Author: Dan Kennedy

How to play the skinhead story

In a news environment dominated by television and the Internet, I suppose it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference whether any given newspaper plays up or plays down the alleged skinhead plot to murder black schoolchildren and assassinate Barack Obama.

Will playing it on the front page trigger a copycat response? Can burying it inside somehow be justified as more responsible? Regardless, I suspect the impact is quite a bit less than seeing it on TV.

Still, it’s interesting to look at the different ways that newspapers are playing it today. I’ll start with Boston: the Globe runs a small tease on the front, below the fold; the Herald gives over two-thirds of page one to a headline that reads “NUTZIES TARGET OBAMA.”

The contrast is even greater in New York. There’s not even a mention of the story anywhere on the front of the Times; the story itself is relegated to page A14. The tabloid New York Post, by contrast, leads with a giant “WHACK JOB,” driving home the point with this: “Loony skinheads in Obama murder plot.” The entire front consists of a photo of suspect Daniel Cowart posing with a gun that looks like it could launch a nuclear missile.

New York’s slightly more restrained tabloid, the Daily News, makes no mention of the plot on its front page, going with the death of Jennifer Hudson’s nephew and the state’s $12 billion budget deficit.

In Washington, the alleged plot gets the silent treatment on the front pages of both the Post and the Times. Ditto in Obama’s hometown, Chicago, which also happens to be where Hudson lives, and whose tragedy occupies the front pages of the Tribune and the Sun-Times.

The story gets a tease on the front of USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, which makes sense, given how much space those papers set aside for such things; but nothing on page one of the Los Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle.

Based on what we know so far, this story seems more frightening than newsworthy. It plays into the fears we all have about what may happen if Obama is elected president. Thankfully, the skinheads who were arrested yesterday appear to be so inept that they were caught before they could do much more than talk about their sick plans.

As for how the papers should have played it — not to wimp out, but it’s hard to disagree with anyone on this. It’s what people are talking about, which argues in favor of the way the New York Post and the Boston Herald played it. But it’s more pseudo-news than news, which suggests that inside the paper is where it really belongs.

The Republicans’ Palin problem

Strip away all the side issues (and there are many, and they are important), and the essence of Sarah Palin is this: She is an extraordinarily gifted political performer. And she knows nothing — zippo — about the national and international issues with which any national political figure needs to be conversant.

Which brings me to the latest on the increasingly public mud-slinging between the Palin and McCain camps, written up in loving detail by the Politico’s Ben Smith. Given her freakish and unwarranted self-confidence, it’s not surprising that she believes she could talk her way out of the mess she’s in if only her handlers would let her. And given her long string of boneheaded (and worse) statements, it’s not surprising that the McCainiacs just want her to shut up.

It is nothing short of astounding that Palin’s supporters, according to Smith, point to the Katie Couric interview as something that was mishandled by the McCain forces. We all saw Palin babble about how Alaska’s proximity to Russia has given her foreign-policy experience — a softball do-over from Couric, given that Palin had had time to think about it after answering Charlie Gibson’s identical question the same idiotic way. We all saw that she couldn’t even say what she reads, leading to the not-unreasonable conclusion that she doesn’t.

If Barack Obama wins on Nov. 4, it’s going to be a long winter for the Republican Party. Among the party’s many problems is that Palin has signaled she intends to be a player. Given that she has what’s left of the Republican base in her thrall, and that she is a huge negative among everyone else, Palin, for Democrats, may be the gift that keeps on giving.

Repackaging the Globe

At a time when the outlook for the newspaper industry is becoming ever grimmer, the Boston Globe today unveils a repackaging of its print edition.

It’s not quite a redesign — the fonts and the basic layout remain the same. But it’s been reorganized “to help you better navigate the news,” editor Marty Baron writes. (No link; Baron’s “To our readers” note does not seem to be online.)

We’ll see about that.

My overall impression is that Baron and company have made a virtue out of necessity. That is, the print edition is shrinking, which gives the Globe an opportunity to reconfigure its sections in a way that’s not unlike what its bigger cousin, the New York Times, did some years ago.

In an interview with WBUR Radio’s Deb Becker, Baron says the paper will shed 24 pages a week, though he adds that the news hole will shrink by considerably less than that.

The biggest, splashiest change is the expansion of Sidekick into a daily tabloid called “g,” which gathers together all of the paper’s arts and entertainment coverage. I’ll let others judge the execution, but overall I think it’s a good idea, and you’ve got to love color comics. Given that the paper recently got rid of the weekly television supplement that had appeared in the Sunday Globe, it’s nice to see them in “g,” and in color, too. But the listings are for evenings-only. Of course, that’s why God made Yahoo.

Columnist Alex Beam is showcased at the back of “g,” magazine-style, opposite a photo feature called “Parting Shot,” which appears not to be in the Web edition.

To me, the most significant aspect of “g” is what the Globe might do: give it away at a few choice locations around the city, thus potentially attracting new readers and advertisers. I have zero insight into whether any consideration is being given to that. But the current thinking in the newspaper business is that it’s better to have a variety of different publications and Web sites, each aimed at a different audience, than to take the old one-size-fits-all approach.

As for the rest of the paper, a few quick hits:

• The national and world news briefs have been dumped from pages A2 and A3, replaced with short stories that are collectively called the “Daily Briefing.” What’s unclear is whether we are supposed to regard these stories as the most important national and world news (other than what makes it onto the front), or if the meatier stories farther inside the “A” section are actually more important.

• For the first time in years, the Metro section is being called — well, the Metro section, as the City & Region moniker has been banished. The columnists have new headshots. A story on an offensive remark that comedian Denis Leary made about autism is accompanied by a note explaining that it grew out of a reader’s tip, a wrinkle that I don’t think I’ve seen before.

• The rest of Metro looks no different, but Business has been moved into the section — seemingly without the loss of any column-inches, which is what really matters. Given the primacy of economic news, this is perhaps not the best timing. Personally, though, I’d rather have fewer sections, as long as it doesn’t mean fewer pages.

• Sports is unchanged. Supposedly there will be more color.

Overall, I like it. So let me quote an opposing view sent in by a devoted Media Nation reader and newspaper junkie who takes a different view:

G for grim. Befits an institution whose debt is now selling at junk level. My God, look where they’ve relegated poor Alex Beam to. I don’t see how they do those arts profiles any more. They’ve basically taken Calendar, which used to be a weekly arts supplement, made it daily and eliminated all other coverage.

What’s this about junk-level debt? Oh, yes. Yesterday Henry Blodget wrote an extremely downbeat assessment of the Globe’s corporate parent, the New York Times Co., saying that it “is approaching the point where it will have to manage its business primarily to conserve cash and avoid defaulting on its debt. This situation will only get worse as advertising revenue continues to fall, and it will be very serious by early next year.” The Herald picks up on that today.

The Times Co.’s ownership of the Globe is news on another front, too, as state Rep. Dan Bosley, D-North Adams, a stalwart in the battle to keep casino gambling out of Massachusetts, rips the Globe’s negative coverage of House Speaker Sal DiMasi, well-known for his own opposition to casinos.

Jeremy Jacobs pulls together the details at PolitickerMA.com, reporting that Bosley, in a comment on the Outraged Liberal’s blog, links the Globe’s harsh coverage of DiMasi to the Times Co.’s lust for advertising revenue from gambling casinos.

For the record, I don’t accept the view that the Globe’s news coverage of DiMasi is being shaped by the Times Co.’s business imperatives. Clearly, though, Bosley doesn’t agree.

A big to-do over Reese Who?

Memo to Boston Herald editor Kevin Convey: When leading with a celebrity-arrest story, make sure the arrestee is an actual celebrity. It’s always tough to go with one of these stories when you have to give over a good part of it to explaining who Reese Hopkins is. I mean, was.

At least us old-timers have heard of Bob Gamere, the former television sportscaster who’s been arrested on child-pornography charges (Herald coverage here; Globe coverage here).

A friend of Media Nation asks if it really makes sense to lock up Gamere. Since Gamere is innocent unless found guilty, let me change the question: Does it make sense to lock up a 69-year-old man if he’s been distribuing child pornography via e-mail? Of course, I’m talking about a theoretical 69-year-old man, strictly in a hypothetical sense.

Answer: Hell, yes. This is not mere possession, which probably shouldn’t be punishable by prison. Anyone who would do what our hypothetical 69-year-old man has been charged with doing is a danger to society.

OK. Off to look at the redesigned Boston Globe. More in a bit.

GateHouse story in new CommonWealth

If you live in a suburb or exurb of Boston, or on Cape Cod, there’s a pretty good chance that you read a community newspaper published by GateHouse Media New England — maybe even two.

GateHouse, a national chain based in suburban Rochester, N.Y., owns more than 100 newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts, including such well-known dailies as the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, the Enterprise of Brockton and the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham.

I’ve got a story on GateHouse in the new edition of CommonWealth Magazine in which I find that though the financial condition of the company is dire, its top executives make a decent case that they’ve got the time and the resources to grow their way out of the current mess. And its online initiatives are interesting and worth keeping an eye on.

The question: Can the company’s chief executive in New England, Kirk Davis, eventually begin rebuilding his staff after two decades’ worth of cuts under three and in some cases four different owners, including Fidelity and Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell? Or is GateHouse, and the rest of the newspaper industry, doomed to keep shrinking?

One problem is that the economic outlook is considerably worse than it was in early September, when I was wrapping up my reporting and writing the story. Last Friday, the Boston Herald ran a report that seven editorial employees had lost their jobs at MetroWest and the Milford Daily News. Well-informed buzz within the company suggests that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In addition, the New York Stock Exchange this week, in a long-anticipated step, announced that it will delist GateHouse’s stock, which is essentially worthless. And a major investor is getting out.

Still, the principal on GateHouse’s enormous debt is not due until 2014, and its cash flow has been decent. Whether that will continue as we move into what may be a deep recession remains to be seen.

Double digits

Everyone being polled could be lying. John McCain could pull Osama bin Laden’s head out of a bag and hold it up before the TV cameras the weekend before the election. Sarah Palin could be replaced on the Republican ticket by Warren Buffet, who — along with Colin Powell — will renounce his previous endorsement of Barack Obama. So no predictions from me.

But good Lord. John Zogby, whose methodology may understate support for Barack Obama, now has him leading McCain by 10 points, 52 percent to 42 percent. And Pew has Obama up by 14 points among both registered voters (52 percent to 38 percent) and likely voters (53 percent to 39 percent).

Posts on polls are kind of useless, and I apologize. But the campaign has taken over most of my brain cells. I thought it was interesting that what seemed like a slight shift toward McCain a few days ago appears to have been stopped and is now being reversed.

I still think it’s going to be close.