We’ve all seen plenty of lame op-eds by politicians — or, rather, lame op-eds written on behalf of politicians. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen most of a newspaper’s front page given over to hyping one (click for larger view), with a piece “by” Mitt Romney.
Month: March 2011
Michael Paulson leaves Globe for Times
If you are a weekend Romenesko reader, then you already know that Boston Globe city editor Michael Paulson is leaving for the New York Times, where he’ll edit stories about local politics and religion for metro editor Carolyn Ryan — herself a former Globe reporter and editor. (Both are alumni of the Patriot Ledger in Quincy as well.)
It still seems strange to refer to Paulson as the Globe’s city editor because, before that, he was a very good religion reporter — among the best working for a general-interest publication, in my opinion. He shared in the Globe’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of the sexual-abuse scandals within the Catholic Church, but he also excelled at covering religion-as-religion.
You can read the memo from Globe metro editor Jen Peter at Romenesko. Below is another memo, from Ryan at the Times:
Folks
I am very happy to tell you that Michael Paulson, city editor at The Boston Globe, will be joining us as Political Editor in Metro.
Michael has a dazzling array of journalistic gifts: he is imaginative, endlessly energetic, insightful and intelligent.
He was an outstanding reporter, who covered local politics, city hall, Washington, and religion — and helped lead the Globe’s coverage of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
But Michael is also a natural editor, of expansive curiosity, sly humor and engaging manner. On the Globe’s metro desk, he has overseen a range of subjects, including transportation, the mayoral election and higher education.
Patrick Healy, a colleague of Michael’s at the Globe, described him as “a rare breed — both tenacious and thoughtful, competitive and determined.”
Michael began his reporting career at the age of 21 amid the cranberry bogs and jaywalking wild turkeys of Halifax, Massachusetts, covering a town of 6,000 people and one traffic light for The Patriot Ledger. He then went to the San Antonio Light in Texas, where he covered politics, and from there moved to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, serving as city hall reporter, state house bureau chief, and, ultimately, as the paper’s correspondent in Washington, D.C.
He joined the Globe in 2000 to cover religion, and wrote with nuance and depth about the intersection of faith, culture and politics. He spent several weeks in France researching Mitt Romney’s experience there as a Mormon missionary and traveled to Dearborn to write about Muslims and Arab Christians in the 2008 election. He also captured the complicated role of the Catholic Church during the same-sex marriage debate in Massachusetts. Michael will oversee our religion coverage, in addition to New York politics.
Michael has many ties to New York. His paternal grandparents were born and raised in Brooklyn; the Paulsons moved to Boston in the 1930s when his grandfather, a hosiery salesman, got a job there.
Michael already has a fair number of fans here at the Times.
Diego Ribadeneira, another Globe alumnus, praised Michael’s “wonderful combination of keen intellect, intense curiosity and reassuring temperament.”
He inspires confidence, respect, and affection among his colleagues. I am thrilled we will be partners again.
Michael will join us in April. He can be reached at xxx.Please join me in welcoming him.
Carolyn
Meet two young media entrepreneurs
Connecticut Magazine has released its list of “40 Under 40” — that is, 40 Connecticut residents under 40 who are making a difference. And it turns out that two of them have been the subject of video interviews on Media Nation. Among those named were:
- Christine Stuart, 33, who runs the Hartford-based Statehouse news site CT News Junkie (she doubles as the New Haven Independent‘s Statehouse bureau chief).
- New Haven’s Ben Berkowitz, 31, co-founder of SeeClickFix, an interactive website that uses mapping and discussion boards to connect citizens, government and the media to deal with community problems.
You can see my interview with Stuart here. Berkowitz is here.
Alabama chain whacks local papers — again
The Alabama state employees’ pension fund is taking the axe to its newspapers on the North Shore and in the Merrimack Valley — again.
CNHI, the Birmingham, Ala.-based chain that owns four daily newspapers and four weeklies north of Boston, has eliminated 36 full- and part-time jobs. The dailies affected by the layoffs are the Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, the Daily News of Newburyport, the Salem News and the Gloucester Daily Times. The chain whacked 52 jobs in 2008.
“We have done our best to weather economic difficulties, but like many companies we must take further steps to sustain the long-term success of the company by reducing staffing levels again,” a CNHI publisher, Al Getler, said in a statement posted online.
But it’s not all bad news for CNHI — if you’re fortunate enough to be near the seat of power. The company recently announced that it would move to Alabama’s state capital, Montgomery, and take up residence in a 12-story building being constructed by its chief investor, Retirement Systems of Alabama. The move is expected to take place in 2012.
We subscribe to the Salem News, and we continue to be impressed with the good job done by the reporters, photographers and editors every day. (Disclosure: Mrs. Media Nation was a Salem News photographer until eight years ago.)
But working conditions have been pretty difficult. For the past several years, most employees have had to take roughly a week of unpaid furlough every quarter. And now things have gotten considerably worse.
No doubt management is having a difficult time of it. The Salem News is pretty light on ads most days. But hollowing out the product year by year is a recipe for eventual closure, not revival. If there is a vision beyond continued cutting, it’s certainly not apparent to readers — or to the journalists who still work there.
Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery.
Say it ain’t so, Frank Rich
When you get to my age, you look for your thrills where you can find them. Come Saturday night, I usually find myself asking … Should I read Frank Rich now, or save it until the morning?
So I was shocked to learn this morning that Rich, one of our leading liberal commentators, is leaving the New York Times for New York Magazine, where he’ll write a monthly essay. He’ll edit and lead some online conversations as well.
It’s not the first time Rich has grown restless. He was the Times’ chief drama critic from 1980 to 1993, and I think it’s his theatrical sense that makes his political commentary so sharp and entertaining.
This is not good news for me, and I’m sure many other Times readers feel the same way. New York Magazine has a good reputation, but I can’t picture myself subscribing or seeking it out online. Other than the occasional must-read media feature, it just isn’t compelling enough for me to change longstanding habits.
In 2000 I ran into Rich at an event for gay Republicans at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, which I was covering for the Boston Phoenix. I asked him about the collective nervous breakdown the media were having over the lack of news at George W. Bush’s coronation. Here’s what he told me:
Not to be too Freudian about it, but what you’re seeing is a sort of displacement. There are 15,000 reporters here and no story. What are they going to talk about? Themselves and their own anxiety.
It will be interesting to see whether the Times tries to recruit a big-name replacement for Rich. (Maybe it will be Joe Nocera, who’s moving from the business pages to the op-ed section.) With the exception of Paul Krugman and David Brooks, I just don’t find the rest of the paper’s opinion writers all that compelling.
Rich had one of the best jobs in journalism. I guess it shows that anything can get boring after a while.