by 8.2 percent to about 414,000 copies. The company's numbers through the end of last year put daily circulation at 413,300.)  And though it may be hard to quantify the costs of dealing with that crisis -- which includes legal fees and credit monitoring costs -- the figure bandied about for fixing that mess has been in the ballpark of $1 million.

Given this confluence of events, sources indicate that a number of cost-cutting options may be on the table, including everything from cutting out the stock tables to the possibility of additional job cuts down the road. (Beginning next month, the Globe’s sister paper, The New York Times, will stop publishing its daily stock tables in the paper, thereby joining a number of publications that are letting that traditional Business feature migrate to the web in the interests of, among other things, cutting printing costs.) While it doesn't seem likely that the Globe has decided on a course of action yet, the issue of additional staff reductions naturally leaps to mind in difficult economic times.

In the meantime, Times Co. president and CEO Janet Robinson is currently up in Boston for a two-day trip. According to Larkin, she’s here on a regular visit to meet with department heads and senior managers, to take questions, and to discuss company strategy. But amid increasingly worrisome speculation about the fiscal health of the paper, Robinson’s junket to the Boston outpost is not likely to go unnoticed.

In yesterday’s Globe “Quick Shots”  sports feature, all five folks queried essentially agreed that the Patriots did the right thing in letting talented receiver David Givens – who just signed a lucrative deal with Tennessee  -- walk away. John Stone from Connecticut put it this way: “The Krafts are an excellent business family. They manage and hire well…All teams have a salary cap and must manage within it.” There didn’t seem to be too many tears shed either when veteran venerable  linebacker Willie McGinest, a man apparently improving with age, recently signed with Cleveland after a dozen years here.

My guess is that even if the super clutch Adam Vinatieri -- a hugely key component of the Pats’ Super Bowl success -- heads for greener (figuratively)  pastures, the mourning period will be quite brief and very restrained. (In what was clearly psychological preparation for a possible departure, I already heard one WEEI caller complain that he wasn’t getting the ball deep enough on kickoffs anyway.)

From McGinest to Pedro, from Johnny Damon to maybe Vinatieri, Boston sports fans these days seem to react to the loss of key players with a sober and often sophisticated understanding of the complex economics of sports that ends up leaving them more considerably more sympathetic to management than the players.

There are a couple of obvious reasons for that. First, in the era of free agency, people inevitably learn to root for “laundry” more than the individuals wearing it. It’s also true that nothing succeeds like success, meaning that three Lombardi trophies and the inspirational 2004 World Series win have soothed long-smoldering frustrations and instilled fans with considerably more respect for and patience with the management worldview.

I also think the sports media in this town has largely bought into the idea that ownership and management should be lauded for fiscal restraint in deciding that some of their own key players are too rich for their blood. Nowhere is this more obvious than on WEEI, which has kind of reinvented street-level sports populism to mean a nearly full-throated endorsement of most ownership moves and prerogatives. (In the case of Dale Arnold, this can even mean defending the abjectly mediocre stewardship of the Bruins.)

It’s funny. For years, the Globe’s Will McDonough was ripped for being more in sync with the old multimillionaires who owned ballclubs than the young millionaires who played for them. Now, that’s become the norm.  

One does wonder whether WEEI’s attitude toward the Sox management crew will change if the team, as speculated about, decides to take its radio contract elsewhere, perhaps to a station that it co-owns. For example, the Globe reported on Saturday that the team might look for an ownership stake in WBOS . (P.S. – Although the sound quality is frustratingly bad at times – and I wish he’s slow down his syntax – I continue to find ESPN radio afternoon drive host Michael Felger a refreshing diversion from the conventional wisdom in this town.)

 The other point worth making is that given fandom’s growing acceptance of hard-headed “business realities” that dicatate management actions, it’s hard to criticize ballplayers for doing the same thing when they take more money to play elsewhere.

Will we recall this as the year when journalism in print began to die?

The ominous announcements gathered steam as the year went on. The New York Times would cut nearly 60 people from its newsroom, the Los Angeles Times 85; Knight Ridder’s San Jose Mercury News cut 16%, the Philadelphia Inquirer 15% — and that after cutting another 15% only five years earlier. By November, investors frustrated by poor financial performance forced one of the most cost-conscious newspaper chains of all, Knight Ridder, to be put up for sale.

Adding to the worry, industry fundamentals, not the general economy, were the problem — declining circulation, pressure on revenues, stock prices for the year down 20%.

Even if newspapers are not dying, they and other old media are constricting, and so, it appears, is the amount of resources dedicated to original newsgathering.

Most local radio stations, our content study this year finds, offer virtually nothing in the way of reporters in the field. On local TV news, fewer and fewer stories feature correspondents, and the range of topics that get full treatment is narrowing even more to crime and accidents, plus weather, traffic and sports. On the Web, the Internet-only sites that have tried to produce original content (among them Slate and Salon) have struggled financially, while those thriving financially rely almost entirely on the work of others. Among blogs, there is little of what journalists would call reporting (our study this year finds reporting in just 5% of postings). Even in bigger newsrooms, journalists report that specialization is eroding as more reporters are recast into generalists.

In some cities, the numbers alone tell the story. There are roughly half as many reporters covering metropolitan Philadelphia, for instance, as in 1980. The number of newspaper reporters there has fallen from 500 to 220. The pattern at the suburban papers around the city has been similar, though not as extreme. The local TV stations, with the exception of Fox, have cut back on traditional news coverage. The five AM radio stations that used to cover news have been reduced to two.

As recently as 1990, the Philadelphia Inquirer had 46 reporters covering the city. Today it has 24. (I should also point out that today, the Philadelphia Inquirer doesn't know who its next owner will be.)

The study suggests that radio news entails little field reporting, that TV news is getting shallower and narrower, that the net is more a collector of content than a producer of it, and that the huge majority of blog postings eschew reporting. Given that newspapers have been the institutions that have traditionally dedicated the most resources to reporting -- and given that newspaper coverage has often functioned as an assignment desk for radio and TV as well as fodder for blog commentary -- we may be looking at a trickle down effect here. If newspapers have less money for original newsgathering, what will happen to those other media that have depended on newspaper reporting for their content, direction, or fuel? And who is going to pick up the slack?

Newspapers : If ink on paper has an advantage, the day would suggest it is in the number of boots on the ground. This is the medium that is covering the most topics, has the deepest sourcing, explores the most angles in stories, and for now is supplying most of the content for the Internet. A reader also discovers probably the closest thing to a medium still trying to provide all the news a consumer might want, though perhaps in language and sourcing tilted toward elites. Looming, as readers inevitably shift to acquiring their news online, is the question of what happens to the more complete reporting that additional time affords. And how many boots will be left on the ground if the print editions that pay the bills continue to shrink.

In the future, we may well rely more on citizens to be sentinels for one another. No doubt that will expand the public forum and enrich the range of voices. Already people are experimenting with new ways to empower fellow citizens to gather and understand the news — whether it is soldiers blogging from Baghdad, a radio program on the war produced by students at Swarthmore College carrying eyewitness interviews with Iraqi citizens, or a similar effort by young radio reporters in Minnesota to cover local towns.

Yet the changes will probably also make it easier for power to move in the dark. And the open technology that allows citizens to speak will also help special interests, posing as something else, to influence or even sometimes overwhelm what the rest of us know.

The worry is not the wondrous addition of citizen media, but the decline of full-time, professional monitoring of powerful institutions.

• Joshua Boak, James Drew, Steve Eder, Christopher D. Kirkpatrick, Jim Tankersley and Mike Wilkinson, of the Blade (Toledo, OH) for “Uncovering 'Coingate'"
  An inquiry into Ohio's curious investment in rare coins led to an investigation culminating in convictions of the governor and others and exposure of illegal campaign contributions.
  

• Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, of the Copley News Service for “Randy 'Duke' Cunningham”
  Reporting by Stern and Kammer led to the resignation of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) after they revealed Cunningham had taken $2.4 million in bribes.
  
  

• Evelyn Larrubia, Robin Fields and Jack Leonard, of the Los Angeles Times for “Guardians for Profit”
  Their series exposed how a new breed of entrepreneur has entered the field of guardianship of the elderly, victimizing older Americans by charging them exorbitant fees, neglecting their needs and sometimes looting their assets.
   

• Susan Schmidt, James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post for “The Abramoff Scandal”
  Throughout 2005, in articles that broke the major revelations, the Post unraveled Abramoff's web and his ties to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
   

• Dana Priest of the Washington Post for “The CIA's Secret War Against Terrorism”
  Her series of articles have uncovered the inner workings, successes and failures of the CIA's global effort to kill, capture and interrogate suspected terrorists, revealing the existence of a network of secret prisons outside the U.S.
   

The Nation, America's oldest left-wing magazine, has abruptly cancelled its story on George & Martha by Karen Finley (publishing on April 13th). The assigned journalist was "offended by the anal sex," and refused to meet with Ms. Finley, though an interview had been scheduled. George & Martha is an illustrated political satire which imagines a torrid hotel room encounter between George W. Bush and Martha Stewart on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Interestingly, anal sex is never portrayed in the book. Verso is alarmed by the journalist's decision to cancel an interview rather than delve into material that surely would have provided an interesting dialogue on contemporary US social and sexual politics.

The magazine offered to extract part of the book on their website, though "not the sexual parts."

* What is offensive about this book?

* What is inappropriate about sex?

* Why does the Left find anal sex disturbing?

* Should artistic expression cater to these fears or challenge them?

Still hanging in there? Okay, here's a statement in response from the Nation: