Media -- Dont Quote Me

Fiedler on the spot

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:11:12 GMT

Having taken the reins of BU’s contentious College of Communication, Pulitzer winner Tom Fiedler learns to navigate the thorny world of academia
As jobs in journalism-education go, Tom Fiedler’s new gig isn’t bad. Quite the contrary.

Paper chase: The counterintuitive, durable case for journalism education. By Adam Reilly.

As jobs in journalism-education go, Tom Fiedler’s new gig isn’t bad. Quite the contrary. Fiedler — the ex–Miami Herald executive editor who took over as dean of Boston University’s College of Communication (COM) back in June — gets to run an institution that’s already graced with a high-powered faculty and which, though not quite elite, might be the best of its sort in New England. He’ll be operating in Boston, a city with perennial appeal for prospective students and professors. And he’ll be implementing a vision that he himself crafted as head of the external-review committee that sized up the state of the college in 2007.

But Fiedler’s also inheriting some serious headaches. As COM’s run-down building on Comm Ave suggests, the college is strapped for cash. It’s also a factionalized, turbulent place where the three departments — journalism; mass communication, advertising, and public relations; and film and television — don’t always get along. Plus, Fiedler, who got a master’s degree from COM in 1971, has a vision of journalism education that’s sure to ruffle some feathers. Throw in the fact that he’s a relative newcomer to academia — where, as Henry Kissinger famously observed, the arguments are so bitter because the stakes are so low — and his seemingly cozy new perch suddenly looks like it should come with a complimentary flak jacket. Welcome to town!

I’m not Dick Cheney
Fiedler wasn't supposed to end up running his alma mater. Instead, as head of the external-review committee that took stock of COM following the scandal-tinged September 2006 resignation of Dean John Schulz (more on that in a bit), he was going to chart a course for COM’s future, and then step aside.

Then the plan changed — but not, Fiedler emphasizes, in a Dick-Cheney-nominates-himself-for-veep sort of way (our analogy, not his). In the fall of 2007, a few months after the external-review committee issued its report, Fiedler was contacted about the dean’s job at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, and asked BU president Robert A. Brown if he could use him as a reference. (At the time, Fiedler was also a BU overseer; he’s since resigned that position.)

Paper chase

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:17:08 GMT

The counterintuitive, durable case for journalism education
On the face of it, this isn’t a great time to study journalism.

Boston University's College of Communication

Fiedler on the spot: Having taken the reins of BU’s contentious College of Communication, Pulitzer winner Tom Fiedler learns to navigate the thorny world of academia. By Adam Reilly.

On the face of it, this isn’t a great time to study journalism. Consider, for example, the ongoing bloodletting in American newspapers: earlier this month, Mark Potts, the author of the Recovering Journalist blog, reported that a whopping 6300 employees at the 100 biggest American newspapers had lost their jobs — either by layoff or buyout — in the past year. Granted, the status quo is bleaker in newspapers than in radio or TV. But with the Web cannibalizing those forms of media, too — as well as rendering the old notions of national and regional readerships, viewerships, and listenerships obsolete — the future looks ominously uncertain everywhere in the news business.

And yet, counterintuitively, the schools charged with training the next generation of journalists keep pumping out graduates. In 2007, for example, nearly 50,000 students received bachelor’s degrees in journalism and mass communication, according to the 2007 Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates, which was conducted by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Meanwhile, the number of master’s students was close to 3800. (By way of comparison, the 2003 numbers were approximately 46,000 and 4100, respectively.)

True, they didn’t all want to be journalists: the 2007 Annual Survey also found that more new bachelor’s recipients sought work in PR or advertising (about 24 percent) than at daily newspapers (about 21 percent) or in broadcasting (also about 21 percent). Still, given the bleak realities of the journalistic marketplace, isn’t this steady output of embryonic journalists a bit irresponsible?

Not necessarily. For starters — and despite the angst that currently pervades newsrooms around the country — the job market for new journalism grads actually isn’t all that bad. According to the 2007 Annual Survey, for example, 71.7 percent of new bachelor’s degree recipients with news/editorial specializations have full-time work. The job market was better before the dot-com boom went bust: in 1999, that number peaked at 80.4 percent. That said, the 2007 employment rate is better than 2003 (63.5), 2004 (68.8), and 2006 (69.9) — and, somewhat surprisingly, 1990, as well (66.1). Employment for new bachelor’s holders who specialized in broadcast specialists is up too: 67.3 percent of them have full-time jobs — the best figure in seven years, and (once again) an improvement over 1990 (63.4).

In harm's way

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:59:21 GMT

The tragedy of Rakan Hassan and the impossibility of a Hippocratic Oath for journalists
Most of the job-related fears that keep journalists up at night are relatively mundane, but on rare occasions, a more ominous scenario presents itself.

Most of the job-related fears that keep journalists up at night are relatively mundane. We worry about getting scooped, making factual errors, pissing off the occasional source or story subject. But on rare occasions, a more ominous scenario presents itself — namely, the possibility that our reporting could cause actual harm to someone we cover.

In a grim front-page piece published in the Sunday, August 3, edition of the Boston Globe, columnist Kevin Cullen wrestled with just this concern. Cullen’s subject was the death of Rakan Hassan, a 14-year-old Iraqi boy who was brought to Boston for medical treatment in 2005, after a mistaken attack by US soldiers killed his parents and left him paralyzed.

Cullen had written about Hassan before, in a series of stories that detailed his evacuation from Iraq, recuperation at Massachusetts General and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospitals, and return to his home city of Mosul. Those pieces — published in 2006, before Cullen was tapped as a metro columnist — were models of great feature writing: highly readable, packed with evocative detail, touching but never maudlin.

This story was different. Hassan, Cullen told his readers, had been killed earlier this summer, in a bomb blast at his family’s home. As the story progressed, Cullen explored whether Hassan’s Boston caretakers should have allowed him to return to Iraq — and whether the Globe’s coverage of Hassan’s story might have somehow led to his death.

“All of us who cared about this boy, who loved this boy, are left to wonder: did we do something, however unwittingly, that got him killed?” Cullen wrote. “Did somebody somehow read Rakan’s story, maybe online, and set out to kill him and his family, to prove that anybody who takes sweets or help or anything from the Americans is a collaborator who shall die the death of an infidel?”

After mentioning other potential factors that may have made Hassan a target (his treatment by US Army physicians stationed in Iraq; his brother-in-law’s security job with the Iraqi government), Cullen concluded that the motivations of Hassan’s killers might never be known. But then, a few paragraphs later, he found himself returning to the question: “Would he still be alive if I didn’t write about him? If Michele McDonald’s beautiful photos of him never appeared in this newspaper?”

Leggo my ego!

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:50:31 GMT

The GOP is smearing Obama as a narcissist. So why is the press playing along?
If Barack Obama loses the presidency this November, it won’t be because of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or “Bitter-gate,” or sundry other vulnerabilities.

If Barack Obama loses the presidency this November, it won’t be because of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or “Bitter-gate,” or sundry other vulnerabilities. Instead, it’ll be because the public — and the pundits who tell them what to think about politics — has decided that Obama is a bit too big for his britches.

Yeah, that’s a strange assessment of someone who’s running for president. (“Why . . . he’s acting like he could be the leader of the free world!”) But in recent weeks, it’s become accepted political dogma. On July 18, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer outlined the Obama-as-narcissist case in a piece titled “The Audacity of Vanity.” Obama is a man of profoundly limited achievement, Krauthammer claimed. Yet he wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, put a faux presidential seal on his lectern, told Americans to learn a second language, and speaks of himself, using the royal “we,” as a harbinger of great change. “Who does he think he is?”, Krauthammer asked. “We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more.”

Leaving aside the obvious problems with Krauthammer’s argument — e.g., Obama’s use of “we” is a rhetorical device aimed at making his supporters feel like they’re part of a movement, not just a campaign — the fact that he made it hardly came as a surprise. Sneering conservative partisanship is, after all, Krauthammer’s whole shtick. And Krauthammer was merely following the lead that his candidate, John McCain, offered in February 2008 after the “Potomac Primary.” (McCain’s line: “I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need.”)

The avidity with which the rest of the press has embraced this line of reasoning, however, is a bit more unexpected. Two days after Krauthammer’s column ran, for example, Joan Vennochi, the fine Boston Globe columnist, cited (among other things) Obama’s trip to Europe, his upcoming nomination-acceptance speech in the Denver Broncos’ 75,000-seat stadium, and Michelle Obama’s purported affinity for Jackie Kennedy–esque dress as proof that “Obama has a crush on Obama.” (Pity the women whose husbands run for president. Judith Steinberg Dean was too shy and dumpy; Michelle Obama is so stylish and attractive that she’s proof of Obama’s Kennedy complex.)

Head case

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:06:40 GMT

Media coverage of a State House sex scandal reveals the pitfalls of reporting on mental illness
Who is Jim Marzilli, exactly? Is he a predatory letch? Or is he a deeply troubled man who needs to be kept from harassing women — but also from hurting himself?

STOP THE INSANITY: Bipolar disorder could have something — or nothing — to do with State Senator Jim Marzilli’s sexual-harassment charges. But the press is making its own diagnoses.

Who is Jim Marzilli, exactly? Is he a predatory letch? Or is he a deeply troubled man who needs to be kept from harassing women — but also from hurting himself?

If you live in Massachusetts and follow the news, you’ve probably pondered this question at some point during the past few months. In April, Marzilli, a Democratic state senator from Arlington, was accused of sexual assault by a woman who claimed he’d inappropriately touched her in an early-morning incident at her home. A month later, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone announced that his office was dropping that case due to insufficient evidence.

But then, on June 3, Marzilli was arrested in Lowell after allegedly harassing four different women over the span of several hours, bombarding them with inappropriate sexual overtures and attempting to grope one’s crotch. Approached by police, he gave a false name, then fled on foot; as officers subdued him with pepper spray inside a parking garage, he wept and said that his “life was over.” And this past week, two more women accused Marzilli of sexual harassment in a suit filed in Middlesex Superior Court.

While Marzilli has said that he won’t seek re-election, he hasn’t been found guilty of any crime. In the court of public opinion, however, he’s already been convicted and sentenced. Calls for his resignation have come from the Boston Herald, the Lowell Sun, the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, and Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi. For its part, the Massachusetts Republican Party has launched a new Web site called Marzilli Watch — motto: “Taxpayers Working for a Senator That’s Not” — aimed at mustering up public outrage that Marzilli, who hasn’t done his job in more than a month, is still receiving a state paycheck.

Which brings us to the reason Marzilli hasn’t been at work. On June 5, the Associated Press reported that Marzilli had entered McLean Hospital, the famed psychiatric facility in Belmont. The Herald subsequently reported that Marzilli had taken a leave from the State Senate and was being treated for symptoms of hypomania, a condition linked to bipolar disorder. And on July 10, the Globe published a piece in which Marzilli’s attorney, Terrence Kennedy, confirmed that his client had received a bipolar diagnosis. Since then, Marzilli’s diagnosis and/or treatment at McLean have been cited in practically every story that’s been done on his situation.

Unkindest cut?

ADAM REILLY — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:03:13 GMT

How a proposed pay cut surprised the Globe newsroom — and why it might actually happen
There’s probably no good way to learn that your employer wants you to do the same amount of work for less money. But the manner in which the editorial staff of the Boston Globe made this discovery was especially awkward.

There’s probably no good way to learn that your employer wants you to do the same amount of work for less money. But the manner in which the editorial staff of the Boston Globe made this discovery was especially awkward.

On Monday, June 23, Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson — the chairman and president/CEO, respectively, of the New York Times Company, which has owned the Globe since 1993 — dropped by the paper’s Morrissey Boulevard headquarters. The impetus for their visit was a retirement party for Al Larkin, the Globe’s outgoing executive vice-president and spokesman; prior to Larkin’s shindig, they spoke with newsroom department heads and held a paper-wide “town meeting” in the Globe’s William O. Taylor Room. The latter session was strikingly well-attended — people were reportedly sitting in the aisles and standing in the doorways — and a number of subjects came up: the advertising department’s ongoing struggles selling boston.com; the possible closure of the Globe’s printing plant in Billerica; the question of whether the Times Company will keep the Globe or try to sell it.

Most notably, however, there was the awkward topic of a possible wage cut. How, asked Globe mailroom employee Dan Caplette, can you justify management’s proposal to slash union salaries by 10 percent? In response — and as the Globe’s editorial employees wondered what the hell the mailroom guy was talking about — Globe publisher Steve Ainsley, who was also present, stressed that the wage-cut request was part of a broader collective-bargaining process. Despite “significant financial pressure” on the paper, he added, nothing had been decided yet. Sulzberger’s reply, when it came, featured the dreaded catch phrase of 21st-century journalism. “We’re trying to do more with less,” he explained. “We have to redefine what the Boston Globe is in a new universe.”

All of which raises a couple questions: first, why did the mailroom guy know more about the state of the paper’s labor relations than its reporters did? And second, is the Globe really about to pluck a few thousand dollars out of each of its union employees’ pockets?

Holding on, moving forward
The answer to the first question is pretty simple: union representation. The Globe’s mailroom employees are represented by the Boston Mailers Union, Teamsters Local 1, Boston, which Caplette heads. The editorial staff, by contrast, is represented by the Boston Newspaper Guild (BNG), the largest union at the paper. And despite being informed of the wage-cut proposal in a June 18 letter from Globe senior V-P Gregory Thornton, BNG president Dan Totten still hadn’t informed his members one week later. Which meant that they finally learned about the prospective salary reduction either when Caplette brought it up, or when they saw a quote from Totten in the June 25 Boston Herald, or when Totten finally e-mailed his members the same day the Herald story ran.

Is anybody paying attention to McClatchy's powerful Guantánamo exposé?

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:31:34 GMT

An old-media triumph sheds new light on Bush’s terror policy
Even before its 2006 acquisition of Knight Ridder, California-based McClatchy had a reputation for putting out some of America’s best mid-level dailies.

Even before its 2006 acquisition of Knight Ridder, California-based McClatchy had a reputation for putting out some of America’s best mid-level dailies. The Knight Ridder purchase, when it occurred, didn’t just add powerhouses like the Miami Herald and Charlotte Observer to McClatchy’s stable; it also gave McClatchy access to Knight Ridder’s Washington, DC, bureau, which had distinguished itself with commendably skeptical coverage prior to the Iraq War.

Now with this past week’s publication of a series on the Kafka-esque detention of thousands of foreign nationals following 9/11, the hybrid McClatchy–Knight Ridder DC operation is enjoying its biggest achievement to date. The subject matter of “Guantánamo: Beyond the Law” wasn’t new, exactly — the abuse of prisoners, the questionable criteria used to put them behind bars, and the dubious legal framework crafted to justify their ongoing legal limbo have all been covered elsewhere. But the depth of McClatchy’s treatment was unprecedented, and its conclusions were startling. For one thing, most prisoners at Guantánamo had “no intelligence value in the war on terror.” For another, by radicalizing formerly apolitical detainees, Guantánamo may actually have made Americans less safe, not more.

In the course of their research, reporters Tom Lasseter and Matthew Schofield talked to 66 former detainees who’d been held at Guantánamo and elsewhere; the fruits of their eight-plus-month investigation were published, by design, on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling that Guantánamo’s inmates can challenge their detentions in civilian court. (The series also appeared the same week that McClatchy announced its latest round of cutbacks; more on that in a bit.) The vast scope of Lasseter and Schofield’s reporting makes it more likely that their findings will hold up in the future. And, as an added bonus, it gives the public a vast trove of anecdotal evidence, which has been skillfully packaged online at mcclatchydc.com/detainees. There’s a photo gallery, video interviews with 10 former prisoners, and miniature profiles of every single detainee interviewed for the series. Sometimes the old saw about “journalism being the first draft of history” makes you feel sorry for the historians. Not here.

But is “Guantánamo: Beyond the Law” getting the attention that it should? That’s hard to say. As Editor & Publisher noted this past week, pickup and play inside the McClatchy chain itself has been outstanding. (McClatchy’s papers aren’t obligated to use material generated by the chain’s Washington bureau.) Several non-McClatchy papers, including the Oregonian and the Denver Post, have run part or all of the series, too. And according to Roy Gutman, McClatchy’s foreign editor, it’s been discussed on CNN (by Christiane Amanpour) and NPR (on Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, and The Diane Rehm Show).

Bad sports

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:06:51 GMT

While old and new media are mending many fences, they’re still squaring off in jockland
When historians trace the rise of the blog as the dominant journalistic form of the 21st century, they’ll pay close attention to two recent developments.

When, sometime in the future, historians trace the rise of the blog as the dominant journalistic form of the 21st century, they’ll pay close attention to two recent developments:

1) In February 2008, Joshua Micah Marshall, founder of the left-leaning political blog Talking Points Memo, won a Polk Award for legal reporting. Previous Polk Award winners include such revered media luminaries as David Halberstam, Seymour Hersh, Mary McGrory, and I.F. Stone.

2) Two months later, in a joint appearance on Bob Costas’s HBO show, Buzz Bissinger — who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Philadelphia court system, but is best-known for Friday Night Lights, his fantastic book on Texas high-school football — squared off with Will Leitch, founding editor of the irreverent sports blog Deadspin. In the ensuing one-sided exchange, Leitch was cast as a harbinger of the coming journalistic apocalypse. “I think you’re full of shit,” Bissinger told Leitch at the outset; things went downhill from there.

It’s a loaded juxtaposition, of course. In terms of winning mainstream recognition, Marshall’s Polk Award represents perhaps the blogosphere’s finest moment. And Bissinger’s screed against Leitch and sports blogs in general was unique in its ferocity.

But Marshall and Leitch’s disparate receptions from journalism’s old guard point to a bigger, somewhat bizarre phenomenon. For the most part, the pre-Web media establishment is slowly making its peace with the very technology that will either destroy journalism (if you’re pessimistic) or utterly reshape it. The Boston Globe editorial page prints a regular blog round-up; the mainstream media chase the dubiously obtained scoops of Huffington Post muckraker Mayhill Fowler; Riazat Butt, religious correspondent for the Guardian, reflects that “I thought online journalism wasn’t journalism because they would just read the wires and rewrite it. Now it means more to me to get stories onto the Web than in the paper.”

March to war

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:55:17 GMT

Why isn’t the press paying more attention to a possible attack on Iran?
During the course of two weeks in May, America’s top-ranking military officer went from warning that war with Iran could cripple the US military to rattling his saber at Tehran.

During the course of two weeks in May, America’s top-ranking military officer went from warning that war with Iran could cripple the US military to rattling his saber at Tehran.

That’s one interpretation, anyway. In an interview with Israeli TV that was broadcast on May 5, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, struck a glum note when asked about the possibility of preemptively striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I actually am very hopeful that we don’t get into a position where we have to get into a conflict,” Mullen responded, according to Reuters. “It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world.”

But on May 20, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Mullen sounded far more combative. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the US designated a terrorist organization in 2007, is “directly jeopardiz[ing]” peace in Iraq, said Mullen, according to the Associated Press (AP). And then: “Restraint in our response does not signal lack of resolve or capability to defend ourselves against threats.”

That seems like a major shift — but what did it mean? Did Mullen really rethink his assessment of whether the military could handle a new conflict? Did he backpedal after concluding that his earlier remarks could undercut diplomatic efforts to limit Iran’s budding nuclear program? Or might one of the Bush administration’s most hawkish members — someone from Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office, perhaps — have pointedly told Mullen that attacking Iran was still very much an option?

Oddly, there didn’t seem to be much interest from the media in finding out — or even in asking the question. The AP report on Mullen’s congressional testimony didn’t note his change in rhetoric. Neither did the New York Times, which made only passing reference to Mullen’s testimony. (The Times story, which focused on the Jerusalem Post’s claim that the US plans to attack Iran this year, was buried on A13.) And the May 21 Washington Post didn’t mention Mullen’s testimony at all.

To be fair, this dearth of coverage didn’t come on a slow news day. The Times’ front page, for example, featured stories about Barack Obama winning a majority of Democratic delegates, Ted Kennedy’s brain-cancer diagnosis, and a fragile peace in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood. The top story in the paper’s “International Report” section, meanwhile, was a follow-up on the Sichuan earthquake.

Open book?

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:37:25 GMT

Sal DiMasi is an embattled politician. His wife is an aspiring talk-show host. Welcome to New England Cable News’ ethics problem.
On any given day, New England Cable News features more smart, substantive politics coverage than any other Boston television station.

On any given day, New England Cable News (NECN) features more smart, substantive politics coverage than any other Boston television station. But right now, the station is facing a thorny little conflict-of-interest problem involving Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi, whose embattled status happens to be the story of the moment on Beacon Hill.

Some background: on May 1, the Boston Globe ran a front-page story on how legislative moves by DiMasi have benefited his friend, developer Jay Cashman. In 2006, DiMasi killed a bill that would have blocked a liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) construction project in Fall River, paving the way for a real-estate deal that netted Cashman more than $14 million. And in 2007, he backed legislation that could lead to the construction of a wind farm in Buzzards Bay — where, it turns out, Cashman hopes to build one.

As the Globe’s Frank Phillips noted, the DiMasi-Cashman connection isn’t limited to the two men; their spouses, Debbie DiMasi and Christy Scott Cashman, are currently collaborating on a TV program. Open Book Club, a sassy, half-hour literary confab, is produced by Saint Aire Productions LLC, a production company that Christy Scott Cashman runs. It’s taped in the Cashmans’ Back Bay manse. And as of May 4, it’s broadcast monthly on NECN.

Phillips’s story was about DiMasi’s ties to Cashman, not whether NECN’s link to the two men’s spouses is problematic. But that’s a natural follow-up question. On the one hand, NECN has to cover DiMasi and the turmoil threatening his Speakership, including the question of whether he’s used his position to benefit Cashman. On the other, NECN is involved in a business partnership with DiMasi’s and Cashman’s wives — and perhaps, depending on Saint Aire’s ownership structure, with Cashman himself. (Tom Kiley, the Cashmans’ attorney, didn’t respond to a request for comment, but both Jay and Christy Scott Cashman’s names appear on paperwork filed with the state.)

All this would be awkward enough. But on May 2 — one day after Phillips’s exposé was published — “Names,” the Globe’s gossip column, featured a big photo of NECN head Charles Kravetz at the Open Book Club launch party, which also took place in the Cashmans’ home. In the photo, Kravetz was flanked by Christy Scott Cashman and Debbie DiMasi. He looked delighted; so did they.

So much unknown
The question, obviously, is this: should NECN pull the plug on Open Book Club?

Straight talk

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:44:46 GMT

It’s time to cover John M c Cain again — and here are ten good places for the media to start.
It’s been a very quiet spring for John McCain.

It’s been a very quiet spring for John McCain. The last big hit the Arizona senator took, media-wise, came this past February, when the New York Times ran a story on McCain’s relationships with lobbyist Vicki Iseman and communications mogul Lowell W. Paxson — a piece that ended up much worse for the Times than for McCain, who looked victimized by the paper’s insinuations of adultery. Since then, the press has focused almost exclusively on the protracted Democratic grudge match between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both candidates have been covered in exquisite detail for the past few months; so have their campaigns, their spouses, and sundry other subjects of debatable relevance (Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Clinton’s Bosnia fib, Obama’s flag-less lapels). It’s been easy to forget that McCain even exists.

But now, following Obama’s win in North Carolina and close loss in Indiana, the campaign has entered a new phase. Clinton is still a candidate, but it’s harder than ever to imagine a scenario in which she’ll win. And the press, as former Phoenix staffer Dan Kennedy noted in a recent Guardian online column, is finally switching into general-election mode. This means it’s time to start covering McCain again — not by trotting out the usual war-hero-turned-blunt-maverick narrative, but by taking a hard look at the strengths and weaknesses he’d bring to the presidency.

Of course, McCain has a well-documented knack for charming the press into submission. So here, for the men and women who’ll be spending long hours on the Straight Talk Express, is a handy list of 10 McCain stories worth pursuing over the next few months:

1) It’s the economy, Senator
This past January, the Huffington Post reported that, in a meeting with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, McCain said he “doesn’t really understand economics.” McCain denied the report. But as his then-rival Mitt Romney noted in a subsequent press release, McCain actually has a long history of such remarks. (One example, drawn from a December 2007 Boston Globe story: “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got [former Federal Reserve chair Alan] Greenspan’s book.”) How does McCain assess his economic knowledge now? And what concrete steps, beyond a wide array of tax cuts, would he take to keep America’s economic woes from worsening?

Hardball

ADAM REILLY — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:14:56 GMT

How Herald publisher Pat Purcell could pitch inside — and brush back the Globe
Once upon a time, two daily newspapers battled in Boston.

HIS BACK PAGES: Herald publisher Pat Purcell could tackle the Globe with a beefed-up Sports section.

Once upon a time, two daily newspapers battled in Boston. The big one had more money and staff and circulation. But the smaller one had moxie, dammit, and its reporters hustled their way to scoop after scoop. Meanwhile, their rivals at the bigger paper sat lazily at their computers, writing under-reported odes to Big Government.

That, at least, is the tale that Boston Herald partisans tell about the tabloid’s ongoing competition with the Boston Globe. (This narrative even had a starring role in a recent column by Washington Post media writer Howie Kurtz.) But it doesn’t jibe with reality. Consider, for example, recent press coverage of dubious deeds by Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi. When, this past week, a “Herald review” (hyped on the front page!) cited cases in which House legislation had benefited personal friends of DiMasi, every example the paper mentioned had already been reported — by the Globe.

The problem is simple: because the Herald has a bare-bones news staff — and because the Globe’s reporters are far better than Herald loyalists tend to admit — the Herald’s victories (e.g., State House reporter Casey Ross revealing that Democratic representative Charles Murphy cast seven votes from the Virgin Islands), are destined to be the exception, not the rule.

But on one key battleground — the sports pages — the playing field is nearly level. The Globe currently has 20 sportswriters, a number that includes columnists and reporters. The Herald has 14, proof that sports coverage is already seen as key to the paper’s survival. (By way of contrast, Ross is the Herald’s only full-time State House reporter. The Globe has three.)

What’s more, the Globe Sports section, like the rest of the paper, is currently seeing an exodus of talent. Columnist Jackie MacMullan and NBA writer Peter May both applied for and received the paper’s latest buyout offer. Reid Laymance, the Globe’s second-ranking sports editor, is leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And Gordon Edes, the paper’s lead Red Sox reporter, is reportedly poised to jump to Yahoo! Sports. (Both Joe Sullivan, the Globe’s sports editor, and Edes himself declined comment on the Edes-to-Yahoo! rumors for this story.)

The good news, for the Globe, is that Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy remain as marquee columnists. Even so — and even with a pool of young talent that includes football writers Mike Reiss and Christopher Gasper and recent hire Marc Spears, who’ll cover the NBA when May departs — the paper is still hemorrhaging must-read bylines.

Communication breakdown

ADAM REILLY — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:43:30 GMT

How did Deval Patrick's greatest strength become a dangerous weakness?
You campaign in poetry, Mario Cuomo famously claimed, but you govern in prose. Don’t buy the dichotomy.

Masochistic messenger
After a flurry of early-term gaffes, Deval Patrick seemed to regain his communications equilibrium — and then came BookGate. Here’s a timeline:

NOVEMBER 2006 Scolds the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association for missing the essence of his campaign.

FEBRUARY 2007 A busy month: Patrick makes headlines for redecorating his office (with, among other things, a $12,000 set of drapes); upgrading the governor’s car to a Cadillac DeVille (Mitt Romney used a Ford Crown Victoria); hiring his former fundraising committee co-chair as a scheduler for his wife, Diane (for $72,000 annually); and, most damaging, phoning Citigroup on behalf of ACC Capital Holdings, parent company of subprime lender Ameriquest (Patrick is a former ACC board member).

MARCH 2007 Amy Gorin, Diane Patrick’s scheduler, resigns. Joe Landolfi, a veteran State House press hand, takes over communications operations from novice communications director Nancy Fernandez Mills.

APRIL 2007 Joan Wallace-Benjamin resigns as Patrick’s chief of staff; she’s replaced by former Patrick chief campaign strategist Doug Rubin.

MARCH 2008 Patrick travels to New York to pursue a book deal immediately before the Massachusetts House of Representatives kills his casino proposal. Rubin subsequently apologizes on Patrick’s behalf; Patrick insists he did nothing wrong.

You campaign in poetry, Mario Cuomo famously claimed, but you govern in prose. Don’t buy the dichotomy. After all, whether they’re running for office or exercising power, politicians face much the same imperative: speak and act in a way that inspires supporters, befuddles and demoralizes detractors, and convinces everyone else to join the first group and not the second. Do this, and you’ll succeed; don’t, and you’ll fail.

Consider, for example, the strangely bifurcated career of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. As a candidate, Patrick distinguished himself as a remarkably gifted political communicator. In intimate settings, he radiated intelligence, attentiveness, and empathy; in mass gatherings, he had a gift for stirring oratory and a knack for making people feel like part of a movement that transcended mere politics.

Since winning election, though, the formerly sure-footed Patrick has been strangely maladroit. Even before his inauguration, for example, he needlessly antagonized the press in a combative speech to the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association (MNPA), terminating whatever honeymoon he might have enjoyed.

Most recently, late this past month, Patrick made a huge political blunder when he traveled to New York to pursue a book deal just hours before the Massachusetts House of Representatives killed his pet proposal to legalize casino gambling. At first, Patrick kept quiet about his trip; his schedule said only that he was out of town on personal business. Then, after WBZ-TV’s Jon Keller reported what that personal business had been, the governor defended himself by noting that the outcome of the House vote had been a foregone conclusion.

The incredible shrinking free daily

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:27:19 GMT

New Metro metrics
This has been a rocky stretch for Metro Boston .

This past November, Metro Boston proudly announced that it had surpassed the Boston Herald and become Boston’s second-largest daily newspaper, with an average circulation of almost 187,000, according to the Certified Audit of Circulations (CAC). “The increase in circulation validates what we have seen around the globe, that the free daily newspaper model is the future of the industry,” said Stuart Layne, Metro Boston’s publisher, in a celebratory press release at the time. “People are consuming the news very differently than previous generations, and these numbers are proof the newspaper landscape in Boston has changed.”

In retrospect, Layne’s triumphalism may have been a bit premature. According to a CAC report published two weeks ago, a copy of which was recently obtained by the Phoenix, Metro Boston’s average circulation for the quarter ending September 30, 2007, plummeted to 135,888. This represented a drop of more than 51,000 papers per day, or around 27 percent.

Fret not, says Metro Boston marketing director Tracy Carracedo, because even newer CAC figures — for the fourth quarter of 2007 — show that the paper’s circulation has bounced back up to 170,000. “Metro is committed to printing a quality product every day,” says Carracedo via e-mail, “and we are putting new technologies to work to make the product better and stronger.”

Be that as it may, this has been a rocky stretch for Metro Boston. In the last quarter of 2006, the New York Times Company, which owns a 49 percent stake in the paper (and also publishes the Globe), wrote down the value of its share from $16.5 million to $9.4 million. In early January, the Phoenix reported that Metro International was shopping Metro Boston and its two other US papers, Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia. The Metro Boston staff has been shaken up, too, with Layne resigning in late January and editor Saul Williams departing in early January.

Given the intense competition for readers and advertising dollars in today’s media market — and the continuing convergence of all types of media content — Metro Boston’s drop-off from this past year’s high point is good news for a bunch of its competitors. But it’s especially welcome at the Herald, which, even with the Metro-favorable numbers — and even taking the malleable nature of circulation totals into account — once again gets to call itself Boston’s second-biggest daily. In an interview with Boston magazine, conducted before the latest figures were released, Herald editor Kevin Convey was more than happy to bring the schadenfreude. “I would tell you this much with certainty,” boasted Convey. “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.”

The player

PETER KADZIS — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:31:40 GMT

Trying to find some meaning in ace biz-boy columnist Steve Bailey’s move to London
The exit of Boston Globe business columnist Steve Bailey this past week to take a post in London as a general-interest news editor with Bloomberg signifies the exhaustion of a tradition.

The exit of Boston Globe business columnist Steve Bailey this past week to take a post in London as a general-interest news editor with Bloomberg punctuates not so much the end of an era as it signifies the exhaustion of a tradition — of favored reporters, columnists, and editors being granted the latitude needed so that they could become insiders, or “players,” within the spheres they covered.

Time, in various guises (death, retirement, controversy, the need for new challenges, buyouts — especially buyouts), conspired to make the Globe — a paper where the “insider” was once the star — into something less than a constellation and more of a professional guild.

Gone are Bob Healy, Muriel Cohen, Marty Nolan, Loretta MacLaughlin, David Nyhan, Curtis Wilkie, Gerry O’Neill, Tom Oliphant, H.D.S. Greenway, Mike Barnicle, Walter Robinson, Will McDonough, and (now) Bailey. No doubt, more than a few readers, competitors, and colleagues thanked God when some of these folks left. And this catalogue in no way suggests that this crew held a monopoly on Globe talent. But this crowd — to the unfair extent to which they can be ganged together — did tend to dominate, and in a few cases hog, the spotlight.

That this list comprises mostly men owes much to the fact that it reflects the intersection of almost ancient newspaper history with something closer to current events. Eileen McNamara, a Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist, now also gone, was too independent a soul to play — or pretend to play — inside baseball with anyone. Ellen Goodman, another Pulitzer winner, was more inspired by issues, causes, and analysis than shoe leather.

Joan Vennochi, who in effect wrote the “Bailey” column before she moved onto the Op-Ed page, is a bit harder to pigeonhole. Vennochi is as influential a force as any at the Globe. Ask an informed reader — or even a power broker — who had more clout, Vennochi or Bailey, and the answer would usually depend on a coin toss. I’ll hazard a guess and say that Bailey cared a bit more than Vennochi does about the whole “player” aspect of column writing. To the extent that the inside game is interesting, it depends a lot on a pose, a style of operating.

The inside-player style of operating, of course, was never exclusive to the Globe. Back when journalism was far more circumspect, many big-city dailies had a staffer or two who enjoyed more freedom than the pack. Even the New York Times — which, before its discovery of flirty summer sandals and anonymous downtown nightspots, was once a paragon of monochromatic virtue — had its favored sons: Arthur Krock, James Reston, and Tom Wicker, to name just three.

Extreme makeover: Globe edition

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:26:45 GMT

Now more than ever, this is Marty Baron’s newspaper
Earlier this week, in an e-mail to the Boston Globe newsroom, editor Marty Baron announced the imminent departure of three key employees.

MEDIA BARON: Despite recent cutbacks, “This is a time for reinvention,” says the Globe editor.

Earlier this week, in an e-mail to the Boston Globe newsroom, editor Marty Baron announced the imminent departure of three key employees: executive editor Helen Donovan, deputy managing editor for news operations Mike Larkin, and business columnist Steve Bailey, who’s written the “Downtown” column for nearly 10 years. (Given the recent push by the New York Times Company, the Globe’s corporate parent, to eliminate 60 Globe jobs via buyouts, it’s likely that each of the three is receiving some sort of severance package; whether they’re part of the current buyout framework is unclear.)

In that same e-mail, Baron also announced three promotions. Caleb Solomon, the paper’s front-page editor, will become managing editor for news; Ellen Clegg, the deputy managing editor/Sunday, will take Larkin’s old slot; and Mark Morrow, the paper’s deputy managing editor for projects, will become deputy managing editor for the Sunday paper, as well.

Taken in isolation, these departures certainly represent — as Baron said in his e-mail — “huge changes.” And with no disrespect intended toward Larkin, who seems to have performed admirably in a high-difficulty, low-glory job, the exits of Donovan and Bailey are probably the hugest.

Bailey’s importance should be evident to anyone who reads him regularly, or pays even passing attention to Boston business or politics. With his aggressive reporting, frequent scoops (which often become front-page news), and acid commentary — e.g., saddling Deval Patrick with the moniker “Governor Slots” — Bailey has earned a reputation as the most influential columnist in town. His replacement, whoever he or she is, will face exceedingly high expectations; the fact that Globe insiders struggle when asked to suggest possible candidates shows just how hard filling that job will be.

Donovan’s significance is more subtle. Given her lofty position in the Globe hierarchy — she’s been the second-ranking editor for 15 years, and under two editorial regimes — her public profile is remarkably low. This seems, in part, to be a function of her personality. Colleagues describe her as a reserved woman who rarely ventures out of her office. But it might also reflect the fact that Donovan’s array of responsibilities kept her tethered to her post on Morrissey Boulevard. Her administrative responsibilities, which included overseeing and brokering relations between the Globe’s various editorial departments, would be a full-time job by themselves. But Donovan also served as the last read for the front page, meticulously reviewing each story on A1 before the paper went to press.

Bay Area beatdown

ADAM REILLY — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:17:19 GMT

The soap-operatic significance of the Bay Guardian–Village Voice Media battle
These are grimly predictable days in the newspaper business.

These are grimly predictable days in the newspaper business. Circulation and advertising revenues fall; bureaus and jobs get cut; institutional ambitions diminish; and higher-ups exhort lower-downs to do more with less.

Given this relentlessly bleak status quo, the ongoing feud between the alt-weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian and Village Voice Media (VVM) — the 16-paper alternative-weekly chain that owns SF Weekly, the Bay Guardian's primary competitor — offers a bracing dose of vigor and attitude. In October 2004, the Bay Guardian (led by the voluble, swaggering, lefty publisher Bruce Brugmann) brought a predatory-pricing lawsuit against the SF Weekly and its parent company (led by the voluble, swaggering, libertarian executive editor Mike Lacey). The accusation, basically, was that VVM (formerly known as New Times) was trying to put the Bay Guardian out of business by selling advertisements in SF Weekly below cost, and using revenues from elsewhere in the VVM chain to offset the paper's consequent losses. (The suit also alleged predatory pricing at the nearby East Bay Express, which VVM sold off last year.)

This past week, after a five-week trial and more than three days of deliberation, a California jury agreed and awarded the Bay Guardian $6.3 million. But under the terms of the California law in question, which mandates the tripling of some of these damages, the Bay Guardian's take could be $15.6 million or more. Since both the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly are hemorrhaging cash with annual revenues of $6 million each, it's not a stretch to say that the award could give the Bay Guardian a new lease on life while simultaneously jeopardizing SF Weekly's existence. But here's the catch: because VVM plans to seek a new trial and/or appeal the ruling, it could be a long time before the Bay Guardian gets its money — if, in the end, it gets it at all.

A tempest under the radar
Thus far, the Bay Guardian-VVM fight has received minimal interest from the national press. While Editor & Publisher reported on the jury's ruling, neither the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal deigned to mention it. In fact, as E&P editor-at-large Mark Fitzgerald noted in a recent column, even the San Francisco-area's mainstream media paid precious little attention to the proceedings, a late flurry of coverage notwithstanding.

This is a pity for two reasons. First, the Bay Guardian-VVM affair isn't just a legal battle. It's also a pissing match of epic proportions, in which the combatants clearly loathe each other and are striving, with an almost obsessive zeal, to impart this loathing to their respective readerships.

Master of Hub hits

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:21:56 GMT

Meet Adam Gaffin, Boston’s reigning Web czar
Greater Boston has witnessed a shocking amount of drama in the new year.

HIP HUB HOORAY Adam Gaffin’s Universal Hub blog gives him a forum to critique the press’s spotty coverage of Boston politics, inner-city crime, and problems at the MBTA.

Greater Boston has witnessed a shocking amount of drama in the new year. A woman screamed obscenities at a Starbucks employee who’d chided her for changing her baby’s diaper on a store table. An Israeli visitor to Mattapan got a chilly welcome from that neighborhood’s mostly black residents (or thought he did, anyway). A 17-year-old blind kid from East Boston was busted by the FBI after reporting a bunch of fake crimes. Also, WTKK-FM talk-show host Jay Severin said that poor people smell.

If you get your information from newspapers, radio, or TV, you probably missed these stories. But if you’re a regular reader of the wry, boundless blog Universal Hub — which aggregates and invites comment on Boston-centric Web content, blog-based and otherwise, from the profound to the absurd — they’re old news. This, in turn, is because Adam Gaffin, Universal Hub’s founder and administrator, spends a substantial chunk of his waking hours looking for any and all new postings with a Boston hook. He wades through hundreds of RSS feeds. He feeds specific search terms into Google News to seek out new sources. And he does this every day — after he wakes up, during his lunch break, while he rides his exercise bike at night, even when he’s on vacation.

This might suggest that Gaffin aspires to do for Boston what Jim Romenesko does for journalism. But because Universal Hub (henceforth, U-Hub) is a multifaceted beast, the analogy doesn’t quite work. For one thing, U-Hub generates more reader responses than Romenesko’s Poynter Institute blog (poynter.org/medianews). It also doubles as an experiment in citizen journalism since it allows readers to create their own posts. But because they rarely do, U-Hub has become, in part, a platform for Gaffin to play media critic and acerbic local-news commentator — which he does with aplomb.

He is, for example, a detractor of certain employees and editorial practices of the Boston Globe, a role he embraced even when he wrote a short-lived blogs column for that paper’s City Weekly section. Gaffin’s preferred target used to be metro columnist Brian McGrory; after McGrory became metro editor, Gaffin turned his attention to metro columnist Adrian Walker, who he claims tackles good stories late, and without new insights.

See no evil

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:04:05 GMT

What’s on the videotape Dan Conley won’t make public? Plus, winners in the Times ’ McCain mess.
An intriguing battle pitting government against the press is currently percolating on the North Shore and here in Boston.

HIDE AND SEEK: Suffolk County DA Dan Conley is willing to go to court to keep a surveillance tape tied to a Revere cop’s murder out of the Lynn Daily Item’s hands.

In terms of drama and scope, it’s not quite the Pentagon Papers. But an intriguing battle pitting government against the press is currently percolating on the North Shore and here in Boston.

The showdown — which involves the Daily Item of Lynn and Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley — has its origins in the fatal shooting, on September 29, 2007, of Revere Police Officer Daniel Talbot. (Disclosure: I worked at the Item for four months in 2003.) The murder of a cop always packs an extra emotional wallop, since the men and women of law enforcement risk their lives to keep the rest of us safe. And in Talbot’s case, some added details — including his age (30), his imminent nuptials, and reputation as a nice guy and good cop — made his death seem particularly tragic.

At the same time, ever since Talbot’s murder hit the papers and the airwaves, the circumstances surrounding it have been perplexingly murky. For one thing: why were Talbot, his fiancée, and several other police officers hanging out behind Revere High School at 1:30 am? For another: prosecutors have acknowledged that the group’s members were having “a couple beers.” How many is that, exactly?

And here’s a third lacuna. Conley originally said that Talbot was killed after his group had a “heated exchange” with 17-year-old Derek Lodie, who then called several friends to the scene. One of these, Robert Iacoviello, 20, allegedly shot Talbot in the head. (Iacoviello has been charged with Talbot’s murder; in addition to Lodie, James Heang and Gia Nagy, both 17, have also been charged as accessories.) Since then, however, prosecutors have acknowledged that Talbot initiated the exchange in question. What did he say, exactly? And what transpired between his initial comments and his murder?

The answers — some of them, at least — may exist on videotape that was shot that night by a camera mounted on the wall of Revere High School. But when the Item requested a copy of the video this past December, Conley’s office refused. And when the paper tried again later that month, explaining in greater detail why it felt its request was justified, Conley’s office again chose not to make the tape available.

The gathering storm

ADAM REILLY — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:53:13 GMT

Anxiety on Morrissey Boulevard
This past week’s announcement that the New York Times plans to cut 100 newsroom jobs was bad news for the journalists of the Gray Lady.