By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Month: March 2007 Page 3 of 4

Looking at media ownership

Tonight I’ll be moderating an hour-long panel discussion called “How Media Ownership Affects Content,” part of the “Critical Focus” series on media issues produced by Somerville Community Access Television. The program will be shown live at 8 p.m. in Somerville and Cambridge, and should be webcast here. Joining me will be:

Do credit

A few years ago, when I was working for the Boston Phoenix, I called Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz and suggested he look into why the Boston Globe had run with a story broken by one of my Phoenix colleagues without giving the Phoenix any credit.

I don’t have Kurtz’s exact quote, but this is pretty close: If I investigated every complaint I got about reporters who didn’t think their work had been properly credited, I’d never do anything else.

Indeed, and it’s a line I ended up using myself a few times — including the day that I was simultaneously fielding complaints that the Globe had not credited the Boston Herald, and that the Herald had not credited some other paper. It’s endemic, and there are no generally agreed-upon rules for when you should and when you shouldn’t.

All of which is a long way of saying that Adam Reilly’s treatment of the credit issue in this week’s Phoenix is among the more thoughtful analyses of this sore subject that I’ve seen.

Conflicting accounts

Wouldn’t you think that before Gov. Deval Patrick put forth his latest account of his interactions with federal officials prior to the New Bedford immigration raid, he’d make sure he wouldn’t be immediately contradicted by two members of his own administration? The Globe’s Yvonne Abraham has the details. And the Massachusetts Liberal has a smart, deep take on all this.

“Shift Happens”

One of my students passed this along:

Shift HappensClick Here for more great videos and pictures!

I don’t know where this is from, nor have I verified the facts contained therein — although it seems that they’re directionally correct, even if a few details could be disputed.

In any case, it’s about six minutes long and well worth watching.

The truth about the New Bedford raid

Two Globe columnists today come up aces today in the ongoing controversy over last week’s immigration raid in New Bedford.

First, Eileen McNamara fills in the details of something that’s been out there from the beginning: that Gov. Deval Patrick was informed of the upcoming raid even before his inauguration, and that Department of Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence was involved in planning at various stages — right down to a phone call he received the night before “to coordinate law enforcement and child protection aspects of the raid.” (Spence, as I’ve observed previously, is the grand master of avoiding blame.) McNamara writes:

So, enough with the breast-beating pretense that the Patrick administration was blindsided by the stealth tactics of shadowy federal immigration officials. This is political grandstanding of the most transparent kind.

Read it all — otherwise you’ll miss the priceless comment from Patrick’s communications director, Nancy Fernandez Mills.

Next up is Jeff Jacoby, with the first of a two-parter that examines the real problem with illegal immigration:

[I]f hundreds of thousands of immigrants come here illegally each year, is it realistic to conclude that we have a massive crime problem for which a ferocious crackdown is the only solution? Perhaps it is the case instead that America’s immigration quotas are simply too low for the world’s most dynamic economy. And perhaps the persistent influx of industrious workers is not a plague to be cursed, but a blessing to be better managed.

Buttressing both McNamara’s and Jacoby’s arguments is a profile by the Globe’s Irene Sege of Barthila Solano, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador whose tenuous family situation has been thrown into chaos following the arrest of her husband, Valencio Salas, last week.

“I don’t understand what harm we’re doing,” Solano tells Sege. “We work so hard.”

A heartbreaking story

If you read nothing else today, you must read this New York Times story on the parents of infants with fatal conditions. It is riveting and heartbreaking. If you can get through it without tearing up, you’re not paying attention. Watch the video, too.

Flatlining

Media Nation readership, usually around 1,000 visitors on weekdays, spiked to 2,400 last Tuesday after Doc Searls gave me a plug. Then Site Meter crashed, and I’ve been showing nothing but zeroes since Thursday. The Site Meter blog acknowledges problems, but makes it sound like they’ve been fixed already. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Budget cuts for the blind

Best wishes to Diane Patrick. Depression is a serious illness, and the fact that Gov. Patrick felt the need to make such a public announcement suggests that he and his family have been struggling with this for some time.

But while the governor helps his wife recover, let’s not ignore the public’s business. Today, Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis reports that Patrick’s proposed budget would cut $118,000 for Braille and audio books for the blind.

If Patrick promised to do that last fall, I missed it.

Update: Here is Jessica Fargen’s news story on the cuts.

Two for the Globe

Media Nation joins Jon Keller and Adam Reilly in congratulating the Boston Globe for its two (according to Editor & Publisher) Pulitzer Prize nominations. The Globe has reportedly been nominated in Local Reporting for its “Debtor’s Hell” series, on unscrupulous bill collectors, and in National Reporting, for its stories on President Bush’s promiscuous use of presidential signing statements to negate the will of Congress.

Each is an example of public-service journalism at its best, and it’s a demonstration that — for all the angst that has enveloped the newspaper business over rapacious ownership and declining circulation and advertising revenues — large metropolitan dailies like the Globe, as well as national papers like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, remain the places where most important journalism gets done.

The “Debtor’s Hell” series was headed up by Walter Robinson, who is now a colleague at Northeastern. The signing-statement story was reported by Charlie Savage.

“Debtor’s Hell” is also a fine example of how the smart use of technology can enhance a story that, no matter how good, would have ended up as day-old fish wrap just a few years ago. The electronic version goes way beyond “shovelware” — that is, print content thrown online with little regard for the Web’s strengths and weaknesses.

The main page offers podcasts, offsite resources and the all-important tip line for follow-ups. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find a message board, audio Q&As, interactive graphics like this, the transcript of an online chat with Robinson and source documents, such as this, filed by Peter Damon, in which he informed bill collectors that he was in the hospital being treated for the loss of both arms in Iraq.

My guess is that the Pulitzer judges will only be looking at the clips. Someday, though, when the winning team is honored, it ought to include the Web producers alongside the reporters, photographers and editors.

The Pulitzer winners will be announced on April 16.

Goldman returns

Back when he was a prominent Democratic political consultant, Michael Goldman had one trait that endeared him to those of us who were young, unknown reporters working for small papers: He was every bit as willing to talk with you as he was a reporter for the Globe or the Herald. (Republican consultant Charley Manning, who does more corporate than political work these days, shares that admirable quality.)

Now Goldman, after working for the past few years as a talk-show host for Bloomberg Radio, is returning to the consulting wars. Check out the item at the end of Joan Vennochi’s column today.

I talked with Goldman this morning, and he was as frenetic as ever. And he had some excellent advice for those who are ready to write off Gov. Deval Patrick, recalling that Michael Dukakis, for whom he once worked, got off to an exceedingly rocky start in his first term (1975-’78), and that even Bill Weld — known for his smooth relations with the media — had to negotiate a pretty steep learning curve.

Welcome back, Michael.

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