By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
I didn’t like the Red Sox’ chances even before the latest news — just too many key guys hurt. I’m amazed they made the playoffs with such ease, given that it seemed like they never really got hot all season. (Although they’ve had a terrific won-loss record since The Trade.)
Now Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald reports that Josh Beckett might be out with an oblique injury. I don’t want to say stick a fork in them. But you might as well keep one handy. (Via Universal Hub.)
Over at the New England First Amendment Center‘s blog, I’ve got a post on an interesting case involving the town of Nantucket. It seems that local officials wanted to keep a severance agreement under wraps — in order, they said, to protect the privacy of an employee they’d fired.
The local weekly, the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, filed a complaint, and last week the state ruled that the agreement must be made public.
As it turns out, the ex-employee was only too happy to tell her story. And, as is often the case, when government officials invoke privacy, what they’re really trying to do is avoid embarrassment for themselves.
In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that though McCain and Obama may have debated to a draw on substance, media reaction suggests that McCain’s grumpy, condescending demeanor may have given the edge to Obama.
10:37 p.m. Basically a tie. McCain reminds us that he’s no Bush, who could barely make it through any of these things. Obama, as the new guy, ought to get the biggest boost for showing he can go toe-to-toe with McCain. But low expectations probably translate into this being considered a good night for McCain. And good night from Media Nation.
10:23 p.m. McCain’s best stretch of the night — a historical and contemporary disquisition on Russia and its neighbors. More sabre-rattling, but assures us that we’re not returning to the Cold War. Obama agrees with McCain — no doubt too dicey to take on the issue of Georgian aggression in a sound-bite setting.
10:17 p.m. Obama’s telling the truth about Kissinger and Iran. McCain isn’t.
10:12 p.m. Obama’s best stretch of the night. Says he’ll meet with anyone if it will enhance U.S. security. Notes that McCain adviser Henry Kissinger says we should meet with Iran “without preconditions.” And observes that North Korea went wild on nuke buildup after we cut off ties.
10:09 p.m. McCain: Obama wants to sit down with Ahmadinejad and “legitimize” a regime that wants to destroy Israel. Says he’ll sit down with anyone, but not without “preconditions.”
10:08 p.m. Sabre-rattling on Iran. McCain sounds like he’s ready to go to war tomorrow. Obama wants “tough, direct diplomacy.” “This notion that by not talking to people, we’re punishing them has not worked.”
10:02 p.m. McCain is too maudlin and long-winded about his bracelet. Obama barely mentions his, and seems petulant. Don’t either of these guys know how to get the symbolism right?
10 p.m. My bracelet’s better than yours.
9:56 p.m. Globe-trotting one-upmanship. Obama: I’ve talked to President Karzai. McCain: I’ve been to Waziristan.
9:49 p.m. Obama shifts the turf from Iraq to Afghanistan, and seems more comfortable in so doing. Put more troops into Afghanistan to “capture and kill bin Laden and crush Al Qaeda.”
9:44 p.m. The war versus the surge. McCain says Obama was wrong about the surge. Obama says McCain was wrong about the war. McCain says the next president won’t have to decide whether to go to war in Iraq. But the next president could decide to go to war somewhere else, couldn’t he? “Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that we’re winning the war in Iraq.” “That’s not true. That’s not true.”
9:36 p.m. Obama’s warming up.
9:34 p.m. Think of it as a job interview. Obama comes across as cool, competent and a little bloodless. McCain? Passionate, experienced but unpredictable. Whom would you hire?
9:29 p.m. Switching from CNN to C-SPAN so I don’t have to look at the stupid audience-reaction meter.
9:27 p.m. McCain’s showing his less attractive side. Accuses Obama of wanting to raise taxes on everyone making more than $42,000 (“Not true,” replies Obama), and then snickers the way he used to snicker at Romney.
9:21 p.m. Does it seem to anyone else that McCain has been talking about three times as much as Obama?
9:18 p.m. McCain is talking about simple, understandable themes. I can barely understand Obama, and I’m addicted to this stuff.
9:12 p.m. Obama is talking ideas. McCain is talking values. Guess which is more effective?
9:10 p.m. Jim Lehrer wants to know if Obama and McCain are going to vote for the bailout plan. But there is no plan yet.
I’m not a huge fan of live-blogging events, but I’m going to give it a try tonight. I’m hoping it will help me organize my thoughts as I get ready to round up media commentary on the debate for the Guardian tomorrow morning.
Blogging can be a legally hazardous activity, especially if you are doing it independently. If a staff reporter for an established news organization is sued for libel, he or she is in for an exceedingly unpleasant experience — but at least the employer and its insurance company will pay to fight the charges or settle.
Last year I attended a conference at which the subject of bloggers and liability came up, and let’s just say that it was chilling, in all senses of the word. Right now Cape Cod Today blogger Peter Robbins is facing a libel suit. What too many bloggers fail to understand is that they are not exempt from libel laws. They just lack the means to fight back.
That’s why a new project by the Media Bloggers Association is so interesting. MBA president Robert Cox (in photo) has come up with a new program under which bloggers who take an online course in media law will be eligible to purchase libel insurance.
It’s not cheap — David Ardia of the Citizen Media Law Project, who helped write the online course, says that it will cost a minimum of $450 a year. A prominent local blogger who’s been corresponding with me about this looked into it and was told that, in his case, it might be almost twice that. But it’s a lot cheaper than losing your home, which is what many bloggers are unwittingly risking.
Cox is a longtime leader in legal issues facing the blogging community, and he deserves a lot of credit for bringing this program to fruition.
Photo (cc) by J.D. Lasica and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.
From today’s New York Times story on $6.6 billion in federal earmarks that Congress is moving toward approving:
Senator [Ted] Stevens got $2 million for the University of Alaska to study “hibernation genomics.”
Martha A. Stewart, director of federal relations for the university, said scientists were studying the hibernation of Alaskan ground squirrels and black bears. If medics could induce a state of hibernation in humans, she said, they might be able to increase the survival chances of wounded troops being evacuated from the battlefield.
Wouldn’t it be better if she’d just said scientists want to study hibernation, and Stevens got the money?
I’ll be on “Beat the Press” (WGBH-TV, Channel 2) today at 7 p.m. We’ll be talking about John McCain versus the New York Times, Sarah Palin and the media, and the debut of the New England First Amendment Center at Northeastern University.
At least one chapter in the weird, sad tale of Tania deLuzuriaga has come to an end, as she has resigned from the Boston Globe. As you may know, deLuzuriaga was recently found to have exchanged inappropriate e-mails of a sexual nature with a high-ranking school official when she was a reporter for the Miami Herald.
Journalists know they can’t secretly carry on an affair with people they cover. At the Miami New Times, Kyle Munzenrieder reminds us of the great Abe Rosenthal rule: “You can fuck an elephant if you want to, but if you do you can’t cover the circus.” DeLuzuriaga’s ethical breach was a serious one.
But to the extent that some people at the Globe agitated for her to leave, as Christine McConville reported in the Boston Herald last week, I think her situation raises an ethical question for management, too: Should wrongdoing in a previous job be held against someone if she is performing competently and without incident in her current job?
I’ve done no independent reporting on this, and there may well be issues about which I’m not aware. But assuming deLuzuriaga kept her personal and professional lives separate while she was at the Globe, it strikes me that that should have been good enough.
Gender hypocrisy raises its ugly head, too. As Amy Derjue notes at Boston Daily, and Rick Sawyer observes at Bostonist, deLuzuriaga’s erstwhile and extremely married alleged paramour not only has paid no penalty, he just got a promotion. Nice.
Assuming McCain shows up, that is.
My Northeastern colleague Alan Schroeder, a leading expert on presidential debates, writes in the Politico about what McCain and Obama need to accomplish tomorrow night.
Schroeder’s bottom line: McCain is better than Obama in conversational settings, but he’s been inconsistent this year; and Obama is better than McCain at giving a speech, but has rarely showed the ability to seize the moment in unscripted settings.
Neither, he says, is a master of the debate form on the order of John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Schroeder’s latest addition to the pantheon — Hillary Clinton.
Maybe I’m reading to much into this. But if congressional Republicans wanted to help John McCain, wouldn’t they have slowed things down and tried to make it look like McCain’s parachute drop onto Capitol Hill was — well, if not exactly crucial, then at least helpful?
Instead, Republicans and Democrats have reportedly just about wrapped up the bailout legislation, leaving McCain looking foolish, and with nothing better to do Friday evening than to head to Mississippi for the first presidential debate.
Here’s a hilarious tidbit from the Politico:
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that “nobody mentioned McCain” during the several-hour-long meeting on the $700 billion market rescue plan, other than Frank. “They winced when I did,” said Frank. He went on to compare Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to “Andy Kaufman and his Mighty Mouse: Here I am to save the day.”
I am amazed at how unsteady McCain’s behavior is compared to eight years ago — or, for that matter, eight months ago.