January 07, 2009
Yesterday's Globe "Names" column included a nugget re: Gwen Ifill's new book, The Breakthrough, on the new generation of black politicians. After calling the flap over Ifill's role as presidential-debate moderator overblown, "Names" proceeded to pluck one--and only one--detail from Ifill's text:
One tidbit: Recalling the controversy over Patrick's decision to replace Mitt Romney's Ford Crown Vic with a new Cadillac DeVille DTS, the governor's wife, Diane, takes issue with the Boston Herald for calling the car "tricked-out." The first spouse says the description is "frankly racist. . . . It didn't have boom boxes, speakers on the outside, but they called it tricked-out." Ifill, by the way, once worked for the Herald.
Now comes a little Herald push-back, in the form of a Hillary Chabot story that quotes Herald editor Kevin Convey on D. Patrick's characterization:
Herald Editor Kevin Convey said the term “tricked out” had no racist implications.
“We’re sorry that the first lady feels the way she does, but the term ‘tricked out’ as a synonym for decorated or adorned is over 100 years old and has no racial connotation whatsoever. Moreover we meant none,” Convey said.
I don't know when "tricked out" first entered the lexicon, but I do think Diane Patrick is reaching here. I made a similar mistake myself when the Herald story first ran, positing a parallel between the Herald's coverage and Ronald Reagan's welfare-queen shtick.
But then a slew of critical comments convinced me I was wrong (scroll down for my admission of error). And I still feel that way. Remember, it wasn't just the Cadillac. It was the Cadillac, and the drapes, and the furniture, and the $72,000-a-year-aide to Diane Patrick, and Patrick's difficulty grasping why this stuff struck people as problematic.
Chabot's account says that the governor's office had no comment on Diane Patrick's accusation or Convey's response. But let's remember what the governor himself ultimately said--and did--on this particular subject. As Chabot herself reminds us, Patrick subsequently "admitt[ed] he misstepped" and moved to cover the cost differential between his car and the Ford Crown Victoria used by his predecessor, Mitt Romney.* From a February 2007 story by the Globe's Andrea Estes:
Governor Deval Patrick for the first time publicly expressed regret
yesterday for spending thousands of dollars on new office decor and a
luxury car lease , but stood behind his wife's need for a $72,000 aide
and the effort to make his corner office suitable for visitors.
"Oh,
yeah, we screwed up," Patrick told a horde of reporters, a day after
promising to repay the state for office furnishings and a portion of
the lease for his official car. "I am so sorry that we all have spent
the kind of time we have on what we have spent time on, and I am sorry
to have been responsible for that." [emph. added]
The new governor's public mea
culpa came after a week of spiraling reports about his spending of
taxpayer money, including $1,166 each month on a Cadillac DTS and
$12,306 on new draperies in his office....
On Tuesday, Patrick
announced he would contribute $543 per month toward the lease of the
$46,000 Cadillac, bringing the state cost in line with the monthly
payment on the more modest Ford Crown Victoria used by his predecessor,
Mitt Romney.Patrick also said he would repay taxpayers for
$27,387 in furniture he purchased for his corner office. An interior
designer helped Patrick select two wing chairs priced at $3,870, two
couches at $4,470, damask draperies for $12,306, and other furnishings
from a variety of antiques and furniture stores, including the high-end
Baker Knapp & Tubbs.
Yes, there was a passive-aggressive tinge to Patrick's apology/repayment plan. ("Unless I get this off your screen," he told the press at the time, the media wouldn't "help get the message out about what it is we are concentrating on.") Still, he apologized and anted up. Hopefully Ifill mentioned that outcome in her book.
*UPDATE: My original post failed to note that Chabot mentioned Patrick's subsequent apology/reimbursement plan--for which I apologize.
January 07, 2009
In its sharp deconstruction of today's Maureen Dowd column--which attempts to make the case for Caroline Kennedy as U.S. senator--Gawker rightly notes that Dowd seems to have a double standard regarding the thin resumes of Kennedy and one Sarah Palin.
Undiscussed, though, is the bogus argument Dowd uses to close out her piece. Here it is:
Sitting in the Senate gallery on Tuesday as senators were sworn in by Dick Cheney, I saw plenty of lawmakers who had benefited from family.
Two Udalls were being sworn in, under the watchful eye of Stewart Udall. Mark Begich, the new senator from Alaska, is the son of a former Alaska congressman. The classy Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, son of the late Gov. Robert Casey, was there in a festive pink tie. John McCain, whose wife’s money and Arizona pull made his Senate election possible, looked on with a smile. Hillary, whose husband paved the way for her to join this club and run for president, chatted with colleagues. Jay Rockefeller wandered about, as did Chris Dodd, son of Senator Thomas Dodd. And Teddy Kennedy, walking with a cane, worked the room with his old brio.
It isn’t what your name is. It’s what you do with it. Or, in the case of W., don’t.
Here's the problem: Mark and Tom Udall won election to the Senate after previously winning election to Congress. Mark Begich won election to the Senate after previously winning election to the Alaska Assembly and Anchorage mayoralty. Bob Casey won election to the Senate after previously winning election as Pennsylvania's auditor general and, later, treasurer. John McCain benefitted from his wife's connections, but still won election to the Senate. Ditto for Hillary Clinton, and Jay Rockefeller (who'd previously won election as West Virginia's governor), and Chris Dodd, and Ted Kennedy.
In short: it's not Kennedy's family ties that have some of us irked. It's that those ties could give Kennedy--who's never held any kind of elected office before--a seat in the U.S. Senate without a single vote being cast.
January 06, 2009
Even though I'm on Chuck Turner's press-enemies list, I'd like to congratulate the city councilor for goading the Feds into a laughable effort to violate his First Amendment rights. Still more evidence, I think, that Turner's PR campaign is working surprisingly well.
As Universal Hub's Adam Gaffin notes, there's rich irony in the government's contention that Turner shouldn't be able to selectively cite evidence to defend himself. Then again, as Dan Kennedy and Paul Flannery note, there's also rich irony in the government seeking to curtail Turner's right to free speech after he tried to do the same thing to the media.
January 06, 2009
If you're a connisseur of the women-doing-X trend story, be sure to check out Lissa Harris's new blog, Women Do!, which is "Dedicated to the "Women Do ____" story, found wherever fine News-papers are sold."
And then--if you come across new examples of this hackneyed genre--be sure to draw them to Harris's attention, so she can deconstruct them with righteous, white-hot rage.
January 02, 2009
If you're confused about whether Boston might lay off 200 police officers or not, I urge you to check out Dan Kennedy's deconstruction
of the Globe and Herald's duelling treatments of the subject. As Dan
notes, this is partly a political story and partly a media one--and
despite the Herald's bluster (online headline:"Riled mayor Thomas M.
Menino: Reports of cop layoffs untrue"), it's not at all clear that the
Globe got anything wrong:
Menino is angry — that's a given. What we don't know is if 1) he is genuinely angry because he didn't want the layoff numbers to be leaked, at least not yet; 2)
he is genuinely angry because the Globe's emphasis on layoffs, rather
than on Patrick's options, puts more pressure on City Hall than he had
intended; or 3) he is pretending to be angry but is actually pleased that he succeeded in floating this frightening trial balloon.
Because
officials appear to be dialing back, that gives the Herald the
opportunity to claim that the Globe got it wrong. The problem is that
what officials are actually saying, on the record, does not contradict
the notion that as many as 200 officers could be laid off if more money
can't be found.
January 02, 2009
There's a major omission in the Herald's list of naughty Boston newsmakers. One guess as to what it is.
December 30, 2008
If you haven't already, take a look at Boston magazine editor James Burnett's Q-and-A with Mike Barnicle. Because of the insight it offers into the former Globe columnist's self-conception, it's a fascinating read. But it's also deeply frustrating, because Burnett isn't nearly as tough on his subject as he should have been.
I know firsthand that it's hard to challenge an interviewee when they're charming or bombastic--or both. We can't all be Oriana Fallaci. Still, there were a few points where I really wish Burnett had given it a shot. Here they are:
1. On Barnicle's dalliance with WBUR
What Barnicle said: Apparently, apparently, there are huge numbers
of people in the Boston media establishment who are so insecure in
their own positions that they fear me coming in to see Paul La Camera
for lunch, which I guess is sort of flattering, in a sense. But other
than that…It is what it is.
What Burnett should have said: Wait a second. You say people who didn't want you at WBUR are insecure in their own positions. But isn't it actually that they see your journalistic credibility as fatally compromised, and worried that you'd be a liability to the station?
What Burnett actually said: And
it is a curious thing. None of the issues you get locally translates
with these folks that you know on the national level or in New York or
outside of 128. There's a gulf there, or a disparity. 2. On the state of the Globe
What Barnicle said: I don't know if I would be doing a whole lot of things differently than
what [Globe management] is doing right now. I think Marty Baron is a terrific
newspaper editor. It's a struggle each and every day to put that
product out, given the diminishing resources, given the lack of energy
that exists around the entire industry, given the cutbacks. I don't
know that I would be doing anything a whole lot differently. It's still
a pretty good looking paper....
What Burnett should have said: Last year, though, you called the NY Times Co. "journalistic car strippers," and said they were turning the Globe into the "Herald with more people." Those two descriptions don't jibe.
What Burnett actually said: I guess I’ll be honest and say I'm surprised that you went as easy as you
did on the paper. Given, only a year or two ago, some serious talks
about you, Jack Welch, Jack Connors [making an offer to buy the Globe]…
3. On the alleged advantages of local newspaper ownership
What Barnicle said: Jack Connors wanted to buy [the Globe]. He wanted to have a locally owned
newspaper. He wanted to try to restore the impact and influence that a
locally owned newspaper once had in this market. I got him together
with Jack Welch, and the two of them had a pretty good financial plan
put together. And after a few months, the Times Company decided to turn
them down. You can't tell me they wouldn't love to have the offer on
the table today. Think of it this way: In 1993, the New York Times
Company purchased the Globe for $1.1 billion. Today the
market cap of the New York Times Company is just about a billion. So
the market cap, the value of their company, is less than what they paid
for the Globe.
What Burnett should have said: You talk about restoring the "impact and influence"of a locally owned paper. But there are certain stories the Globe simply wouldn't have done if the Connors/Welch bid had succeeded, like the recent Spotlight series on the market practices of Partners Healthcare, whose board of trustees Jack Connors happens to chair. Isn't that a problem?
What Burnett actually said: I knew those numbers, but hadn't thought of it that way.
4. On the insignificance of media criticism
What Barnicle said: The thing with media criticism is that if
someone is criticizing you, who has never met you, has never shaken
your hand, never looked you in the eye, never looked you in the eye,
never introduced themselves in person, and they are going to spend a
good portion of their life critiquing what your write, or what you do,
in the larger sense of the meaning "do," you should pay no attention to
them. What would they ever be able to tell you about yourself and your
work if they don't know you, if they've never met you? There's
criticism, there's book reviews, and there's movie reviews. But the
intensely personal outlook that a lot of these critics bring to the
day, whether it's Kevin Cullen, or whether me, or whether it’s anyone…
What Burnett should have said: But if their criticisms are legitimate, why does it matter if you've met them or shaken their hand? Also, between what you said about WBUR and what you're saying now, I wonder: do you think the criticism that led to your departure from the Globe was worthless?
What Burnett actually said: And you've been on the other end of that.
5. On news nativism
What Barnicle said: When I first worked at the Boston Globe, everyone in the
newsroom went to places like Boston University, where I went, or Boston
College. There were several people from Harvard there. They could tell
you all the stops on the Red Line. They grew up here. They lived here
for long periods of time. Their family was from here. They would
actually know people who were firefighters, or cops, of school
teachers. It's nobody's fault, and that's happened less and less. It's
happened all over. It's become like a prized profession. You went to
Duke University. You’re from Pennsylvania. What are you doing here for Boston magazine? It's a bonus of a job.
What Burnett should have said: But isn't it good to get some
fresh perspectives on the city? To have the news reported and analyzed,
at least in part, by people who don't take Boston's various tics for
granted?
What Burnett actually said: When you were doing the column, you certainly wrote a lot about the
people who were the readers, the customers… Does this represent an
evolution in your own thinking about the role, and the effect of that
kind of coverage?
To be fair, Burnett does press Barnicle indirectly on the fourth point a bit later ("Did you hold yourself to the same standards when you were critiquing the work of a public figure?). And who knows: maybe I would have backed off Barnicle in Burnett's place, too. Still, someone--sometime--really ought to make Barnicle answer the aforementioned questions.
December 29, 2008
That's the most important point of this Globe business update. If Connors is telling the truth, then the Financial Times got it wrong.
The second most important point is Herald publisher Pat Purcell's statement that he, too, is uninterested in the Globe.
Please note that multiple versions of the FT story have appeared in the past few days. In the one I read and posted on, Connors (as I noted at the time) wasn't mentioned by name as a possible future buyer; Pat Purcell didn't seem to be one either. But in two other versions--one of which apparently preceded the piece I read, according to the FT web site, and one of which apparently was published at exactly the same time--Connors and Purcell are far more significant. Confused? Me too.
Finally, Dan Kennedy has the actual Barclays report that put the Globe's estimated value at a stunningly low $20 million, tops.
December 27, 2008
Might Boston be in for a colossal media makeover? So suggests the Financial Times:
The New York Times is aggressively courting buyers for its stake in
the Boston Red Sox baseball team and potentially the Boston Globe
newspaper in a transaction that could attract bids worth $200m-$225m,
according to a person familiar with the matter....
The latest overtures have piqued
the interest of a group of wealthy Boston business leaders, who have
also discussed other broader scenarios to improve the state of local
media. Publishers' moves to cut costs drastically are considered to be
hurting the quality of local coverage.
One scenario under
consideration includes buying the whole or part of News Corp's Ottaway
newspaper chain and consolidating and shutting down the Boston Globe's
rival, the Boston Herald.
Patrick Purcell, owner and publisher of
the Boston Herald and a former News Corp executive, was recently tapped
by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to run the company's Ottaway chain. News
Corp pulled the Ottaway chain, comprised of eight daily newspapers and
15 weeklies, off the market after failing to sell the papers before a
June 30 deadline.
One News Corp source said they were not
currently involved in discussions. Mr Purcell was not immediately
reachable. A New York Times spokeswoman had no comment [emph. added].
A few thoughts immediately spring to mind: 1) Wild! 2) Who are the "wealthy Boston business leaders" in question? (The FT mentions 2006's failed Jack Welch/Jack Connors bid for the Globe, but doesn't explicitly say that Welch and Connors still want to buy the paper.) 3) Are we supposed to assume that these prospective new owners would purchase Ottaway and the Herald and then close the latter after first purchasing the Globe? Seems so, but the language is ambiguous. 4) Might Purcell's strange ascension to the Ottaway helm have been made in anticipation of such a deal? 5) Do we really want a "group of wealthy Boston business leaders" running the Globe? Because that might compromise the paper's watchdog function. And finally: 6) How seriously should we take any of this stuff?
Also, the FT follows the WSJ in citing an oddly low Barclays valuation of the Globe, but puts the figure at $27-54 million rather than $20 million. I'm still skeptical, especially because the FT (again using ambiguous language) refers to the Times Co.'s "stake" in the Globe. Of course, the Times Co. owns the whole paper, not part of it.
December 25, 2008
The news that the NYT Co. is trying to sell its stake in the Red Sox is interesting. But what really struck me about today's Wall Street Journal story was the little tidbit relegated to the end of the fifth graf:
It is possible the Globe could be packaged with the sports assets in a
sale. Jack Connors, a former ad executive in Boston, and former General
Electric Chief Executive Jack Welch took a serious look at the Globe
two years ago, valuing it at $550 million to $600 million, people close
to them said at the time. Times Co. rebuffed the inquiries. The Globe
was recently valued by Barclays at $20 million [emph. added].
!!!
Granted, the Globe isn't worth what it used to be. But this can't be right. Can it?
I've done some quick Googling, and I can't find any reports of the $20 million Barclays valuation that seem independent of the WSJ article. Really, my hunch is that this is a typo. But if it isn't--and if the Boston Business Journal's recent report that the Globe is losing close to $1 million a week was correct--then the Globe could be in for an extremely ugly 2009.*
I'll try to get comment from the Globe and/or NYT Co. tomorrow; if I succeed, I'll post an update.
*NOTE: I originally wrote that, if reports of both the valuation and weekly loss rates are right, the Globe could soon have negative value for the NYT Co. But I don't think that's correct. Certain Globe assets, like real estate, will retain their value, even if the paper's expenses keep outstripping its revenues. The key for the NYT Co. will be finding a way to balance expenses and revenues--which is where the aforementioned ugliness comes in.
December 24, 2008
Perhaps it's my inner Grinch/Twins fan talking, but I was struck by Sox owner John Henry's response to losing the Mark Texeira sweepstakes to the Yankees. From the Globe's Nick Cafardo:
"From the moment we arrived in Boston in late 2001, we saw it as a
monumental challenge," Sox owner John Henry said in an e-mail to the
Associated Press, in reference to competing with the Yankees.
"We
sought to reduce the financial gap and succeeded to a degree. Now with
a new stadium filled with revenue opportunities, they have leaped away
from us again. So we have to be even more careful in deploying our
resources."
When sports bigwigs start pushing for new stadiums, that's the kind of stuff they tend to say.
December 23, 2008
According to one school of thought, GateHouse's decision to challenge Boston.com's "Your Town" approach in court merits utter contempt. As a commenter on Universal Hub said: "This is a clear case of a bunch of morons who skipped that "Internet
101" class in business school, and now they're pissed because people
aren't going through their website the way THEY want them to."
Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that.
For starters, let's try a little thought experiment, which I first proposed on "Beat the Press" back on December 5.
Imagine that I decide to start a new, web-only newspaper devoted to the city of Boston. Then imagine I fill my new publication--let's call it the "Boston Gazette"--entirely with links to articles from the Boston Globe. Is that journalistically legit? Nope. It's just a lame, transparent attempt to repackage someone else's work as my own.
Now suppose I start the web-only Boston Gazette, fill it with mass quantities of original reporting--and every now and then, toss in a link to a Globe story dealing with some noteworthy subject. Is that legit? I'd say so.
One big problem with Boston.com's "Your Town" sites, I think, is that they exist in an uncomfortable middle ground between these two extremes. Sometimes the vast majority of content is generated by the Globe/Boston.com; sometimes an unseemly amount of stuff seems to comes from GateHouse. What's more, as Dan Kennedy notes, sometimes the titles/heds that Boston.com picks up from GateHouse invite further reading of the GateHouse story in question; sometimes they tell you all you need to know, thus obviating the need for a click-through.
Also, as we speculate about the implications of this fight for the future of blogging and web-based media in general, let's bear in mind two key questions. First, what do we do with the links we provide online? And second, what we hope to achieve by providing those links?
Universal Hub's Adam Gaffin has stopped linking to GateHouse stories because he's afraid of getting sued. I understand this decision, but I don't think he needs to worry. For one thing, when Gaffin links to a story from GateHouse (or the Globe, or any one of his manifold other sources), he expands on it in some way--almost always with a witty headline, and usually with some pointed commentary in his write-up. On the "Your Town" sites, that's not how Boston.com treats GateHouse's material. Instead, Boston.com just slaps the excerpted GateHouse title/lede up there. In short, there's no intellectual value added. It's appropriation for appropriation's sake.
Then there's the question of intent. I think I can safely say that Gaffin doesn't want to be the web site of record for New England (which is why the Globe would be stupid to give him any sort of legal problems) or the web site of record for any of the towns GateHouse covers (ditto, with "GateHouse" substituted for "the Globe"). But the "Your Town" sites do have such aspirations. Here's how "Your Town Newton" bills itself:
Welcome to your one-stop site for all things Newton: News, sports and
recreation, school info, organizations, blogs, discussions, business
listings, and more from around the city [emphasis added].
Does this mean "Your Town Newton" wants GateHouse's "Wicked Local Newton" to go out of business? Not necessarily, since this would destroy one of the key sources of "Your Town Newton" editorial content. But I'm pretty sure Bob Kempf & Co. would be happy if no one ever looked at the "Wicked Local Newton" home page again. (Also, don't forget that Kempf used to be GateHouse's VP for interactive media.)
Disclaimer: I worked at Community Newspaper Company when it was owned by the Herald. CNC was subsequently purchased by GateHouse, and I know some current GateHouse employees.
December 22, 2008
About that Boston newspaper war I mentioned a couple days ago? Between GateHouse and the Globe?
Well, it just got a whole lot nastier.
As Dan Kennedy notes, there's a very important issue at play here:
Since Boston.com is selling advertising on its "Your Town" pages, the argument is that the New York Times Co., which owns Boston.com, is profiting from GateHouse's journalism. And even if Boston.com is driving traffic to individual GateHouse stories, there's an argument to be made that "Your Town" is diminishing the value of GateHouse's "Wicked Local" home pages in those communities....
This is one of the most important stories in the newspaper business right now. It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
Most definitely.
December 20, 2008
My buddy Dan Kennedy dimisses this NY Times Q-and-A with "Caroline Kennedy and her staff" (the paper's phrase) as "crapola," and argues that the Times shouldn't have run it.
His "crapola" assessment is dead on. But to my mind, that's exactly why the Times did the right thing in printing the interview. By providing the (softball) questions directed to Kennedy and the answers provided by her surrogates, the paper drives home the point that Kennedy wasn't capable of fielding the queries herself--to damning effect. Consider this excerpt:
Q. Do you support any federal or state restrictions on gun ownership? If so, which ones?
A. Caroline Kennedy is a strong supporter of gun control. She supports New York City’s and New York State’s gun control laws. On the federal level, she support the Brady Law, and other measures to keep guns out of the hands of minors and criminals.
Q. Do you believe that an undivided Jerusalem must be the national capital of the State of Israel?
A. Yes, Caroline believes that an undivided Jerusalem must be the national capital of the State of Israel.
Q. Do you support the auto industry bailout package passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month?
A. Yes, Caroline supports the auto industry bailout package passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month.
And this woman wants to be a U.S. senator?!?
December 19, 2008
Credit my Phoenix colleagues Deirdre Fulton and Jeff Inglis with great timing. "Take Back Barack," which contends that progressives should "reclaim the man [they] put in the White House," appeared the same week that Barack Obama disappointed said progressives by tapping Rick Warren--whose views on gays and lesbians are problematic, to say the least--to give the invocation at his inauguration.
But here's my question: Why, exactly, is anybody surprised that Obama's giving a prime slot to Warren? For that matter, why is anybody surprised that Obama is poised to govern as a centrist Democrat?
First point first. By agreeing to appear with John McCain at Warren's California megachurch earlier this year, Obama signalled that he didn't find Warren's views too objectionable--or at least, not objectionable enough to trump Warren's possible political utility.
As for the notion that Obama owes progressives more than he's given them.... Here, I've got to respectfully disagree with Deirdre and Jeff. After all, Obama didn't really campaign as a progressive. He campaigned, instead, much the same way he burst on the national political scene back in '04--as a would-be unifier whose own biography epitomized his aspirations for the nation.
Obama's charisma--and his reliance on the notion of "Change," which can mean whatever you want it to--convinced plenty of people, on both the right and the left, that he wasn't really a moderate Democrat. Substantively, though, that's how he sold himself. And sure enough, that's what he seems to be.
