Jon Keller calls out “knee-jerk critics” of President Obama following the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips. Right on cue, Michael Graham rips Obama for not unleashing the Navy to have at the pirates until Phillips was in “imminent danger.”
Does Graham not understand that the Navy sharpshooters easily could have blown Phillips’ head off by mistake? What they did was incredibly risky — which is why they couldn’t do it until they were convinced the pirates were about to kill their hostage.
Last week there was a bit of a buzz over a story in the Boston Business Journal reporting that the Boston Foundation might be interested in playing some role in rescuing the Boston Globe — and possibly even getting involved as part of a future ownership group.
Since then, the Journal has run a correction: “The Boston Foundation said the effort is to address many issues concerning the Globe, and is not intended specifically to organize a group of potential buyers for the paper.”
The New York Times today has a too-brief story on hyperlocal Web sites that attempt to aggregate local news down to the neighborhood level. The focus is on EveryBlock, founded by the noted programmer-journalist Adrian Holovaty, best known for creating ChicagoCrime.org and the Washington Post’s Congress Votes Database.
The EveryBlock site for Boston is down at the moment. (Noon update: Now up.) When I’ve checked it out in the past, it has struck me as intriguing, but not ready for prime time. Enter a zip code and you get a pastiche of blogger, media and government information that doesn’t add up to a whole lot. But it’s easy to imagine its growing into something pretty useful.
Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times quotes me today in his story on how Boston would be affected if Pérez-Peña’s employer shuts down the Globe.
Three of the most interesting experiments in online coverage of international affairs are based right here in Greater Boston.
Global Voices Online, launched several years ago at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard Law School, is a site at which journalists cull and curate bloggers from around the world.
GlobalPost, a new project started by New England Cable News founder Phil Balboni and former Boston Globe reporter Charles Sennott, is assembling a worldwide network of correspondents and developing a variety of free and paid models.
And of course there’s the venerable Christian Science Monitor, which recently dropped its daily print edition. (It unveiled a weekly print magazine this week, but the emphasis is on the Web site.) There’s a Globe connection with the Monitor as well: the current editor, John Yemma, is a Globe alumnus.
Even as we lament the ongoing collapse of the newspaper business as we’ve known it, there are reasons to be optimistic about the survival of journalism. I thought I would take a look at how each is covering the anti-communist protests in Moldova, which have captured some worldwide attention because of the role played by social networks, especially Twitter.
Though none of the three is as comprehensive as what my former Boston Phoenix colleague Ellen Barry has been providing for the New York Times this week, each has been covering the story in unique ways.
This Global Voices post, a round-up of blog commentary by Veronica Khokhlova, along with two previous posts to which she links, shows some of the strengths and weaknesses of citizen journalism: the bloggers are good at giving you a flavor of what’s happening, but you get little idea of why it’s happening. I imagine this would mainly be of interest to people with a deep understanding of Moldova.
Indeed, folks at Global Voices will tell you that some of their most dedicated readers tend to be journalists and academics. Khokhlova’s post is not something I would want to wade into without at least having followed some of the mainstream coverage first.
I like the photo, which I found by following one of Khokhlova’s links, not because it’s great photojournalism — it isn’t — but precisely because it’s so mundane. I think it gives a better feel for what it must be like to be in the middle of a protest than a more dramatic shot would provide. Then again, isn’t giving you a true picture what journalism is supposed to do?
I’m also struck by the observation that if Moldovan young people had used a social-networking tool other than current media darling Twitter, the protests might not have received as much attention from the West.
At GlobalPost we find a 13-photo slideshow by Robert A. Reeder that takes us from a celebratory concert staged by the communist government, through protests and violence, and finally to a shot of Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who has ordered a crackdown and blamed the government of Romania.
Reeder’s pictures, along with the photo captions, give you enough of a flavor that you come away feeling as if you know something about what’s going on. But, as with the Global Voices post, this is supplementary material, not a substitute for a well-wrought news report.
Finally, the Monitor, on its Global News blog, presents a post by Fred Weir that is characteristic of Monitor journalism: it’s short but surprisingly deep, offering just enough news and lots of perspective and analysis. It carries a Moscow dateline, and lacks the up-close feel of the Times coverage. But it may be all that a curious, intelligent general reader needs to know.
Weir’s post went up on Wednesday, so the Monitor hasn’t been as timely on the Moldova story as the Times’ Barry has. But judging from Barry’s story in today’s paper, not a whole lot has gone on since then.
All in all, an impressive performance. If you start with the Monitor, then check out Global Voices and GlobalPost, you’ll come away pretty well-informed about a remote corner of Europe.
Photo taken from the blog Kosmopolito, linked from Global Voices Online, whose content is made available through a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.
GateHouse Media New England president and CEO Rick Daniels has sent out a take-no-prisoners message to his staff that makes it sound like he can’t wait to capitalize on the Boston Globe’s woes.
Daniels, by the way, is a former president of the Globe.
Several sources within GateHouse passed Daniels’ memo along to Media Nation a little while ago. I can only assume that Daniels is itching to get this out there. Anyway, here it is:
Colleagues:
While the severe trials of major daily newspapers are fast becoming old hat, the news from our own backyard since last Friday has been far more jarring. There have been, and continue to be countless stories and posts that report or comment on the fate of the Boston Globe. We don’t know, and won’t for at least a while what the ultimate outcome for the Globe will be. After my many years there, I know there are many talented people working hard to find answers and solutions.
Obviously, what happens to Boston’s leading newspaper and advertising market share leader has a powerful effect on everyone in our business, as well as newspaper readers and advertisers. Whatever becomes of the Globe, our core task is to secure the health and strength of GateHouse Media New England, upon which all of our jobs depend. A few thoughts come to mind that I would like to share. We are working on dates for employee meetings in the near future, and the senior management team and I look forward to discussing the business with you, telling you more about our plans and actions and fielding your questions. Just three core thoughts at this moment:
#1. The Boston Globe is HARDLY alone in being afflicted by a significant decline in advertising. In the 4th quarter of 2008, concurrent with the meltdown in the financial markets, GHMNE saw our revenues worsen from results that were starting to be heartening. The 1st quarter was worse yet. Further, almost every publishing entity with which we share information has experienced a similar trend. As April progresses, we’ll know better if the slightly better results we saw in the first week are merely a blip, or the beginning of a positive trend. It’s pretty clear that we are all a long ways off from satisfactory revenue and cash flow results and whenever the recovery starts, it will be gradual.
#2. To use a stark term, the main objective of virtually all publishers now, and just about ANY business these days is “survival”. Most businesses have implemented the most stringent expense reductions — ever. We have been on this path for a long time, and as we all know, our cost reductions have been aggressive, but the savings have been sizable — and much-needed. In 1st quarter of 2009, our expenses are lower than the 1st quarter of 2008 by about 12%. While these reductions have been essential, they have not even offset ½ the downdraft in advertising, esp. in YTD 2009. We, all GateHouse divisions, and virtually all media companies, will have to continue to push ourselves — hard — and discover ways to tighten up even more. We have, together, and despite earlier reductions, still found ways to put out about 250 print and digital products that — provably — continue to attract a huge base of readers and advertisers. The key will be to preserve enough strength to not only deliver GHMNE’s value proposition — truly unique local news and information for readers and viewers and a large, attractive audience for advertisers — but also capitalize upon major opportunities we see before us.
#3. GHMNE certainly has challenges, BUT we have truly extraordinary opportunities as well. Just a few statistics to highlight our strengths and assets include:
- GHMNE’s print audiences has grown (per Scarborough) while others have declined
- 1.7 million weekly readers in MA — almost 500K more than the next closest competitor
- 2.2 million unique visitors to our sites in March — up 58% from March, 2008
- Over 20 thousand advertisers in 2008 — from tiny local shops to major national companies
These enviable facts (and so many others that I didn’t cite) are the result of a sustainable business model that is executed by all of us in a spirited and efficient way. We attract a huge base of readers, viewers and advertisers — both in print and online. As for core opportunities, we have — for many weeks now, and even prior to the recent news — been having very substantive discussions with our advertisers to uncover their needs and the opportunities we can seize in addressing their needs. Concerns about the future stability of other media competitors in the Boston market are being expressed to us, more nakedly, urgently and earnestly than ever.
The GHMNE senior management team believes we are likely on the cusp of a major, even “seismic” shift in the eastern Mass media markets that will have untold readers, and millions of advertising dollars up for grabs — but only during a short window that could be limited. Our aim is to grab our FULL share. This will take preparation, cohesion, and continued focus on preserving adequate cash flows when they are very difficult to secure. We have NO doubts we are ready for this test.
In closing, the senior management team wishes you and your families rest and peace during this holiday time, and we thank you for your continued commitment, constancy and support. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming employee meetings in the near future.
Rick Daniels
President and CEO, GHMNE
No doubt there’s a feeling of schadenfreude over at GateHouse’s Massachusetts headquarters in Needham. After all, it was just a few months ago that GateHouse and the New York Times Co. reached an out-of-court settlement over the Globe’s aggressive use of GateHouse headlines and ledes on its hyperlocal Your Town sites — a project headed, ironically enough, by a former GateHouse employee, the Globe’s Bob Kempf.
But all is hardly sweetness and light at GateHouse, as Daniels concedes in his memo. “GateHouse Annual Report a Tale of Loss, Indebtedness” is the headline on Mark Fitzgerald’s piece yesterday on the Web site of the trade magazine Editor & Publisher. And earlier this week, GateHouse announced it would close seven free shoppers in Southeastern Massachusetts and on Cape Cod.
Nevertheless, as a business, GateHouse might actually be healthier than the Globe right now.
With apologies to Jeff Jarvis. Google’s YouTube is on track to lose $470 million this year, notes Boston Globe reporter Emily Sweeney on her blog. Why can’t the New York Times Co. find geniuses like that to run the Globe?
One line I’ve been recycling this week is that the showdown between New York Times Co. management and the Boston Globe unions would not come down to midnight on the 30th day — that union officials, based on their own comments, seemed to understand that both the Times Co. and the overall situation was serious, and would quickly agree to $20 million in cuts as the price of keeping the paper alive.
Well, now I’m not so sure. Coverage during the week has suggested increased intransigence on the part of the unions, and especially of Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten. And today, Christine McConville begins her report in the Boston Herald thusly:
Boston Globe unions are showing signs of digging in against management as frustrated labor leaders say their members have already given up enough in the effort to keep the struggling broadsheet afloat.
Meanwhile, the Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald learns that it might be possible for the Times Co. to place the Globe in bankruptcy even without selling it. That could actually be good news, as it gives Times executives a way of restructuring the paper without having to find a buyer in a brutal economic environment and without having to shut it down. (And has the Herald been indispensable this week or what?)
It is despicable that the Times Co.’s cash-fattened managers have said virtually nothing this week. They owe an explanation to the community at least as much as they do to their employees.
Still, there’s no question that the systemic disaster that’s bringing the newspaper business down has more to do with the Globe’s problems than any specific mistakes by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Steven Ainsley and crew. So it’s interesting to see, as Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix reports, that there may be a mounting insurrection among some reporters against the union leadership, who could conceivably destroy the paper rather than give up perks like lifetime contracts.
So did I leave anything out? Oh, yes. Almost forgot. Howie Carr is an idiot.
I’m quoted in Stephanie Clifford’s article in today’s New York Times on a controversial front-page ad in the Los Angeles Times that sort of (but not really) looked like a news article.
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