By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
Former WRKO Radio (AM 680) talk-show host Scott Allen Miller is heading to Albany, N.Y., to become program director and morning-drive host at WROW (AM 590). This will be Scotto’s second stint in the Capital District.
Mrs. Media Nation hails from the Albany suburbs, so I have some familiarity with the region. I’ll send Scotto off with this Albany Times Union multimedia package on “Central Ave: Broken Dreams, Second Chances.”
Gov. Deval Patrick appears to have completely alienated State Treasurer Tim Cahill over his casino-gambling proposal — and Cahill’s a casino supporter. But that’s OK — the numbers don’t add up anyway (see this and this).
With the casino legislation smoldering around him, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Newton, picks the perfect time to say he favors casino gambling.
Finally, the Boston Daily blog is going to start flogging the casino story without mercy. So stay tuned.
Update: As of Wednesday night, the Herald reports that Patrick is trying to make amends with Cahill.
Beckett should win Game 5, but can Schilling and (gasp) Daisuke bring the Sox home? I’m getting awfully close to saying, “Wait till next year.”
But don’t count on it. According to this Weather.com forecast, it looks like there’s a better-than-even chance that tomorrow night’s Red Sox-Indians game will be played. Godspeed, Tim Wakefield.
It’s not over. But man.
Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute is creating a buzz by arguing that we all have a duty to buy the print editions of newspapers. He writes:
Until we create some new business models in support of the journalism profession, we’ve got to support what we have, even as we create and perfect online versions that may one day attract the advertising dollars and other revenues we need to do what we do well.
Needless to say, it’s not going to happen. Nor do I think it should. If newspaper executives have decided to give away their product online in the hopes that advertising will pay the bills, then we should take that at face value. By all means, get the print edition if you think it’s a better experience. But don’t be guilt-tripped into it.
I’m old-fashioned enough to want to read a good newspaper in a fairly comprehensive way and not get sucked into the search-engine approach to news. But when a newspaper Web site is well designed, I’m perfectly happy to read it on the Web rather than in print.
Besides, really good newspaper Web sites, such as the New York Times’, are better than print. Earlier this afternoon I watched Anthony Tommasini as he explained 12-tone music and played examples on his piano. It was pretty interesting stuff, but I still have no interest in reading the story.
Recently, as we all know, the Times dropped its paid online service, TimesSelect, on the theory that it can make more money through Web advertising.
I understand what Clark is saying. But no business ever succeeded by persuading people to pay for something they can get for free. We need to get to the point at which online newspapers are making enough money to support journalism. Embracing a dying model does nothing to move us closer to that day.
You think the New York Times Co.’s 17 percent stake in the Red Sox creates a conflict of interest for the Times Co.-owned Boston Globe? It could have been worse — much worse.
Today the Globe’s Matt Viser checks in with a long front-page story on efforts by Joe O’Donnell, a part-owner of Suffolk Downs, to build a casino at the sagging track. Mayor Tom Menino seems to think it’s a good idea, which is a shame. It’s also a shame that so much of our local public discourse is now taken up by casino gambling.
Anyway, you may recall that last year retired General Electric chief executive Jack Welch and local advertising executive Jack Connors proposed to buy the Globe from the Times Co. Welch was the big celebrity, so he always got mentioned. Connors was the semi-celebrity, so he usually got a shout-out as well.
But there was a third member of the troika whose name often got left out — O’Donnell, who got rich selling hot dogs and popcorn at sporting events. How would you have liked the Globe to be reporting on a casino bid involving one of its co-publishers? Ugh.
Can Josh Beckett win Games 4 and 7? If so, then the Sox only have to win one other game. We’re going to have to trust Terry Francona on this. If he says Beckett can’t go on three days’ rest, then he can’t go.
If Beckett can go Tuesday, then I’d have Diasuke on a short leash tomorrow. If he gets in trouble early, bring in Wakefield. And if he doesn’t have it, hello Julian Tavarez. What the heck. Tavarez has definitely had his moments.*
It’s pretty amazing. The team with the best starting pitching in the league is down to one consistently reliable starter — although I expect Schilling will be heard from before this is over. Last night wasn’t a fluke, but it wasn’t what Schilling is capable of, either.
How depressing was it to have the bullpen set up perfectly through 10 innings only to have to bring in Gagné in the 11th?
*Um, I guess he’s not going to have any of those moments this week. He’s not on the playoff roster. Whoops.
Adam Gaffin’s got the links on how former WRKO Radio (AM 680) talk-show host Scott Allen Miller’s Wikipedia entry was recently vandalized to make him appear as a Satan-worshipper who’s into porcine bestiality.
The idiotic stunt was almost certainly perpetrated by someone at Entercom, WRKO’s parent station, as Brian Maloney discovered by inspecting the digital entrails. Miller, who held his tongue when he was fired to make way for Tom Finneran, responds with class.
At this moment, at least, it looks as though the vandalism has been undone.
Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz quotes me in his story today on WBZ-TV (Channel 4) political analyst Jon Keller‘s family tie to Republican congressional candidate Jim Ogonowski. Keller’s son Barney is Ogonowski’s spokesman, which has raised questions as to whether Jon Keller has a conflict in covering the race involving Ogonowski, Democrat Niki Tsongas and three minor-party and independent candidates.
Moskowitz represents me accurately, so no need to belabor this. But I do want to expand just a bit on the points I made to him yesterday:
As I also told Moskowitz, Keller’s a friend. It doesn’t affect my thinking on this, but it’s something you should know. And, yes, I recommend his book, “The Bluest State.”
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says Gov. Deval Patrick is being too optimistic about how much revenue his casino plan would generate. How optimistic? Boston Globe reporter Matt Viser writes:
Patrick has proposed using half of the $400 million in annual proceeds to provide income tax credits of an average of $200 to nearly 1 million state residents whose local property tax bills are 2.5 percent or more of their annual income. The other half would be spent on improving roads and bridges.
But based on Patrick’s other plans for spending the casino revenues, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation projects that only between $115 million and $133.8 million would be available for property tax relief — not $200 million.
Likewise, the foundation said, the $200 million that Patrick expects to be available for transportation improvements also would not fully materialize.
As the foundation notes, other states are not going to sit still and let Massachusetts reap all the ill-gotten gains for itself. You can be sure that Connecticut will do something to hold on to its regional monopoly. And New Hampshire is likely to react as well, as state Sen. Susan Tucker, D-Andover, warned at a recent MassINC forum.
At least casino visitors won’t get lung cancer. David Kibbe explains.
Disclosure: I’ll be the guest speaker at a fundraising event on Nov. 15 for Casinofacts.org, the leading anti-casino organization in Middleborough. The event will be held at the Fireside Grille, and will get under way at 6:30 p.m.