Media Nation

In ‘The Wired City,’ I wrote about a murder and the ethics of naming a ‘person of interest’

I was appalled earlier this week when multiple news organizations, citing anonymous sources, named the “person of interest” who had been taken into custody in connection with the mass shootings at Brown University. That person was later released, and which led to a scramble by some of those media outlets to memory-hole their earlier coverage.

My 2013 book “The Wired City” opens with a story about why the New Haven Independent took a different approach in response to a high-profile murder. The Independent, a digital nonprofit founded in 2005, is still going strong. Here’s an excerpt from that book.

A murder, a media frenzy and the rise of a new form of local news

Nieman Lab | June 5, 2013

Paul Bass felt uneasy. It was a Friday — Sept. 11, 2009. He was getting ready to leave the office for Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath. And he was beginning to wonder if he had blown a big story.

Two days before, Bass had received an email from someone at Yale University telling him that a 24-year-old graduate student named Annie Le was missing. Could Bass post something on his community website, the New Haven Independent? Sure thing, Bass replied. So he wrote a one-sentence item with a link to a Yale Daily News account. As he recalled later, he didn’t think much about it after that.

Now Bass was facing a dilemma. Annie Le was still missing, and the media were starting to swarm. He was off until Saturday night; as an observant Jew, he does not work on Saturdays until after sundown. On top of this, his managing editor, Melissa Bailey, was leaving town for a few days. Bass remembered reading somewhere that Le had once written a story about students and crime for a magazine affiliated with Yale. He found it, linked to it, and wrote an article beginning: “A graduate pharmacology student asked Yale’s police chief a question: ‘What can one do to avoid becoming another unnamed victim?’ Seven months after she printed the answer in a campus publication, the student may have become a crime victim herself.” It was a start — nothing special, but enough to get the Independent into the chase. Then Bass went home.

As it turned out, the Annie Le saga — soon to become a murder story — developed into one of the most heavily publicized news events to hit New Haven in many years. Her body was discovered inside a laboratory wall at Yale Medical School on Sunday, Sept. 13, the day she was to be married. The grisly fate of the beautiful young Yale student proved irresistible to the national media. From The New York Times to the New York Post, from the “Today” show to Nancy Grace, reporters, producers and photographers besieged city and university officials.

Read the rest at Nieman Lab.

BBJ: Newly named Globe editor Brian McGrory tells students he’ll return to BU no later than 2027

Newly appointed Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory says he plans to return to Boston University no later than 2027, according to a report (sub. req.) in the Boston Business Journal.

Crystal Yormick of the BU Statehouse Program quotes an email that McGrory sent to current and former students: “The CEO of the Globe reached out recently asking if I’d come back to help them through a sensitive time, and after a great deal of thought and internal debate, I’ve decided to do it.”

McGrory stepped down as Globe editor in 2023 to become chair of BU’s journalism department. On Monday, the Globe announced that he would return to his previous job, replacing Nancy Barnes, who said last Friday that she would be leaving that position, though she will remain an editor-at-large.

During his time at BU, McGrory has also filled in temporarily in several top jobs at The Baltimore Banner, a large digital nonprofit. He continues to serve on the Banner’s board of directors.

McGrory’s email suggests that his return to the Globe was in the works before last Friday, but it’s not clear how much before. William McKeen, who’ll serve as interim chair, said he was told “late last week” that McGrory had asked for a leave of absence.

“We all wish Brian the best, but we want him back,” McKeen was quoted as saying.

Linda Henry says McGrory will not be the ‘interim’ editor but will take an extended leave from BU

I’ve now received a copy of a statement that Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry has sent to the staff. She splits the difference on the “interim” issue: Brian McGrory will be fully back as the Globe’s editor, but he’ll also be on an “extended leave of absence” from Boston University. (Here’s my earlier post.) Her full statement follows.

We are thrilled that Brian McGrory will be rejoining our organization as editor of the Globe, starting January 5th, 2026.

Brian, as many of you know, brings a strong record of leadership and innovation from his prior time at the Globe, and will return with an enhanced set of experiences from his current work in academia and from the increasingly vital sector of nonprofit news. His career reflects a deep commitment to this institution and the city and region that we cover.

Brian spent 34 years with the Globe in his prior run. He started in 1989 as a reporter in the then-South Weekly section, rising to general assignment, a roving national reporter role, White House correspondent, signature metro columnist, editor of our metro department, and then Editor from 2012 to early 2023. During his tenure as Editor, he successfully navigated dramatic industry change while overseeing coverage of massive regional and national stories. He worked with the entire organization to position the Globe as the paper of interest rather than a conventional paper of record, always pressing the newsroom to be relentlessly interesting. During this stretch, the Globe essentially reinvented its coverage, with new beats, a new outlook, and a far stronger emphasis on its digital report, while winning multiple Pulitzer Prizes and rapidly growing its base of digital subscribers.

Brian’s post-Globe life has been very active. As the chair of the Journalism Department at Boston University and a professor of the practice, he has launched the Local News Initiative, an ambitious effort designed to foster collaboration among local nonprofit and independent news organizations across New England. A key component of this work is the BU Newsroom, which Brian launched last year. That newsroom, with a newly hired editor in chief, has produced more than 400 student-written stories published with local nonprofit and independent news organizations, each story professionally edited before it leaves BU. Brian plans to keep his hand in this initiative going forward.

We’re especially enthused about Brian’s extensive experience from multiple leadership roles at The Baltimore Banner, which has quickly become one of the country’s largest nonprofit news organizations since its launch just a few years ago. Brian has served as a board member, strategic adviser, interim CEO, and as interim editor this past summer. The Banner won its first Pulitzer Prize in May and has rapidly grown its subscriber base.

It’s worth noting that Brian is returning to the Globe as the Editor, not in an interim role, and we are grateful to the leadership of Boston University for granting him an extended leave of absence.

We know well of Brian’s passion for the Globe and his love of Boston, and how the two fit together. We are excited to welcome Brian back, and I look forward to the work that our world-class newsroom will continue to do to help our community thrive.

Thanks everyone,

Linda Henry

Meet the new editor, same as the old editor: Brian McGrory will return to The Boston Globe

Brian McGrory. Photo via Boston University.

The Boston Globe just published the news that Brian McGrory will be returning as editor. McGrory left in early 2023 to become chair of Boston University’s journalism department. His return means that he’ll replace Nancy Barnes, who announced last week that she’d be stepping aside.

“Brian’s passion for the Globe and his love of Boston are deeply intertwined,” Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry said in a statement quoted by the Globe story. “We are thrilled to welcome Brian back and look forward to the work our world-class newsroom will continue to do under his leadership.”

What is most interesting about the article is that it contains not one word about this being an interim move. It sounds like McGrory is back at the helm. (Follow-up: In a statement to her employees, Linda Henry says that McGrory will be the permanent, not the “interim,” editor of the Globe, and that he has taken an extended leave from BU.)

McGrory was editor of the Globe from 2012 to 2023. The paper produced extraordinarily good work during those years, and McGrory was well-liked by the staff. He takes over at a time when the Globe’s strong growth in digital subscriptions has fizzled out.

I would attribute that more to the Globe’s mediocre UX than to its journalism, but this is a time when the paper needs inspirational leadership. Barnes got mixed reviews on that front, although I know that she had both supporters and detractors in the newsroom.

Local and national media mobilize to cover the Brown shootings. There was one serious misstep.

*A public vigil in Providence on Sunday night. Photo (cc) 2025 by Michael Salerno / Rhode Island Current.*

If there’s a place that’s the opposite of a news desert, it is surely Providence, Rhode Island. Multiple news organizations have mobilized to try to keep up with developments in Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University, where two students were killed and nine injured by a gunman who burst into a building where students were studying for final exams.

The student newspaper, The Brown Daily Herald, was pretty much shut down for the semester, but its journalists are working hard to stay on top of the story. Here is the Herald’s live blog. Also, the Herald covered a community gathering called by the Providence City Council that was originally intended as a Hanukkah celebration. The tagline for the reporter, Emily Feil, says that she’s a freshman and adds, “In her free time, she can be found watching bad TV and reading good books.” Your heart breaks.

In addition to the Herald, local news outlets covering the shootings include The Providence Journal; The Boston Globe, which has a robust Rhode Island bureau; Ocean State Media, the state’s public television and radio operation; WJAR-TV (Channel 10); WPRI-TV (Channel 12); WNRI Radio (1380 AM and 99.9 FM); the Rhode Island Current, a nonprofit digital publication that’s part of the nationwide States Newsroom; and GoLocalProv. If I’ve missed any, let me know and I’ll add them.

I was appalled at the number of news organizations that named the “person of interest” who was taken into custody and then released late Sunday after authorities determined that he had nothing to do with the shooting. If you search Google News for that person’s name, you’ll get multiple hits, including The Washington Post, NBC News and CNN.

Some outlets appear to have tried to cover their tracks by deleting their earlier stories. But a person of interest is not the same as a suspect, and he shouldn’t have been identified in the first place, especially given that his detention was attributed to unnamed sources. Here is an ethical perspective from a notorious case in New Haven, Connecticut, some years ago.

A terrible weekend

The Brown shootings took place the same weekend as a mass murder in Sydney, Australia, where what was reported to be a father-and-son team killed at least 15 people, with another 42 hospitalized. The killings were carried out at a beachside Hanukkah gathering, and they’re being investigated as as an antisemitic incident. There was at least one act of incredible courage, as a bystander identified as Ahmed al Ahmed tackled one of the gunmen from behind, suffering serious injuries as a result. Ahmed’s parents are refugees who had recently arrived from Syria.

Finally, we all woke up this morning to the news that filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer and producer Michele Singer Reiner, had been killed in their home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

It was a terrible weekend. Hold your loved ones close.

More: Rhode Island-based independent journalist Steve Ahlquist has been covering the Brown shootings.

25 years ago, I wrote that media passivity helped enable George W. Bush’s corrupt victory

Friday marked the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s corrupt decision to stop the counting of ballots in Florida and award the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Below is what I wrote for The Boston Phoenix. I think my critique of the media has held up, but I was way off on the Supreme Court, which has devolved into a serious threat to the Constitution. And, looking back, I think a lot started to go wrong with this country as a result of the court’s anti-democratic edict.

How a passive media helped Bush win

The Boston Phoenix | Dec. 14, 2000

As the Phoenix went to press on Wednesday morning, it appeared that the post-campaign was, at long last, over. But before Al Gore makes his final disappearance, it’s worth thinking about how the media helped legitimize George W. Bush’s outrageous — and ultimately successful — effort to stop all the votes from being counted and thus claim an unearned victory.

Despite the 24/7 treatment on the all-news cable channels, the Florida fiasco was not, at root, a media story. It was too big, too important, and too fast-moving for the media to be able to shape (and distort) events. That made it very different from such past spectacles as the Monica Lewinsky saga and the O.J. Simpson trial.

Continue reading “25 years ago, I wrote that media passivity helped enable George W. Bush’s corrupt victory”

Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry hails departing editor Nancy Barnes

More news on the Nancy Barnes front, as several sources have forwarded to me an email just sent to the staff by Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry.

Team,

Today, Nancy Barnes announced that she will be stepping down from her role as Globe Editor at the end of next week, but thankfully staying with us in the role of Editor at Large. Over the past three years, Nancy has led the Globe newsroom with extraordinary dedication, guiding us through this historic news cycle and helping us deliver exceptional and award-winning journalism that will have a lasting impact on our community. While it is a loss for her to step back, we are thrilled that she is staying with the organization.

Globe readership and our subscriber base has grown under Nancy’s leadership, while the Globe has consistently been recognized nationally for the quality of our daily and investigative journalism across all of our platforms, including:

A Gerald Loeb Award, RFK Award, and Pulitzer Prize finalist honors for public service for our reporting on the Steward Health Care crisis.

Top ONA and Edward R. Murrow awards for the excellence of our digital report; our Sandra Birchmore investigation also won a Murrow award this year.

The first duPont-Columbia Award in the Globe’s history for the Spotlight team’s podcast, “Murder in Boston,” as well as Top IRE audio honors, and the corresponding docuseries which received an Edward R. Murrow Award and the Globe’s first-ever National Emmy Award.

The Michael Donoghue Freedom of Information award for our State’s Secrets reporting, and many others.

In addition to the world-class journalism, Nancy has moved the newsroom forward, finding ways to better reach and serve our smart audiences, including the launch of new newsletters like Starting Point, the launch of the Globe Weather HQ, the expansion of our Globe High School Sports initiative, a new, strategic focus on video journalism in partnership with our audience team, the opening of the Globe New Hampshire bureau to strengthen regional reporting, and the launch of Boston Globe Sports Report in collaboration with NESN.
These, and other initiatives, have allowed the Globe to innovate, adapt to the evolving digital landscape, and grow our reach on multiple platforms.

Nancy shared that she has decided to “take a break from the daily firestorm of news, consider new challenges, and tend to some personal issues.” While we will all miss her daily presence, we are grateful that she will remain part of the Globe in her new role as Editor at Large, available for editing support, coaching, and counsel. Nancy shared that she is also hopeful for more time to focus on a fundraising project to bring more investigative reporting to communities in New England news deserts, where local coverage is limited.

The Globe newsroom is full of dedicated, passionate journalists, and it has been a privilege to watch you all work alongside Nancy, whose professionalism, empathy, and talent have left a lasting mark on this team. Please join me in thanking Nancy for her leadership and her many contributions to The Boston Globe and the company.

We will share further updates about newsroom leadership with you very soon.

With gratitude,
Linda

Nancy Barnes, The Boston Globe’s first female editor, will step down at the end of next week

Nancy Barnes, the first woman to serve as editor of The Boston Globe, is stepping down at the end of next week. She made the announcement in an email to her staff, which a trusted source just forwarded to me. (And here is Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry’s message about Barnes’ departure.)

Barnes was named editor just a little over three years ago. She succeeded Brian McGrory, a longtime Globe veteran who is now chair of Boston University’s journalism department.

Barnes was chief news executive at NPR when she was named to the Globe’s top newsroom position. She has local ties, having grown up in the Boston area and worked as an intern at the Globe and as a reporter at The Sun of Lowell earlier in her career. Before coming to NPR as senior vice president for news and editorial director in 2018, she had held the top editing jobs at the Houston Chronicle and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

Just a few weeks ago she spoke at Northeastern in a conversation with our School of Journalism director, Jonathan Kaufman, as part of the Jack Thomas Lecture Series. In her announcement, Barnes says she’ll be staying at the Globe as an editor-at-large and work on a fundraising initiative aimed at addressing the local news crisis. Her full announcement follows.

Dear all,

It has been an honor to lead the Globe newsroom these last three years. I am enormously proud of the journalism we have delivered together, during such a tumultuous time in history. The array of stories we have published is extraordinary — just this year alone.

I have spent my entire adult lifetime in journalism, including nearly two decades as the editor of four great newsrooms. It is a period that has transcended the dawn of the internet age, the birth (and near death) of social media, the rise of AI, and enough stories to fill multiple history books.

By now, you have figured out that I have some difficult news to share: It’s time for me to take a break from the daily firestorm of news, consider new challenges and tend to some personal issues. I will be stepping down as editor at the end of next week. This is not goodbye, however. Linda [Henry, CEO of Boston Globe Media] and I have agreed I will stay with the Globe as Editor at Large and make myself available to any of you who might need editing help, coaching or a listening ear. I also hope to work on a fund-raising initiative to serve New England news deserts, a passion that I have thus far been unable to find time to pursue.

This is a special newsroom, full of dedicated journalists with big hearts, who are driven to deliver great journalism day in and day out – as you have these last three years. It has been my great privilege to work with you. Journalists are a quirky, special breed, and I love you all for being so true to form. Thank you.

Next week, I will be in the office to help polish up some of our final stories of the year and assist with anything else you all might need. After that I will be traveling for several weeks before returning to Boston.

Nancy

‘Beat the Press’ hits Substack. Plus, Somerville news blues, and DigBoston co-founder Jeff Lawrence dies.

*“Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” v.3.0 made its debut Thursday evening. Click on the image to watch the program.*

“Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” is back — this time on Contrarian Boston, local journalist Scott Van Voorhis’ Substack newsletter. Emily, Scott and I kick around one topic: the epic media scandal that has engulfed Olivia Nuzzi and her ex-fiancé, Ryan Lizza, over Nuzzi’s non-touching sexual relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Nuzzi was pushed out of her high-profile job at New York magazine last year after Oliver Darcy of Status News broke the story about her affair. Although the magazine claimed it had uncovered no conflicts of interest, they were gilding the lily. Nuzzi wrote a devastating takedown of then-President Joe Biden before he ended his re-election campaign and while Kennedy was running for president in his own right. Later she penned an oddly sympathetic profile of Donald Trump while Kennedy was angling for a top job in a possible future Trump administration.

Continue reading “‘Beat the Press’ hits Substack. Plus, Somerville news blues, and DigBoston co-founder Jeff Lawrence dies.”

Saudis and Kushner and Trump, oh my: Why it matters that CNN stay out of Paramount’s clutches

CNN: Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.

I like to say that friends don’t let friends watch cable news. I rarely watch any of the prime-time talk shows on cable — certainly not Fox, but not MS NOW or CNN, either. They all rely on the same formula, which I’d describe as keeping you enraged and upset so that you don’t touch that dial.

On the other hand, I will tune in to CNN when there’s significant breaking news. And I think it’s vitally important that we have news organizations that aren’t totally in thrall to the Trump regime, which is why I’m glad that CNN and MS NOW are there even if I don’t watch them very often.

Sign up for free email delivery of Media Nation. You can also become a supporter for just $6 a month and receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive content.

So I was relieved at the recent announcement that Warner Bros. Discovery would sell itself to Netflix, even though that left the fate of CNN uncertain. And I was horrified when the Trump-friendly Ellison family, the new owners of Paramount, decided to launch a hostile takeover attempt after losing the initial sweepstakes.

How bad is this? Let us count the ways.

► Paramount recently acquired CBS News, and its head, conservative opinion journalist Bari Weiss, is lined up to run CNN as well should the Ellison bid prevail. Not only does that raise ideological concerns, but it also would likely lead to major job cuts as the two operations are consolidated.

► After CBS News’ “60 Minutes” broadcast an interview in which ex-MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized Trump, Paramount executives all but apologized to Trump, reports Charles Gasparino of the New York Post.

► Investors in the Paramount bid include the Saudi, Qatari and United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth funds. As Oliver Darcy of Status News observes, “Most startlingly, Saudi Arabia, which ordered the brutal killing of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi just a few short years ago, would effectively own a slice of one of the world’s leading newsrooms, if Ellison should get his way.

► Another investor in the Paramount quest is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, by way of his private equity firm, Affinity Partners. Dan Primack writes at Axios, “Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case.”

► Trump himself has been lashing out at CNN this week, pushing for a sale and saying he might get involved in any antitrust proceedings over whether the sale of WBD to Netflix would be legal or not, reports NPR’s David Folkenflik. It goes without saying that a sale to Paramount would be just as problematic, but we all know that Trump will use antitrust law to reward his friends and punish his enemies.

We should not be in the position of having to root for Netflix to win the WBD sweepstakes. Giant media monopolies are bad for the economy and bad for democracy. In this case, though, a sale to Netflix would at least give CNN a fighting chance of remaining an independent monitor of power — rather than yet another news outlet that’s sold its soul to the forces of authoritarianism.