Author: Dan Kennedy

Times Co. executives to visit Globe

New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and president Janet Robinson will visit the Boston Globe on Sept. 9, according to an e-mail sent to Globe staffers that was obtained by Media Nation. The full text of the e-mail follows:

Please mark your calendars!

Arthur and Janet will visit the Globe on Wednesday, September 9th to hold business update meetings that are open to all employees.

The meetings are scheduled for 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Each meeting will be held in the Link.

All employees are encouraged to attend. There will be time for Q&A’s.

[Globe publisher] Steve [Ainsley] will begin the meeting with a brief overview of The Boston Globe and Boston.com business plan.

No doubt the number-one question on most folks’ minds will be the status of Times Co. efforts to sell the Globe, Boston.com and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Update: For what it’s worth, Media Nation has received a revised e-mail stating that Ainsley “will hold a series of separate employee meetings in mid-September” in order to “ensure that all employees have ample opportunity to both meet with and
ask questions of Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson.”

Globe’s Kennedy series drives Web traffic

The Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, received more than 8 million page views yesterday by 5 p.m., according to Zachary Seward of the Nieman Journalism Lab — a surge driven by the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

And though Seward doesn’t have specific numbers, he notes that Boston.com was (and still is) giving prominent play to its multimedia series on Kennedy’s life that was published last February. As I wrote then, the package was likely to serve as an important resource for some time to come, especially giving that Kennedy was nearing the end of his life.

Interestingly enough, Seward learns that the text had been taken down for a while at the request of Simon & Schuster, which published a book based on the series, and was only recently restored.

Looks like we’re back in Kansas, Toto

Oh, my. A first-term Republican congresswoman from Kansas named Lynn Jenkins told folks attending a town meeting recently that her party needs to find a “great white hope” to do battle with President Obama. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, Jenkins told the crowd:

Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.

Jenkins proceeded to rattle off the names of several Republican up-and-comers, all of whom were, uh, white. She later apologized through a spokeswoman.

Sounds like the classic definition of a gaffe. That is, she accidentally said what she meant. As Charles Pierce observes, when they say it’s not about race, it’s about race. (Via TPMDC.)

Inside story from the Globe

The Boston Globe is delivered to Media Nation at about 5:30 a.m. Ted Kennedy’s death became public shortly before 1:30 a.m. So how did the Globe manage to remake the front page so quickly?

According to Joe Strupp of the trade magazine Editor & Publisher, editor Marty Baron was awakened and gave the proverbial order to “stop the presses,” or words to that effect. The news made it into more than half of the day’s press run.

Tomorrow, Baron tells E&P, the paper will include a special 12-page section on Kennedy’s life. (Via Universal Hub.)

All Kennedy, all the time

I’ve got two more commentaries up on the legacy of the late Ted Kennedy:

  • At Blast Magazine, I’ve got a piece on what Kennedy’s record means to the under-30 crowd. Blast, the way, was founded by a former student of mine, John Guilfoil, who’s been help me with Media Nation’s move to WordPress.
  • At Forbes.com, I recall two emblematic moments in Kennedy’s career — his vendetta against Rupert Murdoch’s Boston Herald, which came to a head in 1988, and his Faneuil Hall debate against Mitt Romney in 1994, which launched a comeback and restored him to the good graces of the Massachusetts electorate.

Caught flat-footed

Word of Ted Kennedy’s death broke around 2 a.m. — too late for most of the Boston Herald’s print run. A friend of Media Nation reports that Kennedy is not on the front page in the news boxes he’s seen around the area.

Of course, the Herald rectifies that online. Presumably the boxes are being restocked as I write this.

Meanwhile, what is up with the folks who put together the mobile edition of Boston.com? It’s almost 9:30 a.m., and there’s not one word about Kennedy’s death on the front page of mobile.boston.com. (I’ve saved the page here.) Nice picture of Jacoby Ellsbury, though.

I thought breaking news was automatically pushed to the site. I guess not.

Update: It’s now 11:15 a.m., and Kennedy stories are finally migrating to Boston.com’s mobile edition.

Edward M. Kennedy, 1932-2009

kennedy_20090826To the nation, Ted Kennedy was a symbol — an icon of progressivism or an avatar of evil. To those of us lucky to be his constituents, he was a regular guy who went about the mundane business of representing his state with diligence, seriousness and joy. Or so I argue in the Guardian, in a piece I wrote over the weekend in anticipation of this sad moment.

Kennedy was a good senator and a fine but flawed man. He has been dying for more than a year, and I’m not sure there’s a lot more to say at this point. Unlike his brothers, Ted Kennedy had the good fortune to receive all his accolades while he was still alive — including, most recently, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Although word of the senator’s death was unwelcome, it was a pleasure to see Marty Nolan’s byline gracing the front of the Boston Globe today.

A minor aside: I wonder if WBZ-TV (Channel 4) will go ahead with its Boston mayoral debate, currently scheduled for today at 7 p.m.? Not only would no one be watching, but I can’t imagine WBZ wants to hold moderator Jon Keller out of its Kennedy coverage.

Note: This item has been corrected.

Update: The mayoral debate has been postponed, according to a statement by WBZ spokeswoman Ro Dooley-Webster. She writes: “Jon Keller is in touch with the campaigns, and they are working to find a date when the debate can be rescheduled.”

Update II: The debate will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 2, from 7 to 8 p.m. on WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WBZ Radio (AM 1030).

Photo taken from Kennedy’s Senate Web site, kennedy.senate.gov.