Seth Gitell, a certified FOMN (Friend of Media Nation), has a sharp profile of Boston Globe executive vice president Al Larkin in the new issue of Boston Magazine. Gitell’s overall thesis is that the New York Times Co. might be doing better with its Boston outpost today if its officials had spent more time listening to Larkin, the last of the Globe’s Old Guard.
A bonus: retired editor Matt Storin, now at Notre Dame, checks in. Here’s Storin on Larkin: “He’s invaluable — maybe the most valuable player. He knows Boston, knows the players, and keeps up relationships very well. He’s a survivor because he understands power, he understands tribal forces. He has a good memory.”
Discover more from Media Nation
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Anonymous
Storin endorses him – is that good, or bad?
Anonymous
Wasn’t Gitell into food reviews now??What gives??Dan, I respect your good-natured willingness to plug friends and colleagues, but Seth is one of the most overrated and useless writers in these areas.He shilled for one of the most incompetent adminstrations in our city’s History and has never written anything of great usefulness. I haven’t clicked on his blog in a long time and I have NO urge to do so because I know there is nothing you can’t miss there.Brandishing Leff and Keller and the like is becoming tiresome.Has anyone watched Jon with his extremely annoying piece on Sweet Dreams Big Dig Reimbursements yesterday on BZ?? Come on, that was so childish and snooty.Yeah Keller with his disdainful tone tells the lowly audience to quit dreaming. He knows for sure we won’t get a penny back and we shouldn’t even try.Didn’t we pile on Riley for NOT trying and now that there is a semblance of a lawsuit, he derides it.The guy is beyond irrelevant. He is useless and unwatchable and downright disingenuous.N.
Anonymous
One more point on the Globe:Hindsight analysis that SOME exec MIGHTA WOULDA SHOULD been good for the Globe is kind of silly right now…and useless.I don’t care about the departed ones. Fact is they have enough talent in there or enough of it has passed through Morrissey.What they need is not ideas or genius, as much as GUTS and surefootedness in writing and reporting, and less hedging and wavering and politicking.The Boston Globe in my eyes might have been best serve not by a salaried exec who has less at stake, but rather by a Taylor family scion staying around and watching after a long legacy and giving the paper a personality and mission to rally around.Most succesful media experiments throughout History have revolved around a central identity and persona that drives, corrals, yells, adminshes and rewards. Tough and fair, driven and compassiante, proud and humble.NOT an exec trying to hit a bonus.Give me a break with these failed media types giving advice.Why doesn’t HE join the Globe and help fix it.Funny how this cottage indurty of going on your won and griping about “MSM failures and missed opportunites” There is so much demand for such morose stories about the NYT, Globe, CNN and other giants. The trend is there and the stereotype already started. So many are lining up to get paid for their idiotic “the Titanic is sinking” pieces. Give a break!What comes out of me is not from someone trying to cash in on it, but from a regular reader who longs for publishing and media traditions of old and the return to high standards. A nostalgia of sorts, not vulpture feeding frenzies.N.
Anonymous
I should proofread more…I should proofread more…I should…N.
Anonymous
and also self-edit; less is more…
Anonymous
Thanks for the tip. Really.(I’ll tell my brain to shut down after a couple of sentences and under no circumstance, should I write down any more point just to keep it short.I do honestly apologize for making you read longer than optimum. I just don’t want to apologize for expressing myself or taking the space to do so.I am not sure what’s the most polite way to make that point without offending you or anyone else.Oooops, maybe with less words in this same post…again…SorryN.