Friday marked the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s corrupt decision to stop the counting of ballots in Florida and award the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Below is what I wrote for The Boston Phoenix. I think my critique of the media has held up, but I was way off on the Supreme Court, which has devolved into a serious threat to the Constitution. And, looking back, I think a lot started to go wrong with this country as a result of the court’s anti-democratic edict.
How a passive media helped Bush win
The Boston Phoenix | Dec. 14, 2000
As the Phoenix went to press on Wednesday morning, it appeared that the post-campaign was, at long last, over. But before Al Gore makes his final disappearance, it’s worth thinking about how the media helped legitimize George W. Bush’s outrageous — and ultimately successful — effort to stop all the votes from being counted and thus claim an unearned victory.
Despite the 24/7 treatment on the all-news cable channels, the Florida fiasco was not, at root, a media story. It was too big, too important, and too fast-moving for the media to be able to shape (and distort) events. That made it very different from such past spectacles as the Monica Lewinsky saga and the O.J. Simpson trial.
More news on the Nancy Barnes front, as several sources have forwarded to me an email just sent to the staff by Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry.
Team,
Today, Nancy Barnes announced that she will be stepping down from her role as Globe Editor at the end of next week, but thankfully staying with us in the role of Editor at Large. Over the past three years, Nancy has led the Globe newsroom with extraordinary dedication, guiding us through this historic news cycle and helping us deliver exceptional and award-winning journalism that will have a lasting impact on our community. While it is a loss for her to step back, we are thrilled that she is staying with the organization.
Globe readership and our subscriber base has grown under Nancy’s leadership, while the Globe has consistently been recognized nationally for the quality of our daily and investigative journalism across all of our platforms, including:
A Gerald Loeb Award, RFK Award, and Pulitzer Prize finalist honors for public service for our reporting on the Steward Health Care crisis.
Top ONA and Edward R. Murrow awards for the excellence of our digital report; our Sandra Birchmore investigation also won a Murrow award this year.
The first duPont-Columbia Award in the Globe’s history for the Spotlight team’s podcast, “Murder in Boston,” as well as Top IRE audio honors, and the corresponding docuseries which received an Edward R. Murrow Award and the Globe’s first-ever National Emmy Award.
The Michael Donoghue Freedom of Information award for our State’s Secrets reporting, and many others.
In addition to the world-class journalism, Nancy has moved the newsroom forward, finding ways to better reach and serve our smart audiences, including the launch of new newsletters like Starting Point, the launch of the Globe Weather HQ, the expansion of our Globe High School Sports initiative, a new, strategic focus on video journalism in partnership with our audience team, the opening of the Globe New Hampshire bureau to strengthen regional reporting, and the launch of Boston Globe Sports Report in collaboration with NESN.
These, and other initiatives, have allowed the Globe to innovate, adapt to the evolving digital landscape, and grow our reach on multiple platforms.
Nancy shared that she has decided to “take a break from the daily firestorm of news, consider new challenges, and tend to some personal issues.” While we will all miss her daily presence, we are grateful that she will remain part of the Globe in her new role as Editor at Large, available for editing support, coaching, and counsel. Nancy shared that she is also hopeful for more time to focus on a fundraising project to bring more investigative reporting to communities in New England news deserts, where local coverage is limited.
The Globe newsroom is full of dedicated, passionate journalists, and it has been a privilege to watch you all work alongside Nancy, whose professionalism, empathy, and talent have left a lasting mark on this team. Please join me in thanking Nancy for her leadership and her many contributions to The Boston Globe and the company.
We will share further updates about newsroom leadership with you very soon.
Nancy Barnes, the first woman to serve as editor of The Boston Globe, is stepping down at the end of next week. She made the announcement in an email to her staff, which a trusted source just forwarded to me. (And here is Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry’s message about Barnes’ departure.)
Barnes was named editor just a little over three years ago. She succeeded Brian McGrory, a longtime Globe veteran who is now chair of Boston University’s journalism department.
Barnes was chief news executive at NPR when she was named to the Globe’s top newsroom position. She has local ties, having grown up in the Boston area and worked as an intern at the Globe and as a reporter at The Sun of Lowell earlier in her career. Before coming to NPR as senior vice president for news and editorial director in 2018, she had held the top editing jobs at the Houston Chronicle and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.
Just a few weeks ago she spoke at Northeastern in a conversation with our School of Journalism director, Jonathan Kaufman, as part of the Jack Thomas Lecture Series. In her announcement, Barnes says she’ll be staying at the Globe as an editor-at-large and work on a fundraising initiative aimed at addressing the local news crisis. Her full announcement follows.
Dear all,
It has been an honor to lead the Globe newsroom these last three years. I am enormously proud of the journalism we have delivered together, during such a tumultuous time in history. The array of stories we have published is extraordinary — just this year alone.
I have spent my entire adult lifetime in journalism, including nearly two decades as the editor of four great newsrooms. It is a period that has transcended the dawn of the internet age, the birth (and near death) of social media, the rise of AI, and enough stories to fill multiple history books.
By now, you have figured out that I have some difficult news to share: It’s time for me to take a break from the daily firestorm of news, consider new challenges and tend to some personal issues. I will be stepping down as editor at the end of next week. This is not goodbye, however. Linda [Henry, CEO of Boston Globe Media] and I have agreed I will stay with the Globe as Editor at Large and make myself available to any of you who might need editing help, coaching or a listening ear. I also hope to work on a fund-raising initiative to serve New England news deserts, a passion that I have thus far been unable to find time to pursue.
This is a special newsroom, full of dedicated journalists with big hearts, who are driven to deliver great journalism day in and day out – as you have these last three years. It has been my great privilege to work with you. Journalists are a quirky, special breed, and I love you all for being so true to form. Thank you.
Next week, I will be in the office to help polish up some of our final stories of the year and assist with anything else you all might need. After that I will be traveling for several weeks before returning to Boston.
“Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” v.3.0 made its debut Thursday evening. Click on the image to watch the program.
“Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” is back — this time on Contrarian Boston, local journalist Scott Van Voorhis’ Substack newsletter. Emily, Scott and I kick around one topic: the epic media scandal that has engulfed Olivia Nuzzi and her ex-fiancé, Ryan Lizza, over Nuzzi’s non-touching sexual relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Nuzzi was pushed out of her high-profile job at New York magazine last year after Oliver Darcy of Status News broke the story about her affair. Although the magazine claimed it had uncovered no conflicts of interest, they were gilding the lily. Nuzzi wrote a devastating takedown of then-President Joe Biden before he ended his re-election campaign and while Kennedy was running for president in his own right. Later she penned an oddly sympathetic profile of Donald Trump while Kennedy was angling for a top job in a possible future Trump administration.
I like to say that friends don’t let friends watch cable news. I rarely watch any of the prime-time talk shows on cable — certainly not Fox, but not MS NOW or CNN, either. They all rely on the same formula, which I’d describe as keeping you enraged and upset so that you don’t touch that dial.
On the other hand, I will tune in to CNN when there’s significant breaking news. And I think it’s vitally important that we have news organizations that aren’t totally in thrall to the Trump regime, which is why I’m glad that CNN and MS NOW are there even if I don’t watch them very often.
So I was relieved at the recent announcement that Warner Bros. Discovery would sell itself to Netflix, even though that left the fate of CNN uncertain. And I was horrified when the Trump-friendly Ellison family, the new owners of Paramount, decided to launch a hostile takeover attempt after losing the initial sweepstakes.
How bad is this? Let us count the ways.
► Paramount recently acquired CBS News, and its head, conservative opinion journalist Bari Weiss, is lined up to run CNN as well should the Ellison bid prevail. Not only does that raise ideological concerns, but it also would likely lead to major job cuts as the two operations are consolidated.
► After CBS News’ “60 Minutes” broadcast an interview in which ex-MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized Trump, Paramount executives all but apologized to Trump, reports Charles Gasparino of the New York Post.
► Investors in the Paramount bid include the Saudi, Qatari and United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth funds. As Oliver Darcy of Status News observes, “Most startlingly, Saudi Arabia, which ordered the brutal killing of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi just a few short years ago, would effectively own a slice of one of the world’s leading newsrooms, if Ellison should get his way.
► Another investor in the Paramount quest is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, by way of his private equity firm, Affinity Partners. Dan Primack writes at Axios, “Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case.”
► Trump himself has been lashing out at CNN this week, pushing for a sale and saying he might get involved in any antitrust proceedings over whether the sale of WBD to Netflix would be legal or not, reports NPR’s David Folkenflik. It goes without saying that a sale to Paramount would be just as problematic, but we all know that Trump will use antitrust law to reward his friends and punish his enemies.
We should not be in the position of having to root for Netflix to win the WBD sweepstakes. Giant media monopolies are bad for the economy and bad for democracy. In this case, though, a sale to Netflix would at least give CNN a fighting chance of remaining an independent monitor of power — rather than yet another news outlet that’s sold its soul to the forces of authoritarianism.
Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry shared some numbers, forwarded to me by a trusted source, when she addressed the staff at a town hall-style meeting earlier this week. Probably her most newsworthy revelation was that the Globe’s paid digital circulation is now 260,500 — essentially unchanged from the fall of 2024, when it was 261,000.
In October 2023, paid digital was 245,000, which means that it grew by 6.5% over the next year before stalling out. Given that digital growth has been the key to the Globe’s growth in recent years, the company’s executives need to figure out how to get back on an upward trajectory.
I’d suggest some improvements in the user experience. Newspaper homepages tend to be a jumble, but the Globe’s is busier than most. I also hear complaints on occasion from subscribers who have trouble logging on. And, to drag out one of my favorite laments, providing subscribers with a few gift links each month that they can share on social media might entice some occasional visitors into handing over their credit-card information. (As I recently noted, you can already email gift links to non-subscribers.)
Digging deeper, the Globe has boosted circulation by rolling out digital editions in Rhode Island and New Hampshire in recent years. What other areas might they target? The Worcester area (an ironic choice given that John and Linda Henry briefly owned the Telegram & Gazette after buying the Globe in 2013) and Western Massachusetts would make some sense. Its recent decision to bolster high school sports coverage was a smart one, too.
In other news from the town hall, Linda Henry said that average paid print circulation is 66,086. I wish I had more context for that number, but I don’t. In October, the Globe reported in its legally required postal statement that paid print averaged 51,626 on weekdays and 89,809 on Sundays. The Globe also recently reported to the Alliance for Audited Media that its average weekday circulation for the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2025, was 44,835 on weekdays and 79,742 on Sundays.
What to make of these differences? Circulation numbers are a dark art, and they can vary quite a bit depending on the reporting requirements of whoever it is you’re providing numbers to. Globe Media spokeswoman Carla Kath told me by email:
The print subscriber number shared today is a point in time snapshot of our home delivery subscribers, regardless of delivery frequency. The AAM numbers are averages over a six month period. However, the bigger reason for the difference is that the numbers shared today are home delivery subscribers only and don’t include newsstand sales. The AAM numbers are circulation figures that do include newsstand sales.
Let me suggest another possibility: perhaps 66,086 is a seven-day average that includes the larger Sunday figure.
Stat, Globe Media’s digital publication covering health and medicine, now has 50,337 paid subscribers, Henry told the staff. And she said that total subscribers (paid and unpaid) across all Globe Media publications is 411,857. Kath told me that comprises the Globe digital and print, Boston magazine, Boston.com, The B-Side newsletter and Stat.
For some context, Henry announced several years ago that her long-term “North Star” goal for paid digital circulation was 500,000 — 400,000 for the Globe and 100,000 for Stat. At the moment, the combined number for those two outlets is just shy of 311,000, but that was before Globe Media added Boston magazine, a paid product, and unveiled a paywall for Boston.com.
By the way, the Boston Herald has not reported numbers to the Alliance for Audited Media since this past spring, when it said that its weekday average paid print circulation was 10,902; the Sunday average was 13,454. Paid digital was a bit north of 41,000.
Photo (cc) by Rebecca Rivas / Missouri Independent, part of the States Newsroom network.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Chris Fitzsimon, publisher and CEO of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest nonprofit news organization covering state government. Chris is also the host of a new podcast called “Stories from The States.” Recent topics on the pod include the impact of Medicaid cuts, ICE detention and redistricting.
States Newsroom has a presence in all 50 states, with its own news organizations in 39 states and partnerships with existing nonprofits in the other 11. In Massachusetts, States Newsroom partners with CommonWealth Beacon. (Disclosure: I’m a member of CommonWealth’s editorial advisory board.) The project also has a bureau in Washington, D.C. States Newsroom publishes its journalism under a Creative Commons license, which means that it is free to republish as long as proper credit is given.
Chris Fitzsimon
Fitzsimon knows his way around state politics. From 2004 to 2017, he directed a team of seven journalists at NC Policy Watch, which he founded. He also hosted a weekly radio show and wrote a syndicated column on North Carolina politics and government. From 1991 to 1994, he was the spokesperson, speechwriter and policy adviser for the North Carolina speaker of the house. Before that, he was a television news reporter covering politics and government.
I’ve got a Quick Take about The Salt Lake Tribune in Utah. In 2019, the Tribune became the first legacy daily newspaper to become a nonprofit. Unlike a few notable hybrids like The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tampa Bay Times, which are for-profit papers owned by nonprofit foundations, the Salt Lake paper is a true nonprofit, just like your local public television or radio station. And the Tribune has been so successful that it recently announced it plans to drop its paywall.
Ellen’s Quick Take is on an investigation by Spotlight PA into the director of the Penn State Cancer Institute. The news outlet, which is a nonprofit that provides reporting to more than 90 outlets throughout Pennsylvania, uncovered damaging clinical practices and a toxic work environment. After the story ran last month, the director resigned.
On the latest edition of the public radio program “On the Media,” co-host Micah Loewinger engages in a wonderfully contentious interview with right-wing influencer Cam Higby, a newly minted member of the Pentagon press corps. Higby is among a gaggle of MAGA promoters who’ve moved in after actual reporters walked out rather than sign Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s directive that they agree not to report any unauthorized news.
An artist’s rendition of Onesimus, the father of modern vaccination.
Why an 18th-century slave and a witch-hunting minister knew more about vaccinations than RFK Jr. Plus photography, a roundup of the week’s posts and a tribute to the late, great Steve Cropper. It’s all in my supporters newsletter. Please sign up today for $6 a month!
Attorney General Andrea Campbell. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects website owners from liability over third-party content. The classic example would be an anonymous commenter who libels someone. The offended party would be able to sue the commenter but not the publishing platform, although the platform might be required to turn over information that would help identify the commenter.
But where is the line between passively hosting third-party content and activity promoting certain types of material in order to boost engagement and, thus, profitability? That question will go before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Friday, reports Jennifer Smith of CommonWealth Beacon.
At issue is a lawsuit brought against Meta by 42 state attorneys general, including Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts. Meta operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and other social media platforms, and it has long been criticized for using algorithms and other tactics that keep users hooked on content that, in some cases, provokes anger and depression, even suicide. Smith writes:
The Massachusetts complaint alleges that Meta violated state consumer protection law and created a public nuisance by deliberately designing Instagram with features like infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and “like” buttons to addict young users, then falsely represented the platform’s safety to the public. The company has also been reckless with age verification, the AG argues, and allowed children under 13 years old to access its content.
Meta and its allies counter that Section 230 protects not just the third-party content they host but also how Facebook et al. display that content to its users.
In an accompanying opinion piece, attorney Megan Iorio of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, computer scientist Laura Edelson of Northeastern University and policy analyst Yaël Eisenstat of Cybersecurity for Democracy argue that Section 230 was not designed to protect website operators from putting their thumbs on the scales to favor one type of third-party content over another. As they put it in describing the amicus brief they have filed:
Our brief explains how the platform features at the heart of the Commonwealth’s case — things like infinite scroll, autoplay, the timing and batching of push notifications, and other tactics borrowed from the gambling industry — have nothing to do with content moderation; they are designed to elicit a behavior on the part of the user that furthers the company’s own business goals.
As Smith makes clear, this is a long and complex legal action, and the SJC is being asked to rule only on the narrow question of whether Campbell can move ahead with the lawsuit to which she has lent the state’s support. (Double disclosure: I am a member of CommonWealth Beacon’s editorial advisory aboard as well as a fellow Northeastern professor.)
I’ve long argued (as I did in this GBH News commentary from 2020) that, just as a matter of logic, favoring some types of content over others is a publishing activity that goes beyond the mere passive hosting of third-party content, and thus website operators should be liable for whatever harm those decisions create. That argument has not found much support in the courts, however. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
