By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
Nat Hentoff has written his farewell column for the Village Voice after his unconscionable layoff. Hentoff quotes Tom Wicker’s tribute to I.F. Stone: “He never lost his sense of rage.”
I’ve called Hentoff and Molly Ivins the two best columnists never to win a Pulitzer. It’s still not too late for Hentoff, who, at 83, vows not to retire.
Just got my first spam text message via cell phone — a Viagra come-on. What gives? Why haven’t I gotten any of these until now? What can I do?
I’ve been looking for a point of entry to comment on the recent cutbacks at WBZ Radio (AM 1030), which have claimed talk-show hosts Lovell Dyett, Steve LeVeille and Pat Desmarais, as well as sports reporter Tom Cuddy. It looks like Scott Fybush’s blistering commentary ought to do the trick.
Unfortunately, I never got to hear those shows, as they were on during a time when I simply never listen to talk radio. Sorry to give fuel to CBS’s fire — no doubt the company’s research showed that I was pretty typical.
But live and local ought to be part of any radio station’s mandate. As Garrett says, if CBS doesn’t want to live up to its responsibilities, let it find a buyer who will. (Via Universal Hub.)
In my latest for the Guardian, I wonder why it took so long for the New York Times to accept front-page display ads.
One of the great things about working at the Boston Phoenix was its proximity to cheap, good, independent restaurants on Peterborough Street. Those restaurants were only slightly less accessible from Northeastern, as they were just a quick walk across the Fens.
Sadly, six of those restaurants were wiped out in a fire early today. Three of them — the Thornton Grille, Rod-Dee and El Pelón — were longtime Media Nation favorites. Along with the recent closure of the slightly more upscale Brown Sugar, around the corner on Jersey Street, the Fenway is now pretty much bereft of good lunch places.
More than 100 people, many of them elderly, are at least temporarily homeless, too. Fortunately, early reports are that no one was injured.
Today we offer a postscript to Chuck Turner’s absurd call for legal sanctions against media outlets that fail to presume his innocence in an ongoing federal corruption probe. Now the government wants to take away Turner’s First Amendment rights. According to Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy:
Federal prosecutors urged a judge yesterday to prohibit Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner from revealing, or even talking about, evidence and witnesses the government is relying on to convince a jury that he pocketed a $1,000 bribe.
The best part is a letter written to the judge by Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil, in which he says in part: “Mr. Turner has held a series of press conferences and rallies since he was charged in this matter, aimed in part at bolstering his character and attacking the government’s motives for seeking an indictment against him from the grand jury.” And this is wrong?
McNeil goes on to say that Turner might “selectively” quote from the evidence against him, which could have the effect of “indirectly” intimidating witnesses and otherwise harming the case against him.
According to Laurel Sweet and Ed Mason, writing in the Boston Herald, the gag order sought by prosecutors could also derail an internal investigation by the Boston City Council.
The idea that Turner should be denied a look at the evidence against him unless he agrees to give up his First Amendment right to defend himself in public is offensive and outrageous. If prosecutors fear they can’t win without Turner’s silence, then they must be worried that they don’t have much of a case.
Three reasons why the New York Times’ decision to sell display ads on its front page is nothing to get excited about:
1. The Times’ most important front page is the home page of NYTimes.com, which, like nearly all news Web sites, has included advertising from the beginning. In a world in which the Web is your primary delivery vehicle, it’s silly to pretend there’s anything sacrosanct about print.
2. Back in newspapers’ heyday, the Times was one of the few quality papers to run front-page ads at all. The reason we’re all saying that the Times is now selling display ads on page one is that it’s always run classifieds. Remember those ads reminding Jewish women to light candles for Shabbat?
3. The Times actually held out longer than many. As Richard Pérez-Peña notes, a number of excellent national papers have been publishing front-page ads for a while, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. Each of those papers has its own pathologies, but none is any more troubled than the New York Times is these days.
If front-page ads can help to offset newspapers’ mounting losses, then I’m fine with it. No doubt we can expect ads on the front of the Times Co.-owned Boston Globe in the near future.
The Boston Herald today tries to knock down yesterday’s Boston Globe story reporting that as many as 200 Boston police officers could be laid off because of the recession-driven budget meltdown. But it’s difficult to know exactly what is going on.
For instance, the Herald’s Jessica Van Sack writes that an aide to “enraged” (isn’t it ever thus?) Boston Mayor Tom Menino said, “It won’t be 200 police officers.” Well, what about 150? Not exactly reassuring.
For that matter, the online headline over Van Sack’s story goes quite a bit farther than her own carefully worded story: “Riled mayor Thomas M. Menino: Reports of cop layoffs untrue.” The cover line, “Menino vows to spare cops from budget ax,” strikes me as unsupported by Van Sack’s reporting as well.
Given the murk, it’s worth looking at what named sources have said. The Globe’s Donovan Slack and Maria Cramer yesterday cited “two officials” in their report that “as many as 200” officers could lose their jobs. It’s hard to know what to make of that, given that we don’t know who the “two officials” are.
But they also quote Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce as saying, “There is nothing official at this point, and it is way too premature to determine the impact on any department, including the Boston Police Department.” And Police Commissioner Ed Davis weighs in with this: “Everyone knows that if your budget is 90 percent personnel and you sustain deep cuts, then personnel would be on the table. At this point in time, it’s not something that I can comment on, because I don’t know what those numbers are going to be.”
I take Joyce’s and Davis’ comments as essentially confirming the idea that the two officials with whom the Globe spoke are knowledgeable, and that they are indeed throwing around the 200 number as a worst-case scenario, if nothing else.
Now let’s take a look at what’s on the record in Van Sack’s Herald story today. Thomas Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, tells her, “The mayor has assured me that while there are problems, there are no planned layoffs.” OK. But I don’t think anyone said there were at this point.
Joyce and Davis also pop up in the Herald story, and what they have to say is telling as well. Davis: “Somebody put this out to try to raise fear.” No doubt about it — it smacks of a political tactic. But does that mean it’s not true?
Joyce’s quote to the Herald is even more equivocal: “Any numbers are irresponsible to put out at this time, seeing as we have no idea what’s gonna happen with the state. There’s lots of employees at the Police Department. The mayor has made it clear that protecting the service to residents as much as possible is his first priority.”
Finally, the Globe’s Cramer today quotes an e-mail Davis sent out within his department following yesterday’s story: “At this time I want to be clear that no decision has been made to proceed with layoffs. Any suggestion to the contrary is premature.” That doesn’t contradict the Globe’s report that as many as 200 officers could lose their jobs, either.
So what is going on? It’s hard to say, but here’s one likely possibility. Two officials knowledgeable about discussions taking place at City Hall leaked to the Globe the possibility that as many as 200 police officers might face layoffs. More than anything, the leak was aimed at scaring Gov. Deval Patrick into ensuring sufficient local aid so that such cuts don’t have to be made.
Menino is angry — that’s a given. What we don’t know is if 1) he is genuinely angry because he didn’t want the layoff numbers to be leaked, at least not yet; 2) he is genuinely angry because the Globe’s emphasis on layoffs, rather than on Patrick’s options, puts more pressure on City Hall than he had intended; or 3) he is pretending to be angry but is actually pleased that he succeeded in floating this frightening trial balloon.
Because officials appear to be dialing back, that gives the Herald the opportunity to claim that the Globe got it wrong. The problem is that what officials are actually saying, on the record, does not contradict the notion that as many as 200 officers could be laid off if more money can’t be found.