It had been a very long time since I’d given any thought to Salon, the pioneering digital publication that announced Thursday it was shutting down. Founded in 1995, it was, along with a few others such as Slate (still with us) and Feed (long gone), one of the original webzines, as we called them back then.
I wrote a media column for Salon for about a year in the mid-1990s. I visited Salon’s offices during a conference in San Francisco and meeting the editor, David Talbot, and maybe Gary Kamiya, who as I recall was the number-two editor. We were going through a transition at The Boston Phoenix and I was concerned I might be cut loose, so I was hoping I could parlay a Salon gig into a staff job. It wasn’t to be, and I’m glad, since the storm clouds at the Phoenix eventually dissipated.
Only a few of my pieces are on the Salon website, but I discovered a folder of 24 columns on my hard drive. They’re not dated, there are no headlines on them, and I imagine they’re what I turned in rather than the final edited versions. I don’t know that anyone has much interest in seeing them, but maybe I’ll post them one of these days.
Mike Shapiro, second from left, at TAPinto’s 15th birthday celebration in 2023.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Mike Shapiro, a friend of the pod. He came on in 2022 to talk about his role as founder and CEO of TAPinto, a network of nearly 100 franchised local news and digital marketing sites serving more than 150 communities in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Shapiro is a graduate of Rutgers and Stanford Law School, but he’s got the journalism bug as well. He was working as an attorney in New York when his young son underwent open-heart surgery. Because he wanted to spend more time at home, he and his wife, Lauryn, launched The Alternative Press in 2008 to give their hometown of New Providence, New Jersey, an independent, all-digital daily news source.
Pretty soon, neighboring towns asked for their own sites, and a network was born. In 2013 Shapiro repositioned TAPinto as a franchise model: local owners run their own sites, while the company supplies the technology, training and back-office support. Franchisees share content and sell advertising across the network.
But now, he’s expanded the business model again. In 2024 he launched the Hyperlocal News Network, a licensing option that gives publishers more freedom to control their own branding but helps with those vexing back-office needs.
Ellen has a Quick Take on The Minnesota Star Tribune‘s lack of endorsements in some very consequential state races. The Strib’s editorial board didn’t interrogate candidates, do its own reporting and weigh in on who would make the best governor or senator. Instead, op-ed columnists wrote in support of each candidate. The Strib called these columns “closing arguments.”
I’ve got a Quick Take about OpenAI’s support for local journalism. On the one hand, it’s a welcome development. On the other hand, I’m worried that news organizations may be getting co-opted by a technology they should remain deeply skeptical of. Will newsrooms shy away from critical coverage of AI lest they offend the golden goose?
Sen.-elect Troy Jackson, D-Maine. Photo (cc) 2023 by ArenLeBrun.
Democrats have nailed down 54 seats in the Senate, and that number could climb to 55 or 56 depending on how the counting progresses in Alaska and (gasp!) Mississippi.
But even if Republicans hold on to both, Democrats have achieved something of great importance: They’ve made the Senate Fetterman-proof. That is, their majority is large enough that the Trump-curious Pennsylvania Democrat will be unable to demand concessions in return for his support, as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema did during Joe Biden’s first two years as president.
There are many, many observations to be made about the gigantic blue wave that came crashing over the Republican Party’s heads Tuesday night and this morning. One that I want to make involves the extraordinary good fortune the Democrats enjoyed in a number of races that they may not have otherwise won even with a deeply unpopular president looming over the election. Here are three:
CommonWealth Beacon recently sponsored a debate on Question 3, which would institute all-party primaries. Photo (cc) 2026 by Leise Jones / CommonWealth Beacon.
For nonprofit news organizations, it’s the most wonderful time of the year — the beginning of a two-month sprint when their fundraising will be partially matched by the Institute for Nonprofit Journalism through its NewsMatch program. The campaign began on Sunday and extends through the end of December.
That’s why I’m asking you today to consider a donation to CommonWealth Beacon, a 30-year-old digital news outlet that covers Massachusetts politics and public policy. I’m a member of the editorial advisory board and an occasional contributor to its opinion section. CommonWealth puts it this way:
If you’re not already familiar, CommonWealth Beacon has been a trusted source of reporting in Massachusetts for 30 years, helping readers connect the dots between decisions made on Beacon Hill and their impact on everyday life. At a time when fewer resources are devoted to covering state government, their reporting is more important than ever. A great example is their ballot question explainers, which have been receiving great feedback from the vast majority who have engaged with it.
According to INN:
This year, 437 newsrooms will leverage over $7 million in funding from a network of 19 local and national funders to spark community giving, building a base of donors who sustain fact-based reporting….
Over the past 10 years, NewsMatch has secured $45 million in matching gifts to help drive $432 million in community support to newsrooms. But NewsMatch is more than just a match. INN’s NewsMatch includes fundraising training and resources that help participating newsrooms attract donations while strengthening their long-term fundraising strategies to ensure sustainability.
If your community is served by a nonprofit news organization, then it’s probably taking part in NewsMatch as well. You can search here to find out.
Just like public television and radio, nonprofit local news depends on the support of individual donors in order to sustain itself. This is a time of year when your gift can go further. If you’re not a CommonWealth reader (or listener), I hope you’ll check it out. And if you like what you see and hear, please consider making a gift.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan with Sen. Lisa Murkowski. 2017 photo in the public domain.
I wasn’t planning to write yet another post about The New York Times’ coverage of Mary Peltola and the two Dan Sullivans. But the Times keeps running follow-ups, so here I am.
On Sunday, the paper published a remarkably calm page-one story headlined “Will Spoilers Actually Matter in Midterms?” The digital headline: “Third-Party Spoilers, Long Fueled by Both Parties, Could Matter This Year.” Here’s how it opens:
Sly maneuvering around third-party candidates is a time-honored, bipartisan tradition in politics.
Democrats and Republicans alike have long stealthily tried to help little-known names on the ballot who might siphon votes away from the opposing party’s nominees.
My first thought was that this would have made a good lead for last Wednesday’s story, by Kellen Browning, on how the Peltola campaign recruited a ringer in an attempt to siphon votes away from incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan. Instead, the Times went DEFCON 1, portraying the story as a significant scandal and burying the context. You have to read more than 30 paragarphs before you come to this:
Republicans have also taken advantage of this system. When Ms. Peltola ran for re-election to the House two years ago, the state Republican Party backed an effort to help a Democrat — an inmate who ran his campaign from a New York prison — stay on the ballot.
Peltola, a Democrat, has denied having anything to do with recruiting the other Dan Sullivan. Whether that’s true or not, the Times’ reporting shows convincingly that her campaign did. It’s kind of slimy, but it’s hardly unusual. It’s also not a crime unless money changed hands, something that absolutely no one has alleged.
In a summary of “The Elements of Journalism,” a classic work on ethics by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, we encounter this:
[Journalism] must keep the news comprehensive and proportional…. Keeping news in proportion is a cornerstone of truthfulness. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping, or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.
The Times failed to do that with the initial report by Browning, and it’s been softening its tone in several follow-ups since then, culminating with Epstein’s eminently rational take on the entire affair. You might surmise that the paper’s editors have been having second thoughts about how the story was played. But the damage had already been done.
The polls this morning show Peltola clinging to a narrow lead, with both her and Sullivan (that is, the Republican incumbent, not the ringer) ticking down in the last couple of days. If she loses, it might well be because of the Times.
It’s not journalism’s role to cover up for a candidate just because we’re in the final days of a campaign. But neither is it to take a routine instance of political gamesmanship and play it up like a major scandal, either.
Anchorage, Alaska. Photo (cc) 2026 by Quintin Soloviev
Josh Marshall has weighed in with some smart commentary on Mary Peltola and the Dan Sullivans. You should read the whole thing, but here’s the heart of it:
I’ve heard a number of people say they’re “troubled” or “disturbed” or unhappy that this happened. All I can say is that I would really recommend that you toughen up because you simply won’t make it through the next few years, even under the best circumstances. There is no crime here and no possibility of a crime here. This is trolling….
Republicans have pulled this same name stunt countless times. No one has ever claimed that it’s a crime because it’s not.
I took some grim satisfaction in Google’s very bad Thursday, a consequence of the same forces that the company is using to deprive news organizations of click-throughs to their websites. (And no, I will not refer to the company as Alphabet, although it is in the soup.)
Google’s stock price declined by nearly 13%, costing it $500 billion in market value. A major part of the reason is that those AI summaries Google is posting at the top of search queries are doing exactly the same to the tech giant as they are to media companies: keeping users on site rather than clicking through to a page that would serve up some ads.
I want to make three points about The New York Times’ report that the campaign of Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola recruited a ringer named Dan Sullivan to take votes away from her rival, the incumbent Republican, who is also named Dan Sullivan.
First, why did Elisa Rios, the Times’ main source, retract what she told them? “As discussed on our call earlier today, I am confirming that I have retracted all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate Race in connection with any article you may or may not be writing,” Rios wrote. “I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity.” I know the Times says they verified the story independently, but what was that all about?
Jim Boyd harked back to the golden age of local television news, when it seemed like everyone gathered around the TV at 6 or (sometimes and) 11 p.m. to catch up on the day’s events. The leader was WCVB-TV (Channel 5), and Boyd, who died Tuesday at 84, was one of the most visible journalists at that station.
I was shocked to learn that he was in his 80s. We didn’t really know each other, but we were Facebook friends, and I had followed his long, active retirement. I’d also worked with his wife, Linda Polach, at GBH News.
My friend Emily Rooney, host of “Beat the Press,” who was the assistant news director and news director at WCVB during the glory days, tells Bryan Marquard of The Boston Globe that Boyd was someone “every manager would like to clone — loyal, dedicated, didn’t call in sick, and never complained about an assignment,” as well as “movie-star handsome [with] that elusive journalistic credibility.”
Bob Woodward. Photo (cc) 2016 by Hillel Steinberg.
Does a reporter’s promise of anonymity follow a source to the grave? That’s what a lot of people are wondering given that investigative journalist Bob Woodward is naming names in his new memoir, “Secrets,” which will be published on Nov. 24.
In an excerpt in The New Yorker, the legendary Washington Post reporter goes into great detail about his friendship with one source, Richard Darman, a powerful official in several Republican administrations. But there are more, including several Supreme Court justices, top aides to Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon’s lawyers. And, of course, there’s Mark Felt, who identified himself years ago as “Deep Throat,” Woodward’s celebrated source during the Watergate scandal.
