Year: 2009

Lehigh on Severin

Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh, who’s tangled with Jay Severin before, weighs in with a terrific column on Severin’s suspension from WTKK Radio (96.9 FM). I love this:

From the start of his talk-radio career, Severin was just bright enough to be an accomplished charlatan, clever enough to coat his gut-level biases and bigotry with a thin veneer of analysis. But he was neither smart nor knowledgeable enough to add much of value to the public discussion.

On “Beat the Press” this evening, Emily Rooney expressed the view that Severin will be back. Perhaps she’s right. (The segment should pop up on the new BTP Web site over the weekend.) I believe that was Curtis Sliwa I heard filling in for Severin this afternoon, which suggests that management didn’t even have a Plan D in place, never mind a Plan B or C.

Still, I find it hard to believe that management is happy about paying Severin a reported $1 million-plus a year only to lose the ratings battle to WRKO (AM 680) host Howie Carr — who, after all, would now be ‘TKK’s morning host if only he hadn’t signed a contract with ‘RKO that would make Curt Flood weep.

A $4.5 million whoopsie

I’ve been out of the loop all day, volunteering as a marshal at Northeastern’s commencement. Right now I’m hanging out at WGBH-TV (Channel 2), waiting to tape “Beat the Press.” And I am astounded at the news out of the Boston Globe, where apparently the unions will be forced to come up with another $4.5 million in concessions because of an accounting error on the part of management.

The New York Times Co. has threatened to close the Globe if the unions don’t agree to $20 million in givebacks by today.

“Management has done the impossible: they’ve reunited the Boston Newspaper Guild,” an anonymous source tells the Boston Phoenix’s Adam Reilly. Needless to say, this doesn’t bode well. For a crisis to be averted, it was essential for the unions to come to terms at least somewhat amicably. Now it’s not even clear that Globe staffers believe management claims that the paper is on track to lose $85 million this year.

“The Legend of Young Arthur continues to grow,” writes the Outraged Liberal, referring to New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Unfortunately, you can’t make this stuff up.

Are these the Severin sound bites?

The Boston Globe posts two brief audio clips of Jay Severin insulting Mexicans. They are utterly unremarkable — pedestrian, humorless, racist crap of the sort that’s been tumbling from his mouth for years.

If WTKK (96.9 FM) managment wants to claim that these are what got him suspended (and we don’t know that), then you’d have to say this is a John DePetro situation. That is, management wants Severin gone and is looking for any convenient excuse.

Brian Flaherty writes that Severin makes more than $1 million a year, although I don’t know who or what his source is. And Flaherty notices something I’ve noticed, too — Severin’s afternoon drive-time rival, Howie Carr of WRKO (AM 680), has been crowing about having the largest talk-radio audience in the afternoon lately, something Severin had bragged about for quite a few years.

More than a million dollars is a lot to pay a talk-show host who is essentially in last place, given that there are only two major-station political talk shows in Boston during afternoon drive.

More: Lance has worse. Vile stuff — though, again, I’ve been hearing this garbage from Severin for years.

WTKK suspends Jay Severin

Jay Severin’s ratings must really be slipping. WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) has suspended him “indefinitely” for making derogatory remarks about Mexicans, according to the Boston Globe’s David Abel. As anyone who has listened to him over the years knows, he couldn’t possibly have been any more offensive this week than he’s been for the past decade.

You have to wonder if this is really about ‘TKK trying to get out from under a contract that makes no sense in the current economic environment. So what did Severin say? Anyone hear it?

At least for the moment, Severin is still featured on ‘TKK’s Web site. (Thanks to Ron Newman.)

More: The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam doesn’t have Severin’s offending remarks, either, but she does report that ‘TKK was actually using those very same sound bites as promos. That tends to confirm my suspicion that this is all about money. Prediction: If Severin ever returns to ‘TKK, it will be with a new contract for substantially less money. It’s a different world now.

The latest on the Globe

Not sure why I can’t find this on Boston.com, so I’ll give you the link to Joe Strupp’s report in Editor & Publisher that management and union officials may be making progress at the Boston Globe.

Also New England Cable News has an interesting report (above) in which former Globe reporter Peter Howe interviews former Globe reporter Kimberly Blanton. Nothing startlingly new, but good insights from two people who clearly know their way around 135 Morrissey Boulevard.

Finally, you must have seen this elsewhere already, but John Henry denies he has any interest in buying the Globe.

Global Voices’ man in Kazakhstan

While I was in Kazakhstan last week for the Eurasian Media Forum I had a chance to interview Adil Nurmakov, Central Asia editor for Global Voices Online.

I was having a hard time tracking him down, because my coal-powered cell phone doesn’t work outside the United States. (It does, however, use clean coal.) Fortunately Robin Hamman, an American expat social-media wizard who now lives in the U.K., let me borrow his iPhone, and I was able to make contact.

Adil and I walked about a mile to a restaurant where I had thought we might get some authentic Kazakh food. No such luck. We ended up at a British-style pub, complete with a snooker match playing on two flat-panel TVs hanging from the walls on either side of us. I did order some genuine Kazakh beer. It tasted like … beer. Quite good.

We spent a couple of hours talking about his life and career, then walked back to the InterContinental Hotel, where I conducted a brief video interview in the mezzanine-level press room that had been set up for the forum.

A one-two punch from the Phoenix

With negotiations at the Boston Globe now down to the wire, the Boston Phoenix weighs in with a major takeout by media reporter Adam Reilly and an editorial.

Reilly’s got lots of nice details, including a great quote from an anonymous (of course) Globe staffer about editor Marty Baron: “His hands are tied. I think he’s fucking heartbroken that he can’t do more.” Adam also has some insights into the ongoing tensions between the union leadership and the newsroom.

The editorial ponders the possibility of life without the Globe — an unlikely prospect, perhaps, but one that’s not completely out of the question given what’s happened during the past month. Know this: someone at the Phoenix really, really doesn’t like the Boston Herald.

More on the Kazakhstan Internet

Yevgeniya Plakhina reports that those proposed amendments cracking down on the Internet continue to wend their way through Kazakhstan’s parliament.

In an e-mail to Media Nation, she writes: “Lower House of Parliament passed the amendments in the first reading. Of course, there’s an oppurtunity to call them back — senate and the president can. but it might not happen.”

More on the Phoenix cuts

I had not realized until yesterday that the two Boston Phoenix editorial staff members who’d lost their jobs were senior managing editor Clif Garboden and theater critic Carolyn Clay. The Boston Globe reports on their departures today.

Clif and Carolyn are among the most senior members of the Phoenix staff, valued colleagues and respected by everyone. The Phoenix is not going to be the same without them. Unfortunately, this stands as further evidence of just how desperate the state of the newspaper business is these days.