Author: Dan Kennedy

Globe e-mails underscore tensions

How tense is the Boston Globe newsroom these days? Mighty tense indeed, judging from the response by political reporter Brian Mooney (left) to an e-mail sent Tuesday by business reporter Rob Gavin to members of the Boston Newspaper Guild. The e-mails were obtained from an unimpeachable source.

Next Monday, members of the Newspaper Guild vote on whether to accept a contract revision, negotiated by New York Times Co. management and the Guild, and presented to the membership without a Guild recommendation. The deal calls for a pay cut of about 10 percent as well as an end to lifetime job guarantees for about 190 employees.

On Tuesday at 4:33 p.m., Gavin sent the following e-mail to Guild members:

Hello everyone,

Rob Gavin in the newsroom here. For a story in advance of the Guild contract vote, i’m trying to do a poll of sentiment among Guild members.

If you’re a guild member, and would be willing to participate, please respond to this email with:

yes (meaning you plan to vote for contract)…
no (meaning you plan to vote against the contract..
or undecided.

All responses will be kept confidential by me, not shared with anyone else, and deleted as soon as I tally them. I’ll only publish the results if I get a large enough sample. Of course, as pollsters say, this would only be a snapshot of voter sentiment at this particular time, and not necessarily how people might actually vote on Monday. I know this is sensitive, but I figured it’s worth a try. If you think you can help me, please respond (be careful to avoid the respond to all) by end to the day tomorrow. If not, no problem. I understand.

thanks again,

rob gavin

Less than a half-hour later, Mooney sent the following response, also to everyone in the Guild:

You’ve got to be kidding, Rob.

Your time would be better spent writing a real story about the difference in the cuts the Times Co. wants the Guild members to take compared to the mild cuts and, in some cases, actual increases in fringe benefits for the managers and other exempts. I’m voting ‘no’ because that’s unfair.

Here’s another story idea. Why don’t you examine whether the Times Co. can really make good on its threat to shut down the Globe without bankrupting the New York Times Co.? According to their SEC filing, it cost $31 million to close Billerica, with a fraction of the employees we have here at Morrissey Boulevard. To pay all the severance obligations of the 1,400 union employees (plus the managers) would bankrupt the parent company, it’s pretty clear. The Times has something like $34 million in unencumbered cash and cannot borrow money (without going to Mexico and paying usurious 14-percent interest rates).

If they shut the Globe, it would be a murder-suicide.

Vote “No” next Monday.

Brian C. Mooney

It’s hard to know exactly what will happen if the Guild votes the proposal down. Though management has threatened to impose a 23 percent pay cut unilaterally, it no longer appears to be threatening to shut the Globe down.

In a recent interview with Boston magazine, Guild president Dan Totten sounds like he’s itching for his members to vote “no” and re-open negotiations, telling reporter Jason Schwartz: “What’s been put before us is completely unacceptable. And I think people are ready, willing, and able to do something on that matter.”

In less than a week, we’ll have a better idea of where the Globe goes from here.

File photo of Mooney (cc) 2007 by Dan Kennedy. Some rights reserved. See Creative Commons terms in left-hand rail.

The DiMasi indictment

Three quick points on the indictment of former House speaker Sal DiMasi and three associates:

  • The Boston Globe deserves an enormous amount of credit for its dogged reporting on DiMasi, precisely the sort of public-interest journalism that’s endangered by the meltdown of the newspaper business. Given current trends, life will be easier for future DiMasis, and that’s a shame.
  • The prosecution’s case against DiMasi will never look stronger than it does today, and we should wait to see what develops. But the story that prosecutors tell is a sordid one. My personal favorite is the $25,000 DiMasi allegedly demanded and got following a bookkeeping error on the part of the co-defendants.
  • Never forget that DiMasi’s leadership saved the state, at least temporarily, from the evils of casino gambling. With the House now led by Rep. Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, who reportedly wants slot machines at dog tracks (although his support may be waning), and the Senate led by Sen. Therese “Ka-ching!” Murray, D-Plymouth, there are darker days ahead.

Crowdsourcing Severin’s errors

Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh writes that he’s going to try crowdsourcing Jay Severin’s errors. Good luck with that. Here’s my first contribution, based on listening just to part of his first hour yesterday.

A caller ripped the media for hounding poor Sarah Palin while letting Sonia Sotomayor get away with not giving interviews. At least Palin answered questions, the caller said. How can the media let Sotomayor get away with not giving interviews? (I’m paraphrasing from memory, but that was the gist.)

“Great point,” Severin responded, without bothering to point out that Supreme Court nominees, by longstanding custom, are not allowed to grant interviews. As Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said yesterday, he wants to begin hearings sooner rather than later so that Sotomayor can finally be heard.

Severin had to know better. By not only not correcting the caller’s error, but by amplifying it and giving him an “attaboy,” I’d say that qualifies as an error. So put it on your list, Scot.

For Severin, no news is good news

Jay Severin began his first WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) show in a month by reading an apology, the text of which is on the station’s Web site. Then he switched over to distorting Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s record on racial preference. (Here are the facts.)

Pre-suspension, it’s pretty much a slam-dunk that he’d have snickered about her weight. And it’s unlikely that he would have lauded her “compelling life story,” as he did today. So that’s progress. I guess.

Can I change the station now? Thank you.

More: Not sure how long Severin’s apology will remain on WTKK.com, so here is a more permanent home.

GateHouse’s crushing debt

Old friend Steve Syre analyzes GateHouse Media in today’s Boston Globe and comes to a conclusion that’s sadly familiar when looking at newspaper companies these days: its papers, though not in great shape, would be doing fine if it weren’t for the corporate debt under which they’re staggering.

Not to keep linking to a story I wrote on GateHouse for CommonWealth Magazine last fall, but it’s relevant.

Department of redundancy department

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert pokes fun at Newt Gingrich this morning for calling Judge Sonya Sotomayor a “Latina woman racist,” writing that Gingrich is “apparently unaware of his incoherence in the ‘Latina-woman’ redundancy in this defamatory characterization.”

Herbert is technically correct. But as we all know, Sotomayor’s most controversial public pronouncement came during a 2001 speech in which she said:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Watch Herbert tie himself into knots as he attempts to allude to that statement without quoting it directly.

For the record, I don’t think Sotomayor is incoherent, redundant or a racist.

Two days, two acts of terrorism

The suspect in the shooting of two soldiers in Little Rock, Ark., one fatally, has been identified. And as with the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the slaying of Pvt. William Long appears to be an act of domestic terrorism. From the New York Times:

The gunman, identified by the police as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad of Little Rock, fled the scene and was arrested minutes later a short distance from the recruiting station, in a bustling suburban shopping center….

In a lengthy interview with the police, Mr. Muhammad said he was angry about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chief [Stuart] Thomas [of the Little Rock Police Department] said. Previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, Mr. Muhammad told investigators that he had converted to Islam as a teenager, Chief Thomas said.

The injured soldier, Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, is said to be in stable condition.

It is absolutely horrifying that two people have died at the hands of gunmen who have been charged with taking their political beliefs to a deadly extreme.