By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
In my latest for The Guardian, I explain why I’m not looking forward to “Magic,” the forthcoming album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Update: You can’t take on Bruce without having to fend off his hordes of fans. I have more to say here, complete with ratings for every one of his albums.
The RSS feed for Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog now includes writer’s names. I don’t know whether Marshall ever read my original item, but I’ll say it anyway: Media Nation gets results!
Earlier today local media folks received the following statement from Peter Casey, news director at WBZ Radio (AM 1030):
Statement on behalf of the family of Paul Sullivan:
We all want you to know how much Paul has appreciated the cards and calls during the last few months since giving his evening talk show on WBZ Radio. They have been very comforting during these summer months. We also want to express how grateful we are to the terrific medical team at Massachusetts General Hospital for their amazing care and treatment of Paul during the past 33 months.
At this point we have decided to end medical treatments for Paul’s cancer and focus on his comfort and quality of life. He will be in the hospital for the foreseeable future receiving hospice care. We feel he will be most comfortable here at Saint’s Memorial Medical Center in Lowell, the city where he spent so much of his life. Paul is surrounded by his family and friends and would like everyone to know how important all the thoughts and prayers have been to him.
Very sad news. Sully stepped down in June, but at the time he and the station held out some hope that his health would improve to the point where he could do some radio commentary. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.
Best wishes to Paul and his family at this difficult time.
Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi reports that Patrick aide Michael Morris didn’t expect to run into Amelia and Steven Bingham when he dropped by state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson’s office last week. She adds that it’s time for Gov. Deval Patrick to walk away from the mess that is casino gambling:
The push for expanded gambling in Massachusetts comes from racetrack operators, out-of-state promoters, and other gambling interests. If they haven’t made their case yet, that should tell Patrick something important. It’s a shaky case for everyone but them.
Interesting that the most experienced analysts in town, like Vennochi, Jon Keller and Steve Bailey, understand this. Let’s hope Patrick reaches the same conclusion.
Update: Peter Kenney has much more at Cape Cod Today. And, as I should have noted earlier, there’s a discrepancy between his and Vennochi’s accounts. According to Vennochi’s reporting, Morris was surprised to see the Binghams in Wilkerson’s office. According to what the Binghams told Kenney, Morris was surprised to see that the Binghams had brought advisers with them.
Kenney’s take is that Glenn Marshall’s downfall could lead to the re-opening of a lawsuit by the tribe against the town of Mashpee over Wampanoag land rights — and that Wilkerson, a member of the Senate Insurance Committee, has an obvious interest in a situation that could wreak havoc with property insurance.
Joe Keohane, Jeff Keating and Adam Reilly are all quite taken with the Boston Globe‘s new “In the news” front-page teasers, which run the length of the left-hand column. Joe even goes so far as to call the feature “a web-influenced sidebar.”
Well, pardon me, but there’s nothing even remotely new about what the Globe is doing. Certainly it’s no different from the “Newsline” column that appears on the front of USA Today (left). The Boston Herald ran similar teasers following its sparkling 1999 redesign, but gave them up after its New York Post-ification a few years later. (Unfortunately, Ron Reason, the consultant who oversaw the redesign, has removed the sample Herald fronts from his Web site.)
That’s not to say the Globe teasers aren’t a good idea. They are. They’re also intriguing from a strategic point of view. The vast majority of Globes are sold via home delivery, but there’s no need to flog the inside content for customers who are retrieving the paper from their front porches.
The teasers say that Globe executives have decided there’s circulation to be gained by persuading more people to buy a copy on their way to work. But aren’t these the same people who are reading the Globe online, for free, once they get to work?
That’s the 50-cents-per-copy question.
Slate’s Jack Shafer debunks a Boston Globe story on an alleged increase in girl-on-girl violence. The clue, hiding in plain sight: a subhead that reads, “Despite police statistics, violence causing worries.” In fact, Shafer points out, the evidence suggests that such incidents are actually decreasing.
Steven Bingham and Peter Kenney appeared last night on “Greater Boston with Emily Rooney,” on WGBH-TV (Channel 2). It’s preceded by a reported piece that offers a pretty good overview of what’s going on.
Well worth watching.
Why would Gov. Deval Patrick need more time to decide on casino gambling when he’s already taken months? The Cape Cod Times’ David Kibbe does not provide an answer today, and maybe the real reason is known only to Patrick.
But Cape Cod Today’s Peter Kenney offers an interesting anecdote that may explain why Patrick wants a few more weeks. According to his latest report, Amelia and Steven Bingham met last week with state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, D-Roxbury, at Wilkerson’s request, and were unexpectedly joined by Michael Morris, an aide to the governor.
The Binghams, members of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, are leading an effort to recall the tribal leadership following the resignation of Glenn Marshall, who had ordered them “shunned.” The meeting in Wilkerson’s office described by Kenney is all very cloak-and-dagger, so it’s hard to know what precisely is going on. But clearly something is happening.
As David Bernstein recently observed in the Phoenix, Morris, Patrick’s director of governmental affairs, previously worked for State Treasurer Tim Cahill, a supporter of casino gambling. For that matter, Patrick’s chief of staff, Doug Rubin, is also a Cahill alumnus. But according to Bernstein’s sources, Cahill has been unable to influence Patrick on the casino-gambling issue.
The Binghams have never said they oppose casino gambling. But Steven Bingham has said the deal negotiated by Marshall with investors contains too little money for both the tribe and the town of Middleborough, and that it will be null and void if the recall effort succeeds.
With three of Middleborough’s five selectmen currently facing recall as well, the latest developments raise the possibility that if the Mashpee Wampanoags ever build a casino, it might be in a different location.
The Weekly Dig shows that the money the government could collect from the proposed Middleborough casino — possibly as much as $100 million a year — is much ado about nothing.
No surprise there. But did you know that state taxes on alcohol already bring in nearly as much? Or that $100 million would not quite cover the annual interest charges on the Central Artery debt?
One more reason for Gov. Deval Patrick not to travel down this road.
Is the Boston Globe finally ready to engage on the matter of the proposed Middleborough casino? Sally Jacobs today weighs in with a 2,600-word overview that focuses on the dispute between disgraced former tribal chairman Glenn Marshall and a dissident group led by Amelia Bingham and her son, Steven Bingham.
Jacobs misses a few key points. Marshall’s handpicked successor, Shawn Hendricks, appears nowhere in the story. And she reports Marshall’s age as being 59. That’s not a small error, since his true age, 57, was a key to reports by Cape Cod Today and the Cape Cod Times that Marshall was in high school in the spring of 1968, not fighting in Vietnam, as he had claimed.
But all is forgiven, because Jacobs reports one of the most startling developments to date — that when a Globe reporter (presumably Jacobs) pressed Marshall about his background recently, he responded that people could die if she continued her line of questioning:
Marshall also angrily fended off questions about his job history, telling a reporter to “back off.” He was, at that point, still offering up a false account of his employment history including his claim to have once worked as an undercover officer. And his manner spoke to how he had succeeded in his deception for so long: He raised his voice and sought to intimidate.
“I have people that worked with me that are dead,” Marshall declared, “that died because of people like you asking questions like that.”
Very, very strange. (Note: At first blush, I read it to mean that Marshall was making Jacobs an offer she couldn’t refuse, as the Corleone family memorably put it. But after reading Steve’s comment, I’m not so sure, and I’ve rewritten this post.)
Anyway, surely Globe editors are beginning to realize that the casino story is a playground for journalists. Jacobs’ contribution should be just the beginning.
In other developments: