MARK JURKOWITZ

Table manners

MARK JURKOWITZ — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 03:04:29 GMT

In blackjack experience teaches, intuition sustains
My first blackjack experience came as a newly minted college grad.

My first blackjack experience came as a newly minted college grad. It was my inaugural visit to Las Vegas in the summer of 1975. Blessed with beginner's luck, I won about $55 at some dumpy casino, and immediately spent it on a show (and two-drink minimum) at the Stardust. (In those days, the Stardust was one of the city’s neon princesses. Having become an aging relic in a city blooming with luxury mega-resorts, it was demolished on March 13, 2007.)

Walking on the Strip later that steamy desert night — intoxicated by a mere whiff of Vegas nightlife subsidized by a friendly run of cards — I was hooked on the game right there and then.

Blackjack may be my vice of choice, but I don't harbor any illusions. It isn't the most glamorous casino game. It doesn't deliver the high-energy frenzy of a hot craps table. It offers little of the mano-a-mano grit of poker so evident on the 63 cable channels airing Texas hold ’em tournaments.

In fact, the greatest blackjack player in pop-culture history happened to be an autistic savant — Dustin Hoffman's Raymond in the 1988 film Rain Man. But if you can't count cards like Raymond, one of blackjack's great attractions is that you don't have to be a serious or even good card player to hold your own. Take it from someone with no innate card sense who was the house fish during the weekend poker games in high school. There were always too many moving parts in poker to concentrate on. And I've never played bridge or gin or hearts, either.

Blackjack, at its core, is a simple game that an alert fourth-grader can master. You have to be able to add fairly quickly — but only up to 21. You adhere to a few basic rules like never split 10s, always split aces and eights (even though I'm convinced the latter is a sucker bet), and assume the dealer's hole card is a 10. And don't play at the "third base" corner seat unless you have a thick skin, because your table mates will invariably blame you for taking the dealer's bust card.

Blackjack is also a wonderful experience when you get the good-table vibe. Now, in all honesty, that doesn't always happen. Blackjack gods often smile down unevenly, so that some players are building big stacks of chips while their neighbors are searching frantically for the cocktail waitress. There are also those tables where the dealer can't lose and everyone is moaning and groaning, although truth be told, that shared self-pity is a pretty good bonding tool too.

The AIDS story

MARK JURKOWITZ — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 21:52:56 GMT

On an ever-worsening subject
This story originally appeared in the December 9, 1986 issue of the Boston Phoenix .

This story originally appeared in the December 9, 1986 issue of the Boston Phoenix.

AIDS is not a disease of homosexuals or intravenous drug users alone: it threatens millions of sexually active Americans regardless of age, gender, race or place of residence.--Newsweek, November 24, 1986

I really haven’t accepted the fact that it’s something that can actually happen.--Boston Globe, November 12, 1986, quoting a 20-year-old

The news about AIDS just keeps getting worse. Just look at the latest newspapers or peruse the weekly news magazines and you’ll be struck by the developing consensus of dire predictions and mushrooming fears about the future of AIDS in America. Ever since official AIDS projections for the next five years were released, in June, journalists and scientists have been busy creating a ghastly vision of the future.

Here is a commonly offered scenario: the year is 1991. Four million Americans are infected with the fatal AIDS virus, and as many as half of them will eventually develop the incurable disease. In this year alone, 54,000 citizens – homosexuals and heterosexuals, drug users and teetotalers – will perish from AIDS as it becomes one of the nation’s leading killers, second only to heart disease. The high cost of treating AIDS sufferers is crippling the Medicare system, several major insurance companies have already been bankrupted, and the economy has plunged into deep recession. Every man, woman, and child in the country now undergoes regular AIDS testing and carries the results around on identification cards. Sex outside marriage is illegal. It is a felony for an infected person to have sex with a noninfected person. All pregnant women must submit to an AIDS test – if the results are positive, abortion is mandatory.

This futuristic nightmare that sounds like a combination of 1984 and The Andromeda Strain is now just a gruesome fiction. But there is a growing sense that this scenario, sketched out in the August 10 issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine by Neil R. Schram, MD, chairman of the Los Angeles City/County AIDS Task Force, may be tomorrow’s reality. Newsweek’s November 24 cover story begins in strikingly similar fashion, with a future president declaring a national state of emergency to combat the virulent epidemic that by that time –1991—has taken nearly 200,000 lives and shows no signs of slowing its deadly advance.

Could this possibly come to pass? An increasing number of experts, eyeing a growing body of evidence, believe it could happen, particularly since so many people now potentially at risk are failing to heed the gathering storm clouds and are averting their gaze from a very disturbing set of facts, statistics and projections.

Reality TV meets the newsroom

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 20:43:07 GMT

Trailblazer Steve Smith brings newspaper transparency to a whole new level
Even in an era of buzzwords such as media “transparency” and “interactive dialogue” (between news consumers and news producers), what’s happening at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, is pretty strange stuff.

MEDIA MAVERICK: Steve Smith, editor of the Spokesman-Review, in Washington, and one of the most vocal, fearless, and controverisal experimenters.

Even in an era of buzzwords such as media “transparency” and “interactive dialogue” (between news consumers and news producers), what’s happening at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, is pretty strange stuff.

Beginning on June 13, the paper began webcasting its two daily news meetings to the public, letting viewers with computers sit in on the key decision-making staff meetings — once considered secret and sacrosanct — at a daily with a full-time staff of almost 130 people.

The first thing worth noting about the webcast is that, thus far, interest has been rather limited, with only about 50 to 60 folks logging on for the more interesting morning meeting. Second, if the paper’s about to break a big scoop, it won’t discuss that story in these suddenly public forums. And third, after catching a glimpse of one such webcast, it’s quite possible that Ambien has met its match in the insomnia-curing business.

But what should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the news business is the fact that the architect of the webcast concept is Steve Smith, 56, one of journalism’s most vocal, fearless, and controversial thinkers and experimenters. Having been editor of the Spokesman-Review since July 2002, Smith’s new webcast is just part of what he calls his “transparent newsroom” initiative, which also includes three dozen blogs, visitors invited to sit in on editorial meetings (even before the webcast), and a unique willingness on the part of the paper’s editors to explain themselves and their decisions to the public.

“It’s a compilation of ideas and practices that I’ve been playing around with at one level or another since I’ve been at the Wichita Eagle,” where he worked from 1988 to 1993 under reform-minded editor Buzz Merritt, says Smith. (At that paper, editors actually went to malls to engage readers in conversations about how and what the Eagle was doing.)

Itinerant reacher
Smith, who also edited the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon, and the Gazette in Colorado Springs before coming to the Spokesman-Review, has bounced around quite a bit. But he has never been a quiet backbencher willing to play by the rules. He was a fiery advocate for the civic-journalism movement — an often misunderstood and occasionally misguided effort to create more vigorous dialogue between journalists and the public — that emerged in the early ’90s and never really caught on in the mainstream media. (After seeing Smith speak at a civic-journalism conference a decade ago, I was so impressed by his vision and energy that I thought about changing jobs to go to work for him on the spot.)

The incredible shrinking newsroom

MARK JURKOWITZ — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 03:02:04 GMT

Herald cuts
As the fiscal year ends over at the Boston Herald , there’s serious anxiety at One Herald Square.

Your ombuddy

MARK JURKOWITZ — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:02:45 GMT

Once the most thankless job in journalism, the lowly ombudsman is now poised to be a star
Part internal-affairs cop, part complaint department, American news ombudsmen are truly a unique breed.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Once toiling in thankless obscurity, the news ombudsman is beginning to play a bigger role in American journalism.

Eleven years ago, after working only a few months as the Boston Globe ombudsman, I attended my First news ombudsmen convention in Fort Worth, Texas. While I was still relatively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I did notice that several of my colleagues who had spent years in ombudsmanship had something of a worn, world-weary look about them.

One of them pulled me aside, and, noticing my rookie enthusiasm for the job, asked if I thought that the Globe readers who were contacting my office to comment/complain about the paper generally seemed to be full of good-old grassroots wisdom and common sense. When I answered in the affirmative, he shook his head sadly and warned me that in a year, I’d be slamming the phone down and cursing said callers.

There was a certainty in his voice.

Part internal-affairs cop, part complaint department, American news ombudsmen are truly a unique breed. They work in what has often been considered one of journalism’s most thankless jobs: getting an earful from angry (and sometimes crazed) readers and getting the cold shoulder from angry (and sometimes crazed) colleagues whom they dared to criticize, usually gently, in their columns. In addition, ombudsmen frequently toil in the shadow of public suspicion since they are paid by the same news outlets they are charged with independently evaluating.

For the record, I was the Globe ombudsman for a little more than two years, from 1995 to 1997. It’s fair to say that being an ombudsman or public editor or readers’ representative is not for everyone.

In his new book, Public Editor #1, Dan Okrent recounts his career as the first ombudsman (or, as they call it, “public editor”) at the New York Times. His introductory chapter is titled “Notes On An Unendearing Profession” in which he recounts a telling anecdote about his introductory meeting with Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

What was the first question Sulzberger asked of the first person to be paid solely to publicly evaluate the paper’s performance?

“Why on earth would you want to do this?”

Last month, after a little less than a year on the job, Globe ombudsman Richard Chacón — a good guy who saw the job as a chance to create better dialogue between the paper’s journalists and its readers — abruptly left the post to become communications director for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick, a gig that might not last past primary day. Although he didn’t say so, it’s fair to assume that Chacón was less than enthralled by some of the less pleasant chores of the ombudsman’s office.

The media’s worst nightmare?

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 20:10:38 GMT

Howard Cooper is quickly making a name for himself as the city’s go-to guy for libel
Many of those familiar with his work tend to see him as the real deal — a passionate, sincere, and surprisingly idealistic advocate who is no fun to face across the aisle.

A WIN CAN DO WONDERS: After winning Judge Ernest Murphy’s libel case against the Herald, Cooper was deluged by hundreds of inquiries from potential clients.

On January 20, 2005, in an emotional opening statement to a Suffolk County jury, Howard Cooper declared that a Boston Herald series, which began in February 2002, had been so unfairly damaging to Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy that the judge “has been seen crying in front of lawyers, in front of court officers.”

Twenty-nine days later — after deliberating for 25 hours and confounding the conventional wisdom that Murphy’s high-profile libel suit was a long shot at best — the jury awarded the judge nearly $2.1 million. And Howard Cooper’s life changed.

He found himself deluged by “hundreds” of inquiries from potential clients seeking help in media-related cases — 95 percent of which he quickly discarded. He became a sought-after speaker at panels and seminars. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly named him one of its 10 “Lawyers of the Year” for 2005. Among the courtroom spectators in the Murphy case was an attorney for the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), an organization impressed enough with Cooper to hire him for a conspiracy-and-libel lawsuit that could dwarf the Murphy case by the time it’s done generating headlines.

At age 46, and after two decades of practicing law, Cooper is something of a household name in media circles — although exactly what adjectives surround that name might vary. After beating the Herald in court and bringing the ISB suit against the tabloid and Channel 25, as well as their sources, he is an unpopular figure in some local newsrooms. And as a Jewish lawyer representing the ISB, Cooper is perched in the middle of an explosive case that threatens to pit Muslim against Jew, bringing the intractable Middle East conflict into court.

Cooper isn’t comfortable with a reputation as the media’s worst nightmare, asserting that “I’m not interested in being a plaintiff’s libel lawyer. I’m interested, to the extent possible, of [representing people] where a real wrong has been done and the legal system is available to correct it.”

And although there is a school of thought that says good lawyers should be dispassionate advocates for their clients, those who know him say Cooper’s intense faith in his cases is a big part of what motivates him.

“Howard tends to fall in love with the cause he’s pursuing,” says David Yas, publisher of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. “He’s a believer . . . in clients he takes on.”

Assembly-line Investigations

MARK JURKOWITZ — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:24:43 GMT

‘Team 5 Investigates’ is blurring the lines between investigative reporting and, well, just reporting
The May 24 “Team 5 Investigates” story had many of the elements of classic journalistic sleuthing.

MORE THAN TALKING HEADS?: Team 5 Investigates is all about quantity

The May 24 “Team 5 Investigates” story had many of the elements of classic journalistic sleuthing. Upset victims. Law breaking. Public-safety fears. And a dramatic “gotcha” scene in which the reporter — Channel 5’s tough-minded Susan Wornick — marched into an alleged wrongdoer’s office for a tense face-off.

There was just one missing ingredient necessary to transform the story into high TV drama: the subject itself. “Limo Rides Gone Bad” was a piece about 14 Easton High School promgoers who were sadly — but not quite tragically — left cooling their heels when their limo driver was arrested for having a suspended license.

Mildly intriguing? Sure. Offbeat? Yes. But it really didn’t register on the “Holy shit, Martha!” scale.

Back in January, accompanied by dramatic promotional spots featuring gritty street scenes, opened locks, prying flashlights, and intrepid reporters jogging somewhere (apparently after their prey), Channel 5 unveiled the biggest and most prolific investigative unit in a television market that has had a pretty good tradition of sweeps-inspired muckraking.

Staffed by an impressive team that includes four producers and five reporters, “Team 5 Investigates” has cranked out almost 50 pieces in less than four months — a breakneck pace that will yield about 150 stories per year. A few stories — such as a stakeout that found Massport employees snoozing at their posts at Logan Airport — have the look, the feel, and some of the impact of traditional investigative TV journalism. Some stories — such as the news that the Sheraton Ferncroft hotel kitchen was shut down for health violations — clearly fit the definition of breaking news. Many stories — such as Wornick’s story about the poor supervision of limo drivers — fall comfortably into the category of consumer-oriented reporting. And if you listen to the Channel 5 staffers talk about their efforts, you detect a subtle but
palpable change in the definition of investigative reporting.

“Our goal was to uncover information as opposed to just reporting the news,” says the team’s executive producer Jen Berryman.

“I think it’s giving people information they need and information they don’t know,” adds reporter Kelley Tuthill. “I don’t think everything has to be ‘gotcha.’ ”

It’s fair to suggest that those definitions can simply describe the criteria for solid-news reporting rather than for the groundbreaking investigative scoops that often come from exhaustive, painstaking, and high-risk reporting. And among critics, there’s a sense that “Team 5 Investigates” is more of a promotional and marketing concept than a vehicle for potent, homegrown must-see journalism.

Stop whining and do your job

MARK JURKOWITZ — Sun, 28 May 2006 14:10:04 GMT

The White House and the media are not supposed to get along, stupid
A president with a history of antipathy toward the media complains openly about the “knee-jerk liberal press.”

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT?: Bush now has Tony Snow to help him make nice with his watchdogs

A president with a history of antipathy toward the media complains openly about the “knee-jerk liberal press.” His White House eavesdrops on journalists, fumes about unwanted leaks, and takes spin control to new heights. When the chief executive finally runs into serious political trouble, a long-frustrated press corps practically revels in triumph.

That might sum up the near toxic relationship between George W. Bush and a good chunk of the mainstream media these days. But it actually describes the combat between Bill Clinton and the Fourth Estate, as laid out in Howard Kurtz’s 1998 book, Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine.

That surprise punch line holds a lesson. Regardless of how loud the grumbling grows about the hostile atmosphere between the Bush administration and the media — an argument fueled by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s recent pronouncement that the government can prosecute journalists for publishing classified material — an adversarial relationship between journalists and whoever occupies the White House is, in many ways, the natural order of things.

Any administration — with an enormous bully pulpit and the resources of the federal government at its disposal — is constantly engaged in an effort to convince the American public that its policies are working, its promises being kept. The news media — backed by major financial resources and wrapped in the protection of the First Amendment — should be constantly engaged in an effort to scrutinize and vet those very policies and promises.

When a president succeeds in maintaining public support, either by dint of the wisdom of his policies or by outmaneuvering a complacent, sloppy, or petty press, that’s the way the system works. Conversely, when journalists succeed in raising legitimate doubts about the nation’s leadership and manage to earn the trust of the citizenry, that’s healthy too.

Some of those interviewed in a May 16 Editor & Publisher story about reports that the feds have been tracking media phone calls moaned and groaned about the practice. But the best response was delivered by the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus. “You can’t sit and worry about it,” he said. “It goes all the way back to Watergate. It’s a fact of life, you go on and do what you do.”

In other words, stop whining and do your job. And may the better man — or woman — win.

Glossed over

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 17 May 2006 15:16:23 GMT

The magazine racks are filled with dying publications — but why is the glossy’s forecast not nearly as gloomy as newsprint’s?
One sign of how the magazine business is doing these days is a three-month-old Web log called “Magazine Death Pool.”

Dead: Radar, Cargo

One sign of how the magazine business is doing these days is a three-month-old Web log called “Magazine Death Pool.” Adorned with the ominous image of the grim reaper, the “pool” is littered with the carcasses of deceased publications (Radar), titles deemed in critical condition (Hollywood Life), and mags seen as somehow doomed even before launch (an unnamed Condé Nast business title slated for 2007).

As ominous as that might seem for the magazine industry, it’s not that simple.

While declining circulation and revenues as well as the lure of information on demand have left the newspaper business reeling, the picture is considerably more complicated for a magazine industry accustomed to serious churn. There were more than 250 publication launches announced in 2005, according to the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA). There sure weren’t 250 new daily papers rolling off the presses.

Susceptible to some of the ills affecting newspapers and relatively immune to others, the magazine environment is tough, but not completely inhospitable. There’s bad news at Time, but good news for the Nation. It’s death to Cargo, but life at Men’s Vogue. Lad-mag king Felix Dennis may be looking to peddle Maxim and Stuff, but here in Boston, a team is set for a September launch of 02138, ambitiously advertised as “a Vanity Fair for Harvard.”

In fact, if you ask three experts, you get three different takes on the health of magazine publishing. (We know how the Reaper feels.)

“Consumer magazines are being hit on all sides,” says Thomas Kemp, managing director at the Veronis Suhler Stevenson media investment firm. “A strong flight of advertising to online” poses one problem, he says, while “newsstand sell-through has been challenging at best, if not declining.” He adds: “It’s a very challenging time for the magazine industry.”

Samir Husni, chair of the University of Mississippi journalism department and someone who closely tracks the magazine industry, says, “When you hear all the bad news ... it’s a market adjustment. Almost every 10 years we go through the same thing.”

And Nina Link, the bullish president of the MPA, simply calls the current environment “a time of tremendous transformation.”

Winners and losers
Despite capturing a prestigious National Magazine Award in General Excellence this month, Time magazine is not having a happy time of it — nor are newsweeklies in general.

Liberty or Death

MARK JURKOWITZ — Thu, 11 May 2006 13:42:41 GMT

Pat Purcell’s sale of CNC adds a mysterious new player to the media market
“You bet we’re alive — and kicking!” declared the headline on Herald owner Pat Purcell’s feisty message to readers on Monday.

The Herald stands alone, and Liberty Group Publishing becomes a major local media player in a dramatic three-part newspaper deal.

“You bet we’re alive — and kicking!” declared the headline on Herald owner Pat Purcell’s feisty message to readers on Monday. (That phrasing — no accident — is a reprise of the famous “You Bet We’re Alive” Herald headline announcing the paper’s lifesaving sale to Rupert Murdoch in 1982.)

But if the Herald splash was that Purcell was keeping the troubled tabloid he has owned for a dozen years, the bigger story was that Boston’s newspaper landscape has been dramatically and irrevocably altered by a three-way deal that broke so suddenly last Friday that some of Purcell’s employees learned about it on the Boston Globe Web site.

In a widely anticipated move, Purcell survived by agreeing to sell his profitable suburban-oriented Community Newspaper Company (CNC) chain of more than 100 publications, including four dailies, to the Illinois-based Liberty Group Publishing for, according to the Globe, about $225 million. Liberty then doubled down, swooping in to pick up the Enterprise NewsMedia collection of the Patriot Ledger in Quincy and the Enterprise in Brockton, and the 23-paper MPG chain of South Shore weeklies, all for a reported $165 to $175 million.

For years, local media operators — ranging from Fidelity Investments when it owned CNC to Purcell himself — had coveted the potentially potent combination of the CNC papers and the Enterprise outlets. And with good reason. Liberty holdings now blanket the eastern part of the state like a February blizzard and encircle the Globe.

In the end, the big prize was snatched by a largely unknown eight-year-old Illinois company — one that has never operated in Massachusetts — with an undistinguished track record and a history of buying monopoly papers in small towns. Suddenly, Liberty — soon to be renamed GateHouse Media — has control of a big chunk of the local-media chessboard. And no one seems quite sure what to make of it.

“One assumes, since they own small-town dailies, they pretty much have the market to themselves,” says newspaper consultant John Morton. “They’re small-town newspapers: they don’t usually get on the radar screen.”

Given that many of its papers have a circulation of less than 20,000, the Massachusetts acquisitions are a “big bite” for Liberty. Ventures one veteran media observer: “This is a huge step up for them.”

Listing forward

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 03 May 2006 16:57:26 GMT

Sometimes a media critic just wants to herd a few cats
Like anyone who works a specific beat — sportswriters and political writers come to mind — media critics acquire lots of impressions, opinions, and stray observations that never actually make it into print, and yet they are worth musing over.

SOME I LIKE, SOME I DON'T: A good loose cannon (Maher) and a bad blowhard (Dobbs)

Like anyone who works a specific beat — sportswriters and political writers come to mind — media critics acquire lots of impressions, opinions, and stray observations that never actually make it into print, and yet they are worth musing over. in that spirit, here is a list of ten current “things” in the world of media: five that I particularly admire and five that I have little use for.

No unifying principle governs these picks. I tried to avoid honoring the obvious — like the Washington Post’s Dana Priest or the New York Times’ James Risen, who both recently won Pulitzers for their scrutiny of the US war on terror. And I also steered clear of shooting fish in a barrel, like that sultan of self-righteous scolding, Bill O’Reilly. (Okay, I mention him once.)

The fact that there are so many options to choose among is a testament to the fragmentation of today’s information universe. In a world in which we are bombarded by media constantly vying for our attention, it’s a cutthroat challenge to battle through the clutter and create favorable “brand identity.” In my view, the people and venues listed below deserve real credit for that, including — in a perverse way — those that have distinguished themselves by their ability to rub me the wrong way.

What I Like

1)CNN’s American Morning anchor Miles O’Brien
Twenty years ago, O’Brien was a reporter at Boston’s Channel 7, so he’s a quasi-local guy. (Of course, so is Bill O’Reilly, and we don’t brag about that.) A skilled pilot and aviation expert, O’Brien helped make his bones at CNN with his coverage of the February 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy. But he was just as good when reporting from the post-Katrina debris of the Gulf Coast, albeit in a more detached manner than his colleague Anderson Cooper.

As the morning partner of the solid Soledad O’Brien for the past year, O’Brien is a nice blend of brains and playfulness. On almost any subject, he’s crisp, knowledgeable, and in command. But he’s got an everyman appeal, meaning he’s smart without giving off that noxious whiff of pomposity. (Remember the self-indulgent Aaron Brown?)

Blue (-Eyed) Devils?

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:47:03 GMT

The perfect storm of race, class, and sex makes the alleged Duke rape tale perfect fodder for the ‘justice’-obsessed media
Once the sensational Duke University rape case — with its irresistible brew of race, class, and sex — triggered the predictable media circus, an equally predictable chorus of earnest-sounding criticism began to roll in.

Once the sensational Duke University rape case — with its irresistible brew of race, class, and sex — triggered the predictable media circus, an equally predictable chorus of earnest-sounding criticism began to roll in.

“This is gonna end up in the Ringling Brothers Hall of fame,” asserted attorney Avery Friedman as he pontificated about the legal issues on CNN.

“We get high-profile cases on a relatively regular basis,” Court TV anchor Catherine Crier tells the Phoenix. “And each time, the media onslaught is worse than the last.”

A blog called the Maverick Conservative wonders “how we got into this thing of trying cases in the media.... You should not pay any attention to these people either — the media, the lawyers ... etc. It is all noise — often evil noise.”

Despite that plea, members of the blogosphere — like everyone else — have been busy choosing sides since details of this story started emerging in March.

Attention-grabbing crimes — from the 1935 Lindbergh-baby trial to the 1954 Sam Sheppard murder case — have always provided spectator sport. But the game has been refined in the past decade (the post-O.J. period), thanks largely to the emergence of a morbidly fascinated cable-news industry and brigades of bickering commentators who find common interest in airing a case in the court of public opinion long before anyone enters a courtroom. And in the current media universe, the wide array of bloggers essentially functions as an instant online jury.

What’s been remarkable in the Duke saga — in which an African-American stripper and North Carolina Central University student says she was viciously assaulted at a party by several privileged white lacrosse players from an elite educational institution — is the amount of evidence that has already bubbled up in the press. That includes some startling photographs of the accuser at the scene and an account from a chatty cabby who recalls ferrying a suspect that night.

Of course, reporters are intuitively aware that the steady dribble of leaks, interviews, and revelations provides only a selective part of the story — with neither side showing all its cards. Yet the classic competitive rush to be first, the adrenalin hit of the hot scoop, and the sheer voyeuristic (read ratings and eyeballs) value of the story leave little time for introspection or a primer in journalistic ethics.

Won’t get fooled again

MARK JURKOWITZ — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:57:45 GMT

With reports of Iran-war drums beating, how will the media react this time around?
Seymour Hersh’s April 17 New Yorker article, which reported that a “messianic” Bush White House was contemplating regime change and tactical nuclear strikes to pre-empt Iran’s bomb-building program, landed with its own explosive power last week.
Seymour Hersh’s April 17 New Yorker article, which reported that a “messianic” Bush White House was contemplating regime change and tactical nuclear strikes to pre-empt Iran’s bomb-building program, landed with its own explosive power last week.

The stunning revelations — which may have inadvertently exaggerated fears about Iran’s nuclear program — put the issue back in the headlines and triggered a confusing scramble to determine how much time the US has to prevent the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran. A Washington Post editorial cited an estimate as short as three years down the road. A Bloomberg story quoted a State Department official saying Iran could make enough enriched uranium for a nuke in 16 days.

But on April 13, a front-page article in the New York Times cited the view of “western nuclear analysts” that Iran is years away — perhaps even more than a decade away — from being able to produce nuclear weapons. It was a story whose symbolic meaning may have outstripped its journalistic value.

On one level, the Times story seemed timed to cool a dramatic onset of war jitters. But it may also have sent a crucial message about how — in the wake of their haunting failure to examine the administration’s rationale for the war in Iraq — the mainstream media will treat another effort to push military action against another Mideast state on the grounds that it will soon possess WMD.

The run-up to the 2003 Iraq war did major damage to the reputation and credibility of the Times. Ultimately, the paper offered its readers a formal mea culpa for its failure to scrutinize dubious claims about Saddam Hussein’s WMD and saw one of its stars — reporter Judy Miller — discredited for her role in hyping those claims.

Invading Iran

MARK JURKOWITZ — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 13:27:40 GMT

Sy needs to fill in the blanks
Few investigative reporters have compiled the track record or amassed the career longevity of the notoriously cranky Seymour Hersh — who these days is churning out national-security scoops for the New Yorker .

Muckrakers in the outfield

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 22:09:59 GMT

It’s time for baseball — and all sports — to be covered just like any other multi-billion-dollar business
Last week was an important moment in the history of American journalism.

Last week was an important moment in the history of American journalism. After reading the explosive steroids-scandal book Game of Shadows, written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, baseball commissioner Bud Selig finally emerged from his cocoon of denial to announce an investigation into the performance-enhancing drugs that have cast a cloud over the sport and particularly over San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds, who is 47 home runs away from catching all-time leader Hank Aaron.

As the scandal has gradually grown from a whisper to a public preoccupation, the media’s role in keeping steroid abuse out of the spotlight for so many years has come under increased scrutiny. Sure, the players, Major League Baseball, and the union all share a huge bulk of the culpability. But there were also reporters who got long hard looks (often literally, via clubhouse access) at the many manifestations of steroid use — quick and massive muscle growth, pimple-strewn backs — without being willing or able to blow the whistle.

In a finger-pointing column, media critic Jon Friedman argued that “the media should have been more aggressive in covering Bonds’s alleged drug-taking over the past few years.... His saga was — literally — right in front of their noses.”

Last Saturday, ESPN’s Buster Olney, writing in the New York Times, offered a modified mea culpa, admitting that because of his failure to do a better job poking around on that story, “I had a role in baseball’s institutional failure during what will be forever known as the Steroid Era.”

As it turns out, the two Game of Shadows journalists — Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams (who have already won a slew of honors for their coverage, including theprestigious George Polk Award) — are not the kind of reporters found walking around post-game clubhouses armed with microphones and notebooks. Fainaru-Wada, a former sportswriter, was working on a campaign-finance project for the Chronicle’s investigative unit when the BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative) drug story broke. Williams, a traditional courts-and-cops reporter, is a long-time investigative journalist.

High noon at the Herald

MARK JURKOWITZ — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:18:22 GMT

If Purcell sells off the suburbs, what will happen to his big-city tab?
Pat Purcell’s speech last Friday at a UMass Boston conference on ethnic media was auspiciously timed.

Pat Purcell’s speech last Friday at a UMass Boston conference on ethnic media was auspiciously timed. That very morning, Steve Bailey’s Globe business column reported on heated speculation that Purcell was “close to a deal” to break up his Herald Media empire by selling the suburban-based Community Newspaper Company (CNC), which he bought just five years ago.

Warily eyeing reporters in the audience, Purcell began by declaring, “I can tell you in advance: there will be no news.” And then, seeming a bit distracted and rushed, he delivered a speech that touched on the problems in his business.

“We have to change,” he said. “We’re being ruthlessly efficient behind the curtain. Anywhere we can save a buck, we have to do it.... It’s not a pretty picture for Metro dailies. We are faced with challenges like never before.”

Afterward, during a question-and-answer period, Purcell was confronted by one of his own CNC journalists worried about the future of the operation.

“Is there any way to keep this commitment to local?” she asked.

“I think we’ve done a reasonably good job of serving the local community,” he responded. “This is the hand we were dealt.”

These days, Purcell may not have the winning cards. Ever since the October announcement that he was looking to recapitalize and “explore new strategic opportunities,” it’s been widely known that Herald Media — which includes the flagship Boston tabloid, four other dailies, and more than 100 weeklies, shoppers, and specialty publications — has been in play. (In any scenario, it’s worth noting that four of Purcell’s children and one son-in-law work in the business.)

The rumors have been all over the place. Purcell will re-load with new investors. Or maybe he will cash out to another newspaper operator. He will sell as one package the Herald, which has had serious financial struggles, and CNC, which is thought to be profitable and attractive. Or perhaps he’ll have to split them up. The gossiped-about suitors have ranged from unnamed equity firms to the well-known Denver-based newspaper mogul William Dean Singleton.

Let it bleed

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:53:44 GMT

When a pretty Boston woman is murdered in New York, the Boston dailies go to war
The horrific New York murder of 24-year-old Imette St. Guillen pitted the city’s two major dailies against each other in ways that reflect the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the editorial philosophies, of the two rivals.

The horrific New York murder of 24-year-old Imette St. Guillen — who grew up in Mission Hill and graduated from Boston Latin before studying criminal justice at Manhattan’s John Jay College — pitted the city’s two major dailies against each other in ways that reflect the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the editorial philosophies, of the two rivals.

The St. Guillen tragedy — which is still unfolding and unfinished — certainly touched many of the papers’ readers on a visceral level. It also provided media watchers with insight into how the Globe and Herald operate at a time when old-school, head-to-head competition between the two dailies on a hot story is becoming a rarer event.

Cracking the case
The opening shot came from the Boston Herald on Monday, February 27, with a smallish page-six story — actually sourced to its sympatico cousin tabloid, the New York Post — with the somewhat understated headline: "Horror as popular hub woman slain in NYC." By the next day, the Boston tabloid was off and roaring, blowing out the front page to declare "Sheer evil: Cops hunt monster who killed hub beauty" while reporters Michele McPhee and Laurel Sweet described a murder “so vicious it stunned even the Big Apple’s hardened homicide detectives.”

Over on Morrissey Boulevard, the Globe was slower off the mark, getting into the story on the 28th with a piece in the lower right-hand corner of the Metro front — headlined "Mission Hill native found slain in NYC" — that consisted largely of interviews with neighbors and teachers of the victim.

On one hand, the brutal sexual assault and murder of a young, attractive, popular Boston woman on the mean streets of New York had all the ingredients of a classic tabloid saga that would be of more intrinsic interest to the Herald than to the Globe. But the financially strapped tab cut staff significantly last year — leaving it with only 13 news side reporters — and has made strategic decisions about which stories to chase, sometimes opting to ignore subjects certain to get the Globe’s — and the rest of the media’s — attention. And while the Globe might not be inclined to pursue a salacious, horrific crime with the passion of the Herald, editor Marty Baron has focused on hard-news reporting in his tenure and publicly declared his desire “not to be beaten by our competitors on any story of note.”

Numbing carnage

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 22:35:38 GMT

Once an upbeat hit, Bush’s Iraq show has jumped the shark
On the morning of March 8, viewers had their first sip of coffee to a grisly sight on the news shows: grainy video of roughly two-dozen dead Iraqis lined up in a makeshift morgue, many of them apparently bound and strangled.

On the morning of March 8, viewers had their first sip of coffee to a grisly sight on the news shows: grainy video of roughly two-dozen dead Iraqis lined up in a makeshift morgue, many of them apparently bound and strangled.

Before the day was done, there was news of more internecine mayhem: the kidnapping by gunmen of roughly 50 employees of a security firm in Baghdad. That evening, even the Bush-friendly Fox News Channel had trouble putting a sunny spin on events, displaying in its reporting a collage of smoldering debris, burning vehicles, US troops firing at an unseen enemy, and the lifeless bodies of strangulation victims. When Fox aired a brief sound bite from a US officer downplaying fears of “chaos” and expressing “optimism,” viewers could only wonder what war he was talking about.

On the eve of the third anniversary of the conflict, American news consumers are being bombarded with numbing images of daily carnage in Iraq — particularly following the February 22 attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra. As a result, a battery of recent polls reveal that the public has seriously soured — perhaps to the point of no return — on a war that is unpopular, unpalatable, and increasingly viewed as an unwinnable Bush blunder.

What is happening here is not exactly the much ballyhooed “CNN Effect,” which holds that the instant transmission of violence and bloodshed can quickly galvanize popular opinion and force policymakers to respond. (The CNN Effect prototype was the US withdrawal from Somalia following footage of a US serviceman’s body being dragged through Mogadishu.)

Instead, the war in Iraq has been a long grinding struggle, complete with twists and turns that have caused vacillations in public support and expectations. And there have been no significant policy changes from an administration determined to preach the gospel of good news in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary.

As the brutal onslaught of chaos and bloodshed in Iraq steadily erodes Americans’ patience, a number of pollsters and analysts assert that those blaming the media for instilling defeatism in the American public — in a reprise of the so-called Vietnam syndrome — are wrong on two key counts.

Little Red ’Net

MARK JURKOWITZ — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:52:14 GMT

The battle for Internet freedom will not end with China
February 15 was a squirmy day for officials at Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco.

February 15 was a very squirmy day for officials at Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco. A Congress in high moral dudgeon accused them of helping the repressive Chinese regime censor the free flow of information and target dissent.

Addressing an overflow crowd, Republican New Jersey representative Christopher Smith — citing an estimated 81 people imprisoned in China for posting material critical of the regime — called the Internet a “cyber sledgehammer of repression of the government of China.” He added, “For the sake of market share and profits, leading US companies like Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and Microsoft have compromised both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens.”

Tom Lantos, the senior Democrat on the International Relations Committee and a Holocaust survivor, warned that without Congressional oversight, “these companies would have continued their nauseating collaboration with a regime of repression.” He then asked the corporate executives if they were “ashamed” of their work in China.

Not everyone was impressed with the display of Congressional outrage. Writing for www.TomPaine.com, former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich described the hearings as a “holier-than-thou public condemnation” and a grandstanding “media circus.” But the issue at center stage is a pivotal one. It forces a face-off between capitalism and freedom, and between engagement and confrontation as the Internet emerges as a path for the unprecedented global flow of information. Or a tool for cynical governmental control of citizens. Or both.

Right now, the chief battleground is China, a totalitarian superpower and huge economic prize that already has more than 100 million Internet users. It also boasts a number of US companies that have conformed to repressive Chinese dictates. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based organization that advocates for freedom of expression, has created a list of “15 enemies of the Internet,” with entries ranging from Burma and Cuba to Tunisia — some of which are also reliant on US technology.

“Of course everybody is focused on China because it’s a powerful country,” says Julien Pain, who runs the organization’s Internet-freedom desk. “What I’m monitoring is [that] it’s now a worldwide problem. Now all dictators on earth are trying to control the Internet.”

Still crooning

MARK JURKOWITZ — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:24:18 GMT

How Chet Curtis became the Larry King of New England Cable
It’s the morning of Ted Kennedy’s 74th birthday, and as the senator enters NECN’s Newton headquarters, he warmly greets Chet Curtis — who is tan and rested after a stint in his Fort Lauderdale condo — as an old friend.

It’s the morning of Ted Kennedy’s 74th birthday, and as the senator enters NECN’s Newton headquarters, he warmly greets Chet Curtis — who is tan and rested after a stint in his Fort Lauderdale condo — as an old friend.

“You’re looking too good,” bellows the senator, who jokes that he got just what he wanted as a birthday present: “an interview with Chet Curtis.” (When Curtis was a 24-year-old cub TV reporter in Washington, a co-worker named Sam Donaldson took him on his inaugural tour of Capitol Hill. They were both watching a young Ted Kennedy in the Senate chamber when Curtis saw a man approach him and say, “Senator, your brother the president has been shot.” It was November 22, 1963.)

Kennedy is taping an interview for that evening’s Chet Curtis Report, the half-hour news-and-interview show that airs nightly at eight. In his non-threatening but savvy interview style, Curtis puts Kennedy through his paces, asking about globalization, partisan acrimony, and the port-security controversy. Kennedy is on his game — rattling off statistics, gesturing passionately, and leaning forward in his seat for emphasis. Just a few feet away, it is Curtis who is relaxed, casual, and leaning back in the comfy black chair.

At 66, an age when many anchors have signed off, the ex–Channel 5 star is capping a four-decade-long career with a different kind of second act. Once half of the most famous local anchor team at the most powerful station in one of the nation’s biggest TV markets, Curtis is now host of an evening show at a 14-year-old regional cable network that, according to NECN officials, earns an average rating of between .5 and one in the Boston market. That means somewhere between 12,000 and 24,000 homes are usually watching, a fraction of his old Channel 5 audience.

Gone is the professional and personal partnership with his ex-wife, Natalie Jacobson, that made “Chet and Nat” a household phrase. And the one-time leading man of local TV news is rounder, grayer, and if possible, even a little mellower.