Author: Dan Kennedy

Business as usual in the governor’s office

There’s been plenty of outrage over Gov. Deval Patrick’s appointment of state Sen. Marian Walsh to a transparently unnecessary $175,000-a-year job. Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have editorialized against it.

But I’m especially struck by mild-mannered CommonWealth magazine pundit Michael Jonas’ post on CW Unbound, which ties together a number of loose threads in order to demonstrate precisely what a business-as-usual governor Patrick has become. Jonas frankly describes the Walsh appointment as an “outrage” and writes:

It’s hard not to see that as the trajectory Gov. Deval Patrick is on after the latest slap in the face to those expecting more from an administration that pledged to sweep out the culture of patronage and cronyism on Beacon Hill.

Jonas connects the Walsh appointment to Patrick’s high-handed, Big Dig-tainted transportation secretary, Jim Aloisi, and his pension-abusing stimulus czar, Jeffrey Simon, as well as to the goodies Sal DiMasi handed out as he was leaving Beacon Hill.

Well, DiMasi’s gone. Patrick is still here, and he’s got to persuade the public that it should put up with some pretty draconian budget cuts and tax hikes in the months ahead. Good luck with that, Governor.

Media heavyweights seek libel relief

Q: What do the Boston Globe, the Boston Phoenix and the Boston Herald agree on? A: The dangerous precedent that would be set if a ruling that undermines truth as a defense in libel cases is allowed to stand.

Earlier this week, according to the Boston Globe’s Jonathan Saltzman, noted First Amendment lawyer Robert Bertsche filed an amicus curiae brief (PDF) asking that the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturn a decision reached recently by a three-judge panel of that court. The brief is signed by a host of media giants, including the New York Times Co. (which owns the Globe), GateHouse Media (which owns more than 100 newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts), ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the Washington Post, Time Inc., WGBH and many, many others.

As I reported in the Guardian on Feb. 17, the decision, written by Judge Juan Torruella, allowed a libel suit to move ahead on the grounds that the offending speech (an e-mail to some 1,500 Staples employees about a sales director who’d been fired for violating the company’s expense-report policies), though true, might be held libelous on the grounds that it was made with “actual malice.”

In making that ruling, Torruella relied on the meaning of malice as it existed in 1902, when the Massachusetts law at issue went into effect — a meaning that Torruella defined as “ill will” or “malevolent intent.” In Times v. Sullivan (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court redefined “actual malice” as a defamatory statement made even though it was known to be false, made with “reckless disregard” as to its truth or falsity.

The Torruella decision applies only to private persons, whereas the Times v. Sullivan and its progeny pertain to public officials and public figures. Nevertheless, in other decisions — most famously Gertz v. Robert Welch (1974) — the Supreme Court made it clear that even a libel suit brought by a private person must be based on a statement that was false and negligently made.

The amicus brief argues that if Torruella’s ruling is allowed to stand, plaintiffs will be able to win libel suits if they are merely able to prove that the defendant was “out to get them.” The brief continues:

In some quarters, it may even have the chilling effect of discouraging reporting and commentary on some of the most pressing issues of the day, such as the internal affairs of businesses coping with severe economic challenges, for fear that such matters might mistakenly be deemed to be of only “private concern.”

This is a case of enormous importance to the beleaguered news media and, more important, to the public, which depends on tough, fair, truthful reporting. Let’s hope the full court does the right thing.

A low whine from the Naked City (II)

Alan Mutter, one of the best newspaper analysts in the blogosphere, shares Adam Reilly’s and my skepticism about Douglas McIntyre’s list of doomed newspapers. Mutter calls McIntyre “a friend,” but adds that there is “no hard data or deep analysis to support his findings.” He continues:

Although some of the papers one day may succumb to anemic readership and revenues, there is not enough information or analysis underlying the scary list to support the proposition that the publications are more or less doomed than any of 10, 20 or 30 other papers that might have been named, instead.

What Mutter’s got to say about Boston is especially interesting:

Even though weak economies are hardest on the No. 2 papers in two-newspaper towns, Doug predicts the demise of the print edition of the Boston Globe while saying nothing of the apparently fragile financial status of the far smaller Boston Herald.

Over at the Phoenix, Reilly responds to the Inside Track’s criticism.

Update: Paul McMorrow nails it.

NewsTrust J-hunt: The final five

My stint as host of NewsTrust’s journalism topic area comes to an end today. Here are five stories I submitted this morning:

I could write an entire post on the last item, but I’ll just say this: Stewart is perhaps the best and most important media critic we’ve had since A.J. Liebling.

His dissection of CNBC’s Jim Cramer last night — as well as his two eight-minute pieces lampooning the so-called experts of CNBC (here and here) — will have, I predict, a major and well-deserved negative effect on the network.

A low whine from the Naked City

Is this what the Boston Herald calls a correction?

The Herald’s Inside Track chides the Phoenix’s Adam Reilly and Media Nation today for questioning a blog post by financial analyst Douglas McIntyre placing the Boston Globe on a list of 10 newspapers that may go out of business or go online-only by the end of the year.

What’s really amusing, though, is the way the Track quietly corrects an error made earlier this week on Jessica Heslam’s Messenger Blog. The error — which had Time magazine predicting the Globe’s demise — remains uncorrected.

As Media Nation was the first to report, Time, like several other media outlets, was merely running the feed from McIntyre’s 24/7 Wall St. blog on its Web site. Naturally, the Track takes Reilly and me to task for not doing any “reporting,” which it conveniently defines as not calling the Globe in order to get a “no comment.”

Finally, the Track manages the neat trick of lampooning Reilly’s and my skepticism over McIntyre’s claim that the Globe is worth only $20 million while simultaneously acknowledging that the paper’s real estate and other assets are probably worth more than $100 million.

The plain fact is that the most recent analysis anyone has seen is one put out by Barclays Capital analyst Craig Huber, who estimates the paper’s value at $192.8 million.

The newspaper business is in unimaginably bad shape, and the Globe is as vulnerable as any paper. If being cautiously optimistic about the future of the Globe makes me hopelessly naive, then I offer my deepest apologies.

Then again, I’m also one of the few media-watchers I know who predicts that the Herald will also survive. I suppose I could be wrong about that, too.

More: WBZ Radio (AM 1030) still has a Tuesday report up on its Web site wrongly attributing McIntyre’s item to Time magazine. Come on, folks. This isn’t that hard.

Nice guys finish first

Paul Levy, president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is one of the Boston area’s great managers and leaders of the past generation. So I’m not surprised — as Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen reports — that he earned a standing ovation when he suggested that high-paid people at the hospital sacrifice in order to save low-paid jobs.

On and on the NewsTrust J-hunt goes

But it all ends tomorrow! Today’s five six picks:

Here, once again, is NewsTrust’s journalism topic page. Please consider taking part.

The M-word makes an ugly appearance

It’s hard to believe, after all these years, that the word “midget” would pop up in a front-page story in today’s New York Times. David Segal writes:

After the Depression, Congress formed what became known as the Pecora Commission, which grilled top financiers. But the point was mostly to embarrass them, and the upshot was to set the stage for stricter regulations. The most indelible image of the commission’s hearings was a photo of J. P. Morgan Jr. with a midget who had been plopped in his lap by an opportunistic publicist.

The American Heritage Dictionary makes it clear that the M-word is “offensive.” In my book, “Little People,” I trace the history of this unfortunate word, possibly coined in the 1860s by Harriet Beecher Stowe and inextricably tied up in the idea of putting someone on public display.

NewsTrust: The J-hunt continues

Five more stories on journalism for your perusal:

If you’d like to join in the fun, sign up for NewsTrust and visit the journalism topic page.