Author: Dan Kennedy

Kazakh government admits to blockage

The official Kazakh communications agency has admitted to blocking the blogging platform LiveJournal, according to the International Foundation of Speech Freedom Protection.

In a recent interview with the newspaper Express K, Batyr Makhanbetazhiev, executive secretary of Kazakhstan’s Agency of Information and Communication, said LiveJournal had been blocked to stop the “distribution of illegal information.”

The translation is hazy, so it’s a little hard to follow. But free-speech activists in Kazakhstan have been campaigning against a proposed law that would crack down on the country’s relatively free-wheeling online culture. For background, see this and also this.

Counting blogs: One, two, many

Four years ago, Jay Rosen dropped in on a media-criticism class I was teaching at Northeastern University for a discussion about blogging.

One point he made I thought was particularly salient: the 97 bazillion blogs Technorati claims to be tracking are often used by critics as a way to discredit blogging. After all, how could anything so common be of much value?

Still, it’s hard to quantify the number of blogs that matter to news folks — that is, blogs doing some type of journalism, even if it’s just commenting intelligently on the news. When asked, I generally respond that it’s certainly in the hundreds, or even the thousands, but definitely not the millions.

So I was interested to see more useful Technorati numbers appear in a New York Times story today about bloggers who quit because they quickly learn that it’s hard work, or that it’s no way to make money, or that they decide revealing personal details about themselves isn’t such a good idea. (Not that that has anything inherently to do with blogging.) To wit:

  • Of the 133 million blogs that Technorati was following in 2008, only 7.4 million had been updated in the past four months.
  • The vast majority of traffic is generated by 50,000 to 100,000 blogs.

Those numbers make far more sense, and show that blogging is something that a small subset of dedicated amateurs (and a few professionals) take seriously. As Rosen suggested, the Golden Arches approach is a way of marginalizing rather than elucidating.

Critiquing Obama’s speech in Egypt

They don’t come any dumber than U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. In a piece on local reaction to President Obama’s speech in Egypt, Inhofe tells his hometown newspaper, “There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo” and “I just don’t know whose side he’s on.” (Via TPMDC.)

On the other hand, New York Times columnist David Brooks gets right to the heart of the contradictions in Obama’s speech, writing:

This speech builds an idealistic facade on a realist structure. And this gets to the core Obama foreign-policy perplexity. The president wants to be an inspiring leader who rallies the masses. He also wants be a top-down realist who cuts deals in the palaces. There is a tension between these two impulses that even a sharp Chicago pol is having trouble managing.

My own reaction: underwhelmed, despite the characteristically first-rate craftsmanship and delivery. I couldn’t really articulate why, but I definitely think Brooks is on to it.

Deval Patrick is shocked

Gov. Deval Patrick has discovered that there is — I hope you’re sitting down — offensive programming on WTKK Radio (96.9 FM), the station where he has been making monthly appearances since entering office more than two years ago.

Patrick, appearing on Jim Braude and Margery Eagan’s program, said he was “embarrassed to be associated with the station” after management decided to lift the month-long suspension it had handed out to Jay Severin for his vile comments about Mexicans. (Globe; Herald.)

But as I and many others have noted, Severin’s comments that day were entirely consistent with his rhetoric over the past decade. If his ratings hadn’t been sliding, it’s not likely he would have gotten into trouble.

Weirdly, Patrick had never expressed any misgivings about appearing on the station until Severin actually apologized. Governor, this may be the one moment when you don’t need to feel embarrassed — a moment that will last until the next time Severin goes off. Enjoy it.

Brian Mooney responds

Brian Mooney has e-mailed a response to the item I posted earlier today. I am publishing it here in full with his permission.

You’ve completely misrepresented the position of those of us who are arguing for a “no” vote and done it in a demeaning, insulting manner. We understand a lot better than you do the state of the newspaper industry in general and the Globe in particular. We have said repeatedly and publicly that we are willing to absorb our share of the cuts to help the paper through this period which we hope is a transition to a multi-media platform.

And I personally resent your ill-informed opinion about what the membership should do. You don’t know what you’re talking about and until you do, you should keep your mouth shut.

This is not some mindless, nihilistic, send-’em-a-message exercise. It’s a painful decision for everyone in the Guild. The best-case scenario is bad, and we all know it. The Times Co. will impose Wal-Mart-like employment conditions here if it can get away with it.

Because you do not seem to have a grasp of any actual facts, I’ll try to explain some to you.

The major issues are fairness and bad-faith bargaining.

Both of the company’s ultimatums amount to $10 million a year — the equivalent of a permanent 23-percent reduction in our wages, albeit by dramatically different methods. At the same time, managers and other exempts are taking a temporary 5-percent cut. While the company wants to reduce from 3 percent to zero the maximum match for union members’ 401k contributions, managers this year received an increase in their 401k match from 3 percent to 5 percent. While the company wants to dramatically reduce its contribution to our health insurance fund, which would precipitate a $1,000 per year increase in premiums paid by Guild members, the company has provided managers enhanced health and dental coverage and is paying most of the increase in cost. While the company wants to freeze Guild members’ pensions, it is reducing managers pensions by only one-third.

In each of those cases, exempt employees already enjoy significantly better compensation and benefits than Guild members.

The publisher, Steve Ainsley, has claimed that managers and other exempts have absorbed the equivalent of a 16-percent loss in salary and bonuses since last year but has not produced any backup information to support it. That’s probably because the numbers can’t possibly add up to that. If they’re taking a 5-percent pay cut, does that mean they received, on average, an 11-percent bonus for 2008, a year in which the Globe lost $50 million? I doubt it.

But even if the figure is accurate — and no one believes it — the exempts are taking a 16-percent hit and the Guild members are taking a 23-percent whack.

Never mind that the Times itself continues to inch closer to the precipice of bankruptcy with a series of colossal business blunders and an unwillingness to take more serious steps to stop the bleeding in its own business, which includes the International Herald Tribune. The IHT has always lost money and, in the era of the Internet, is an anachronism and in this economy is probably losing record amounts. The Times Co. says it does not disclose the financial performance of its component parts, but we know that’s not true. They made sure the amount of Globe losses appeared on the paper’s front page and every other media outlet as part of their negotiating strategy.

Yet the Times Co. said it was prepared to shut down the Boston Globe, which has long served a distinctive community, before it would shut down the IHT, the precious “global edition of the New York Times,” an expensive hood ornament indeed.

During the course of negotiations, the company has repeatedly engaged in punitive, bad-faith bargaining and basically committed an act of corporate terrorism with its threat to close the paper. They have traumatized their own employees, their employees’ families, and the wider community that cares about and depends on this newspaper.

I think we’ve put to bed the notion that they can afford to make good on that threat, because the Times Company’s own finances are so fragile, the cost of closing us would wreck the parent company. But the damage is done.

Finally, the lifetime job security issue is a red herring promoted by the Times Co. Your reliance on it to support your threadbare position betrays your ignorance. Many of us, maybe most, with so-called lifetime job security would get rid of it, and if the company wants to get rid of it, they can go to binding arbitration under the terms of our contract. Their problem is that they have publicly stated the monetary value to the company of eliminating the language is zero. Zero.

Brian C. Mooney
Staff reporter
The Boston Globe

Point, counterpoint on the Globe contract

Both from the same person!

On the one hand, there is an air of unreality to the stance taken by Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten and those urging a “no” vote next Monday, the most public of whom has been Boston Globe political reporter Brian Mooney. It’s as though they never visit Romenekso and don’t understand that the newspaper business as we know it has come to an end.

Talk to knowledgeable observers and you won’t find anyone who thinks the New York Times Co. is lying about the Globe’s being on track to lose $85 million this year. I think there’s a way forward for papers like the Globe — but only as leaner, smaller enterprises. You don’t get there by continuing those archaic lifetime job guarantees for 190 Guild members.

On the other hand, Times Co. management has behaved in a contemptible and erratic fashion. As Totten pointed out in his letter to Guild members (pdf) yesterday, companies such as GateHouse Media and the Phoenix media outlets have cut disproportionately at the top. The Times Co., by contrast, is targeting the rank and file.

Moreover, management’s ever-shifting threats would give anyone the impression that it’s bluffing. At first, the company threatened to close the paper in 30 days if it didn’t get $20 million in cuts. After 30 days had passed, executives claimed they’d really meant to say they would start a 60-day shutdown process if they didn’t get what they wanted. Then they called that off.

Finally, they said that if the Guild votes down the current agreement — to cut pay by about 10 percent and eliminate the lifetime jobs — then they would unilaterally impose a 23 percent pay cut. Uh, what happened to the threat to close the paper?

I have absolutely no idea what will happen on Monday. My head tells me that members should overlook management’s bad behavior and approve the agreement. My gut tells me that they’re going to vote it down.

After that? Who knows? Totten has said he believes management will reopen negotiations at that point. Right now, it’s hard to know what to think.

Critical mass for same-sex marriage

Last July I wrote an item — prematurely, as it turned out — noting that one in five Americans lived in a state where same-sex marriage was legal to a greater or lesser extent. I made that observation not long after the California Supreme Court recognized a right to same-sex marriage, overturned in a voter referendum last November.

With New Hampshire becoming the fifth New England state to embrace gay marriage, it’s time to do the math again. California was an enormous setback, so the numbers don’t look as good as they did a year ago. Bit by bit, though, marriage equality is moving forward.

First, let’s take the six states where same-sex marriage is explicitly recognized or soon will be — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa. With the exception of Massachusetts, all are low-population states, adding up to about 14.8 million people, according to the most recent U.S. Census estimates from July 2008. They account for a shade less than 4.9 percent of the total U.S. population, which is about 304 million.

But now let’s consider New York. Already, thanks to an order last year by Gov. David Paterson, same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions are recognized. With nearly 19.5 million people, New York has a higher population than the other six states combined. Put them all together, and you’ve got about 22.8 million people — 9.6 percent of the total population, close to the proverbial one in 10.

Moreover, the state seems to be moving toward outright legal recognition for same-sex marriage. The process has gotten bogged down, and a New York Times editorial today urges the state senate to get moving. Overall, though, there’s reason to be optimistic.

There’s no question that the constitutional amendment California voters approved last fall to ban same-sex marriage was an enormous blow. The recent decision by the state’s supreme court not to overturn the amendment was unsurprising.

At some point, though, it seems inevitable that liberal, blue California will re-enshrine same-sex marriage. And with more than 36.7 million people, it remains the big prize. Add them to the other six states plus New York, and you’ve got 58.9 million people, or 21.7 percent of the U.S. population.

Interestingly, marriage-equality advocates seem dubious, to say the least, about a bid by celebrity lawyers David Boise and Theodore Olson to take gay marriage to the U.S. Supreme Court. The votes almost certainly aren’t there now, and with liberal justices more likely to retire than conservative ones over the next few years, it could be a long time before the court’s make-up changes in a fundamental way.

More immediately, would anyone care to predict how Justice David Souter, who’s retiring, would vote on same-sex marriage, and how his likely replacement, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, would vote?

The good news is that the country is gradually moving toward allowing same-sex couples to marry. At some point, federal intervention will be needed because, as with mixed-race marriages, there are some states that will never recognize fundamental human rights.

For the time being, though, the state-by-state process is helping to normalize an idea that was alien to many Americans just a few years ago.

Photo (cc) by Scubaben and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Globe memos just keep on coming

Romenesko has posted the latest letter from the Boston Newspaper Guild to its members, ahead of Monday’s vote on pay reductions at the Boston Globe.

And Globe publisher Steve Ainsley has sent the following message to Globe employees:

Dear Colleagues:

Many questions have been raised about the proposed Guild contract. In a Q&A last week we answered questions about the contract’s components. Today we are issuing another Q&A that addresses some broader issues….

Allow me to speak to just a few of those issues.

I understand there is a petition being circulated by Guild members asking me, on behalf of the Globe, to consider a new contract proposal. While I appreciate the concern about proposed deep reductions to compensation and the desire to revisit specific contract components before the June 8th vote, the Globe may lawfully negotiate only with the Guild as the exclusive representative of the collective bargaining unit.

Further, even if the Guild were to present a new proposal, we do not have time to reopen negotiations and begin the bargaining process again. Any new agreement would be subject to a bargaining process and a vote on any new proposal would come only after another 30-day wait following its presentation to Guild membership. Our financial situation is too urgent and further delays to resolution are not an option.

I also feel I need re-emphasize points that we have consistently made clear to Guild leadership.

It is essential and non-negotiable that we achieve $10 million in cost savings from the Guild. We approached all our unions with similarly firm goals and we handled all of our negotiations equitably. Five of these contracts have been ratified. Most important, the implementation of the new agreements with other unions is conditioned on achieving the $10 million in savings from the Guild.

As we negotiated with the Guild’s bargaining team, the objective always has been to find a way to secure $10 million in savings while causing the least possible hardship on employees. Both sides realized that there were no simple or painless choices.

These decisions affect our personal lives as well as our careers. The process of making deep cuts in an organization inevitably invites division and disruption. But let’s remember how remarkable a job we’ve done pulling together and making it through these many months of economic trouble, excelling in delivering our readers high-quality journalism.

We share a passion for The Boston Globe and Boston.com. We will see better days.

— Steve