At its best, Radar is all about balance. Yes, it feeds the beast that is celebrity culture. But unlike, say, Vanity Fair, it does so with just the right amount of malice.

At least, that's how it used to be. Nowadays, though, Radar seems to be in real danger of becoming a full-time fanzine for MTV's The Hills. First Hills star Lauren Conrad got the cover treatment. Then came the (worrisomely un-ironic) hiring of Hills star Spencer Pratt as an advice columnist. And then--at about 4:40 pm today--Radar managed to give precisely half of its best Web real-estate to Hills-related content. Could an all-Hills issue be next?!?

3/31/2008 3:43:41 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Oskar Bjorner didn't want to talk today, either. But Boston Magazine blogger Amy Derjue got Metro Boston's marketing manager to weigh in, along with someone from the Certified Audit of Circulations (CAC). And the explanation for Metro's plummeting circulation seems to be this: Metro said more people were picking up its paper than really were.

Derjue also quotes Herald editor Kevin Convey, who's more than happy to kick Metro while they're (it's?) down:

The final issue, I suppose, is whether one can ever fairly compare the circulation of a free paper with a paid one. I think the answer is no. I would tell you this much with certainty, however: If economics were ever to permit us to go free we would give away one hell of a lot more papers than the Metro has managed to do during its lifetime.

Oskar?

3/31/2008 3:24:48 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

   

3/28/2008 7:29:26 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

Earlier this month, I blogged on a sizzlin'-hot rumor that had Mike Barnicle joining WBUR-FM, the BU-based public-radio powerhouse.

At the time, WBUR's general manager, Paul La Camera, made it clear that he's a big Barnicle fan. Today, in a post by Media Nation's Dan Kennedy, La Camera reiterates this point. The most striking La Camera quote: "Mike has a remarkable gift and I continue to believe his voice is missed in Boston."

Talk of Barnicle's possible arrival at 'BUR had piped down for a while. This ought to get it going again.

3/27/2008 6:47:09 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

The latest New Yorker features an excellent piece by Eric Alterman on the demise of the newspaper and its social implications. The story has a number of strengths, but I'm most impressed by Alterman's restraint: while he doesn't idealize the past, he's also attuned to the pitfalls of the future. Here's a taste:

[W]e are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism. The transformation of newspapers from enterprises devoted to objective reporting to a cluster of communities, each engaged in its own kind of “news”––and each with its own set of “truths” upon which to base debate and discussion––will mean the loss of a single national narrative and agreed-upon set of “facts” by which to conduct our politics. News will become increasingly “red” or “blue.” This is not utterly new. Before Adolph Ochs took over the Times, in 1896, and issued his famous “without fear or favor” declaration, the American scene was dominated by brazenly partisan newspapers. And the news cultures of many European nations long ago embraced the notion of competing narratives for different political communities, with individual newspapers reflecting the views of each faction. It may not be entirely coincidental that these nations enjoy a level of political engagement that dwarfs that of the United States.

Just one small gripe: Alterman cites the Huffington Post as a fine new journalistic model. "Arthur Miller once described a good newspaper as 'a nation talking to itself,'"  he writes. "If only in this respect, the Huffington Post is a great newspaper." But he doesn't note that he's part of the HuffPo stable of bloggers. Even though, according to Alterman,this work is unpaid, it's still worth mentioning.

UPDATE: Here's Alterman's response:

Hi Adam
 
Thanks for the kind words.
 
While I don't think it's so important that HP has reprinted Altercation from time to time--I think it more relevant that I've been paid tens of thousands of dollars by the new york times--I do mention in my contributor's note in the magazine, so there's no confusion on the part of the reader
 
best
 
Eric A

3/26/2008 7:25:34 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

According to Media Matters for America, syndicated talk-show host Michael Savage said some remarkably incendiary things about Barack Obama on his March 13 show. Here's the most inflammatory:

I think he was hand-picked by some very powerful forces both within and outside the United States of America to drag this country into a hell that it has not seen since the Civil War of the middle of the 19th century.

Obviously, Savage is free to entertain this theory and to speak it out loud. The question is, do the stations that carry his show want to him a platform to do it?

Here in Boston, Savage's show is heard on WRKO-AM. Here's what station spokesman George Regan told me a minute ago: "That's obviously a nationally syndicated show, so we don't have any control over the content. However, we obviously do not go along with Mr. Savage's remarks."

[Note: this was originally posted Friday morning, but then vanished into some weird Internet limbo.]

3/24/2008 3:07:32 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [5] |  

No big piece this week, media or otherwise; instead, shorter items on Frontline: Bush's War and some pissed-off poker players.

3/20/2008 2:08:56 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

According to Fortune's David Leonard, Pinch Sulzberger's decision to appoint two hedge-fund dissidents to the NY Times Company's board was a stroke of genius. If Harbinger and Firebrand had had to fight for their board seats, Leonard reasons, they might have embarrassed Sulzberger and forced the selling of the NYT Co.'s non-core assets, including the Boston Globe and its stake in the Red Sox. (For some reason, Leonard only mentions the Sox, not the Globe.) But because Sulzberger played nice, he looks great and the NYT Co.'s critics are neutralized, at least for a while.

That's one way of looking at it. Of course, you could also say that, by willingly giving representatives of Harbinger and Firebrand seats on the board, Sulzberger just made it all the more likely that the dissident investors will eventually prevail--maybe not this year, or next year, but before too long.

The big question here in Boston is: if this happens, what becomes of the Globe? Bostonians may not like having their paper of record owned by New Yorkers. But with any other owner, the paper's recent attrition would almost certainly have been even more painful. In other words, be careful what you wish for.

3/19/2008 1:45:59 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

The rumour du jour in Boston media circles has Mike Barnicle--the former Globe metro columnist who resigned in 1998 during a wide-ranging fabrication and plagiarism scandal--joining WBUR 90.9 FM, the BU-based NPR affiliate. (Here's a synopsis of L'affair Barnicle by former Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy, who helped drive the story.)

According to WBUR general manager Paul La Camera, Barnicle hasn't actually been hired. But that doesn't mean that La Camera--who worked with Barnicle when he ran WCVB-TV, and Barnicle was a featured contributor to Chronicle--isn't interested in bringing him on board.

"I've been talking on and off with Mike virtually the full time that I've been at 'BUR--two years," La Camera tells the Phoenix. "I have the highest regard for Mike. We worked together for 23 years at WCVB, and I divorced his work with us from his episode at the Globe."

Only one of Barnicle's errors--namely, his decision to recommend George Carlin's Brain Droppings on Chronicle without having read it--involved 'CVB, La Camera adds. And, he continues, "I thought that was hardly the grievous offense that some peple tried to make it out to be. During that time, there were a lot of wild accusations about Mike.... I thought it did get wildly out of control.

"Right now, he's committed to NBC and MSBC," La Camera concludes. "He's been assigned several stories for the Pennsylvania primary; that's what he's doing now. But we will continue to talk. I think Mike is one of the great storytellers of Boston. I had nothing but the best of experiences with Mike for 23 years.... I think he's a voice that's missed in Boston. Whatever occurred at the Globe, that was their business. It was more than ten years ago. And it's about time to move on."

3/15/2008 4:54:23 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

This is interesting: the Boston Herald and PR czar George Regan are parting ways. In response to an inquiry from the Phoenix, Herald publisher Pat Purcell released the following statement this afternoon:

I am announcing today that Herald Media Inc. no longer retains Regan Communications Group as its agency of record.  Our public relations functions are now handled in-house. 

George Regan’s business in the Boston area and beyond has grown considerably and his client list includes many corporations and organizations we report on.  As a newsgathering operation, it is imperative that our coverage continues to be impartial and in recognition of Regan Communications’ tremendous expansion, ending our relationship avoids any potential conflict. 
 
George has been a personal friend of my family for over two decades, and we look forward to enjoying that relationship for many years to come.

Through Herald spokeswoman Gwen Gage, Purcell declined further comment.

The statement from Regan Communications, meanwhile, came from GM Stephen Dunleavy, who said:

We've had a good relationship with the Herald, and we continue to have a good relationship with the Herald and Pat. That hasn't changed. They brought the PR function in house, and we understand that.

Dunleavy added that the split was a "mutual decision."

3/13/2008 3:04:44 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

As always, just a click away.

Also: in a Web-only exclusive, I size up the ongoing legal feud between Village Voice Media and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

3/12/2008 4:59:29 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

Was I the only one slightly confused by press's initial descriptions of the Eliot Spitzer mess?

Consider these headlines:

Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring (NYT)

Official: NY Governor's Involvement in Prostitution Ring Caught on Wiretap (ABC)

NY Governor Spitzer linked to high-end prostitution ring (CSM)

And then there was this lede, from the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza:

Gov. Elliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.) acknowledged in a very brief statement, Monday, that he had violated the obligations he had to his family and the public, though he offered no specific comments about a report that he was involved in a prostitution ring.

After a while, it seemed like Spitzer must have been running the ring, or procuring clients, or recruiting prostitutes, or something.

Instead, he was just having weird, expensive sex, hopelessly sullying his reformer image, and destroying his political career (and probably marriage.)

3/11/2008 3:53:12 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

Starting with the exits of business columnist Steve Bailey, executive editor Helen Donovan, and Mike Larkin, deputy managing editor for news operations.

The biggest promotion: Caleb Solmon, the paper's front-page editor, takes over as managing editor for news, a position that's been unfilled since the departure of Tom Mulvoy. (Not Greg Moore, as I initially wrote; Moore was managing editor, period.)

Here's editor Marty Baron's memo.

To all:
 
Brace yourself for an announcement that’s long but important.
 
Our newsroom will be losing the towering figures of Helen Donovan, Michael Larkin, and Steve Bailey. At the same time, I am pleased to tell you that we are drawing on talented colleagues -- Caleb Solomon, Ellen Clegg, and Mark Morrow -- for new assignments.
 
Some time ago, Helen and Michael told me they were contemplating the next phase of their lives. I am indebted to them for agreeing to stay a while longer. Steve is also finally yielding to his wife’s wish that the family move to Europe, where he’ll join Bloomberg as senior enterprise editor in London. They will all be departing the newsroom by April 1, leaving their colleagues with a profound sense of loss.
 
It is hard for me to imagine this place without Helen as Executive Editor, Mike as Deputy Managing Editor/News Operations, and Steve as Boston’s must-read business columnist and one of the Globe’s best reporters. I am grateful, as we all are, for their friendship and for their unwavering dedication to the Globe’s journalistic mission. Over the next several weeks, we will have an opportunity to say proper thanks. Details to come.
 
This is also an occasion to recognize the accomplished colleagues who will be taking on new assignments.
 
Caleb, who has served as Deputy Managing Editor/Page One since last May, will assume Helen’s responsibilities with the title of Managing Editor/News, while retaining his Page One duties.
 
Ellen Clegg, who has been Deputy Managing Editor/Sunday, will move into the job of Deputy Managing Editor/News Operations, overseeing the paper at night and production-related matters. She will also be the final word on the paper’s standards for taste, tone, and language.
 
Mark Morrow, Deputy Managing Editor/Projects, will add to his responsibilities by taking charge of the Sunday paper as Deputy Managing Editor/Sunday and Projects, retaining his oversight of the Spotlight Team.
 
With these changes, we will be reducing the overall number of senior editors, just as we are reducing the total number of newsroom employees.
 
Reflecting on our colleagues, you can’t help but be proud of this newsroom, which is so generously endowed with bright, savvy, and deeply committed professionals. At this moment of both tumult and opportunity in journalism, we are fortunate to have a deep bench.
 
I am delighted that Caleb Solomon will be positioned to help lead an inevitable transformation of our newsroom. He already has made a mighty contribution. As Deputy Managing Editor/Page One since last May, Caleb stimulated more front-page enterprise from all corners of our newsroom and was central to our rethinking front-page story selection and presentation. His role in shaping Page One came after a highly successful three-plus years as Assistant Managing Editor/Business, producing consistently strong sections and a constant supply of top-notch Page One stories. In his time at the Globe, Caleb has been out front in the integration of Boston.com and the Globe newsroom, most recently leading an imminent redesign and relaunch of our real estate site. Caleb came to the Globe after a long and impressive run at the Wall Street Journal, first as a reporter, then as editor of the Wall Street Journal’s Texas and New England sections, and ultimately as Assistant Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe, based in Brussels. Caleb graduated from Columbia College in 1980 with a B.A. in English, and he received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism a year later.
 
This is a time of reinvention for newspapers. Very shortly, Caleb will lead a thorough examination of how the Globe should change in today’s radically altered media environment. All of you will be invited into that conversation.
 
Caleb steps into a role now occupied by someone who, I can say with absolute conviction, is one of the sharpest, most selfless, most hard-working, and most knowledgeable people in our profession. She is also among the most self-effacing. When I asked Helen Donovan to jot down a few words about her 32 years at the Globe, she kept it to, well, a few words: “letters to the editor editor, op ed page editor, assistant managing editor for the sunday globe (back when sunday had its own government), national editor, deputy managing editor (page one), political editor for the 1988 presidential election, back to deputy managing editor, managing editor, executive editor.”
 
That’s what Helen sent me after promising to reflect a bit on her career while she was away last week to help judge Pulitzer entries. “I don’t find that it has fluffed out any for the additional marinating while I was in New York,” Helen e-mailed me. “So this is it.”
 
No, that isn’t it. Everybody around here knows that we’re talking about a truly remarkable person, someone who day after day has offered wise counsel to me and just about everyone in our newsroom, who seems to have total command of virtually every subject that can pop up on a daily or weekend news budget, who understands how the paper works probably better than anyone in the building, who can effortlessly marshal the full forces of our newsroom on big stories, who envisions the big picture but also is a master of detail, who is an inspired editor who never wavers in her insistence on the highest standards. We all know that not having Helen as Executive Editor, a position she has occupied since 1993, leaves an enormous void. No one knows better than I do.
 
Ellen Clegg told me that when she started her career at the Globe in 1978 on the night copy desk, the slotman wore a green eyeshade and copy editors wrote headlines with thick black pencils and counted the characters by hand.  Since then, she has acquired just the sort of wide-ranging experience you’d want in someone who will run a high-pressure show right on deadline: night editor, specialist editor, and city editor; first editor of City Weekly; and Assistant Managing Editor for the regional editions, planning and directing the Globe’s ambitious suburban expansion. Ellen became Deputy Managing Editor/Sunday in 2005. Sunday is when we really like to strut our stuff, a goal that can only succeed with extraordinary teamwork. With Ellen, we were lucky to have one of our greatest team builders in charge. That quality will serve us especially well at night, too.
 
In her new role, Ellen follows someone who has been a pillar of sanity, sound judgment, and high standards. Mike Larkin counts as his “great fortune” to have worked in almost every editorial department. (He never made it to Photo or Design.) “I was here for the end of the Vietnam War, the desegregation of the Boston Public Schools, the Gulf War, the death of Princess Diana, the Shuttle tragedy, the 9/11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, the Catholic Church scandal, construction of the Big Dig, two World Series championships, and three Super Bowl victories (and one loss),” he says. When Mike became Deputy Managing Editor for news operations in 2000, the late hours were only slightly better than the midnight-to-8 schedule he had when he arrived at the Evening Globe in 1974 to work the copy desk. When he worked as assistant sports editor, he started a weekly tabloid of expanded sports coverage called Sports Plus. When he was assistant business editor, he launched an expanded weekly section called Business Extra.  He also held the posts of magazine editor and Living/Arts editor. “The Globe is the paper I grew up reading at home,” Mike told me. “It will be the paper in my den when I die -- however it is produced.”
 
I’m particularly pleased that we’ll have Mark Morrow in charge of the Sunday paper. He ranks as one of our smartest, most thoughtful, most skilled editors, and many of our most memorable projects were the product of his inspiration and careful, devoted nurturing. After serving as national editor and then overseeing our feature sections, Mark succeeded Ben Bradlee as Deputy Managing Editor/Projects in the summer of 2002, and focused immediately on helping supervise the stretch run of our history-changing coverage of the clergy abuse crisis. He has filled the years since with a host of projects, in every flavor -- investigative, narrative, explanatory -- and involving almost every department of the paper, including, of course, the Spotlight Team. Among them have been projects that have helped set and change the agenda in this town, projects that have stirred the mind and the heart, projects that have twice been honored as Pulitzer finalists and which have taken home many other national honors. He will continue to look for those kinds of stories, and to bring them home.
 
Finally, back to Steve Bailey. There’s something odd, I’ll admit, with saving Steve for last in this memo. Because one thing you know about Steve is that he’s always first. He does not get beat. That’s one big reason he has been required reading in the Globe for years.
 
When Steve won the Loeb Award and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for column-writing, it was deserved recognition for local business columnists and for the best of the breed. You don’t find columns like Steve’s in most business sections. His are masterfully reported, they break news, and they make for electric reading.
 
Steve has always worked harder than the competition, not always for the standard reasons. In noting that he started in this field as a copy boy, Bailey says, “The other copy boys wanted the weekends off to date girls; I was afraid of girls so I was glad to take over their shifts.” He started at the Globe in December, 1977, artfully talking his way into this newsroom, as he has talked and pushed his way since into one great scoop after the next. From copy editor to assistant business editor, he then became business editor for five years. Steve doesn’t shy from mentioning that he was lifted out of that job. Still, he remained the dogged fighter as reporter and columnist. While today you can hear Steve on radio and watch him on TV, his voice is at its most forceful on the business pages or, very often, the front page. He makes news, holds people accountable, and is a voice for common sense and the common citizen. Best of all, his column delivers a punch in the nose when it’s most deserved.
 
I was reflecting the other day on Steve’s career here. And it got me to thinking about how a single journalist can make such an enormous difference at a newspaper and in a community. Certainly, that is true of Steve, and it is true of all whose departures or new assignments are being announced today.
 
Marty

3/10/2008 11:15:23 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [2] |  

Samantha Power's resignation as an advisor to Barack Obama's presidential campaign is big news. But so far, my former colleague Dan Kennedy seems to be the only one who's noted that Power's description of Clinton as a "monster" might be connected with her scathing assessment of how Bill Clinton handled--or didn't handle--the genocide in Rwanda.

Blogging at Media Nation, Dan quotes at length from Power's 2001 Atantic article on this very subject. Here's an excerpt, in which Powers eviscerates Clinton for his 1998 Rwanda "apology":

With the grace of one grown practiced at public remorse, the President gripped the lectern with both hands and looked across the dais at the Rwandan officials and survivors who surrounded him. Making eye contact and shaking his head, he explained, "It may seem strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate [pause] the depth [pause] and the speed [pause] with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror."... [emphasis in original]

[T]his formulation avoids the critical issue of whether Clinton and his close advisers might reasonably have been expected to "fully appreciate" the true dimensions and nature of the massacres. During the first three days of the killings U.S. diplomats in Rwanda reported back to Washington that well-armed extremists were intent on eliminating the Tutsi. And the American press spoke of the door-to-door hunting of unarmed civilians. By the end of the second week informed nongovernmental groups had already begun to call on the Administration to use the term "genocide," causing diplomats and lawyers at the State Department to begin debating the word's applicability soon thereafter. In order not to appreciate that genocide or something close to it was under way, U.S. officials had to ignore public reports and internal intelligence and debate.

Maybe Power didn't have this in mind when she told the Scotsman that Hillary Clinton is "stooping to anything." But it's certainly possible.

3/7/2008 1:41:55 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

Today's Herald homage to Suffolk U. pollster David Paleologos is a bit of a debacle. Here's why:

1. Reporter Marie Szaniszlo claims Palelogos "has proven more accurate than larger pollsters." Her second piece of evidence: Paleologos putting Barack Obama ahead by five points in the New Hampshire Democratic primary race. That would be reasonable if, as the Herald claims, Obama won by three. But Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire. (Blue Mass. Group noted this error earlier today.)

2. Just before the New Hampshire Republican primary, Palelogos had Mitt Romney in the lead. Other pollsters had John McCain leading. McCain won.

3. In the Massachusetts Democratic primary, Paleologos put Obama ahead by 2 percentage points. Everyone else had Clinton in the lead. Clinton won in a landslide.

4. Paleologos had Obama winning California. He wasn't the only one who got it wrong. But he still got it wrong.

5. In her lede, Szaniszlo sets up a David-and-Goliath narrative, with "polling giant Zogby" showing Clinton and Obama tied just before Ohio's Democratic primary and "a small polling center based at Suffolk University" putting Clinton ahead 52-40. Clinton won by ten points. Good for Paleologos, but good for a few other pollsters, too, all of whom go unmentioned.

Maybe this misguided attempt to praise Paleologos had nothing to do with former Herald business editor Greg Gatlin's recent appointment as Suffolk University's director of public affairs. But it sure reads like it did.

UPDATE: Gatlin hasn't yet started at Suffolk; he begins next week.

3/6/2008 11:17:48 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [8] |  

That would be Adam Gaffin, the man behind Universal Hub.

3/6/2008 8:18:16 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

First, let me say this: today's Globe piece on French fries was well written and made me really, really hungry.

There is, however, a problem with the "trend" element of the piece. Correspondent Jonathan Levitt cements his case for French fries' increasing appeal as follows:

In fact, fries have become so popular that they're an academic study. Maryann Tebben, a French literature professor at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, has done scholarly work on fries.... She says that the French like their potatoes "not matchstick thin, but certainly lithe. Americans cut their fries either too thick or too thin. Bistro style is just right."

C'est magnifique! Except that Tebben's 2006 opus on fries--"'French' Fries: France's Culinary Identity from Brillat-Savarin to Barthes"--makes only passing, oblique reference to any recent increase in popularity or change in image. And that's in France. I'm just guessing here, but Tebben's decision to tackle this particular topic might have been connected to a food-studies symposium, sponsored by the European Institute for the History and Culture of Food, that she attended in Tours that same year.

Current cutbacks notwithstanding, maybe it's time for the Globe to hire a Trend Editor. Because this kind of thing happens way too often.

3/5/2008 11:34:14 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [0] |  

Since I was out of blog commission yesterday, there are a few loose ends I'd like to clear up.

--Three days later, the Globe is still using Sam Yoon as its stock young Asian guy.

--Speaking of the Globe, how about that Volvo/Red Sox advertorial?

--On a brighter note: Maria Cramer's front-page story on the 23 Bus was a riveting read on an important subject. And, as an added plus, the accompanying video effectively complimented the piece.

--The Herald gives online commenters this exhortation: "Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for all interested readers." In response to today's Howie Carr column, a reader posted this: "I'm so glad that trailer trash Clinton won, now it's time to get rid of that Kennedy asswipe Saddam Labumba." Maybe the Globe's no-comment policy is smart after all.

--Finally, best wishes to WEEI's Glenn Ordway, who's currently dealing with a truly nightmarish situation.

3/5/2008 10:50:49 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |  

About yesterday's City Weekly story? The one on Jeffrey Moy and his Asian Comedy Night? Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I believe that's a picture of Boston City Councilor Sam Yoon, not Moy.

Either that, or Yoon and Moy are total doppelgangers:





Also noteworthy: the photo is still online at 7 p.m. Monday.

FYI, one reason Moy started Asian Comedy Night was to "do something that was going to break some Asian stereotypes."

3/3/2008 6:58:06 PM by Adam Reilly | Comments [3] |