Author: Dan Kennedy

A look back at when local TV newscasters were our biggest celebrities

A video clip of Liz Walker’s first newscast on WBZ-TV. Bob Lobel is at left.

For anyone under 40, or maybe 50, the idea that local television journalists used to be among our most prominent celebrities may sound unimaginable. Yes, today’s TV journalists are well known, but it’s a far cry from several decades ago.

This coming Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine takes us back to the 1980s, when WBZ-TV (Channel 4) had a five-member “dream team”: co-anchors Liz Walker and Jack Williams, weather forecaster Bruce Schwoegler, sports reporter Bob Lobel and entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik. Walker, Williams, Lobel, Kulhawik and Barbara Schwoegler, Bruce’s widow, take part in a wide-ranging conversation about what it meant to be local TV news stars some 40 years ago, and why that era ended. (Corporate greed, mostly.) Several of their contemporaries and successors are heard from, too.

Walker, who later became an ordained minister, was the first Black woman to anchor a local newscast in Boston, and — as she recalls — making the transition from her previous post in Little Rock, Arkansas, wasn’t easy:

Really, I had no idea. Boston is a tough city anyway, but in 1980 it was a tough city layered with all the racial implications. People were angry, people were traumatized, because they were still reeling from busing. We couldn’t go to Charlestown, they didn’t send us to Southie, because it was too explosive. You go to Roxbury, and they were just pissed at the media in general. There was no safe space.

The feature is tied in with WBZ’s 75th anniversary. As interesting as it is, I wish the Globe had acknowledged that WBZ was involved in a fierce rivalry during the 1980s with WCVB-TV (Channel 5), which had a dream team of its own: anchors Natalie Jacobson and Chet Curtis, who were married at the time, along with weather forecaster Dick Albert, sports reporter Mike Lynch and entertainment reporter Dixie Whatley. My friend Emily Rooney was assistant news director and, later, news director during those years.

The third network affiliate, Channel 7, which has had various call letters (it’s currently WHDH but is no longer a network affiliate), never established a similar identity, although it did unveil a high-powered anchor team of its own, Robin Young and Tom Ellis, in the 1980s.

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The Stuart podcast underlines a dilemma over the ethics of paying sources

Earlier this week I finished listening to the nine-part podcast that accompanies The Boston Globe’s series on the 1989 murder of Carol Stuart and her unborn child, Christopher Stuart. The last two episodes of the podcast were the most interesting from a media standpoint.

Episode 8 covers much of the same ground that’s explored in the epilogue, thought it’s more expansive. In episode 9, Globe columnist Adrian Walker, who narrates the series, talks about the dilemma posed by Joey Bennett’s demand that his family be paid for being interviewed about how their lives were upended by suspicions that Joey’s uncle Willie Bennett was the killer. In fact, the murderer was Carol’s husband, Charles, perhaps with the assistance of an accomplice. As Walker explains, the Globe is bound by ethical rules that forbid paying sources — but HBO, which co-produced the podcast as well as a documentary TV series, paid the Bennetts a licensing fee. Walker explains:

HBO says it is part of a standard archive licensing agreement for the use of family photos and audio materials and that the arrangement is in line with industry practices. That agreement includes a confidentiality clause.

This is a world my Globe colleagues and I don’t inhabit. We can talk about the ideals of truth and justice but our sources can’t use that to pay the rent. All told, this is an ethical dilemma that sits at the very heart of journalism today.

I don’t have all the answers. In this podcast, we used audio of Jason’s interview with Joey. It’s a great interview — it’s good tape. All we can do is be transparent.

Walker is referring to Jason Hehir, whose company, Little Room Productions, produced the film for HBO.

I also want to bring up something that I wrote recently about the series. There is no question that racism within the police department, the media and the city at large was a major contributing factor in Charles Stuart’s getting away with his crime for as long as he did, finally jumping off the Tobin Bridge to his death as the police were closing in. And yes, there were a number of observers even at the time who believed Chuck was the real killer, especially within the Black community. We all need to wrestle with the legacy of that racism.

And yet there is the fact that Charles Stuart’s own gunshot wound nearly killed him, and that the trauma surgeon who operated on Chuck was convinced he couldn’t have shot himself. Surely that had a lot to do with Chuck’s nearly getting away with it. That doesn’t excuse the police for embarking on what was essentially a wilding spree in Mission Hill as they targeted one Black man after another in an attempt to identify a suspect. Nor does it excuse the media for abandoning any pretense of skepticism. But the specific details of Charles Stuart’s wounds shouldn’t be overlooked, either.

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A murder that didn’t happen, reported by a news outlet that didn’t check

This is about as bizarre a media story as you can find. On Dec. 4, a small digital news outlet called the Mid Hudson News reported that a man had been fatally shot in Newburgh, New York. It turned out to be fake news, but not before it was picked up by the aggregation site Newsbreak — which, in turn, published a commentary written by artificial intelligence falsely blaming the incorrect story on the rise of social media.

The owner of the Mid Hudson News, a former New York state senator, Mike Martucci, and the founder and editor, Hank Gross, blame it all on the city of Newburgh, citing its policy of funneling all media comment through a spokesman who they claim doesn’t get back to them in a timely manner.

The story is laid out in a Dec. 21 article in the Times Union of Albany, written by reporters Lana Bellamy and Phillip Pantuso.

Incredibly, the Mid Hudson News’ story, headlined “Man says his cousin is shot dead,” is still online. An editor’s note appears at the bottom: “Our earlier story about an alleged incident in Newburgh was incorrectly reported as there was no incident involving a shooting of any kind in the City of Newburgh.” As you can see, the report is based on the word of someone named Major Bradley, who heard from relatives the next day that Bolder had been fatally shot. In other words, not only did the News publish a one-source story, but that source had no first-hand knowledge about the murder. Then again, there was no murder.

Gross told the Times Union that there was, in fact, a second source who he did not cite in his report, and that he chose to go ahead and publish after city spokesman Mike Neppl failed to respond in a timely manner. “You’re lucky if you get a response, and if you do, more often than not it’s not timely,” Gross was quoted as saying. “How long do you wait?”

Now, there’s not one word I can offer in defense of the Mid Hudson News. But according to the Times Union, Neppl and the city of Newburgh really do have some issues when it comes to dealing with the press; among other things, city officials have clashed with a television reporter over their apparent refusal to provide crime data.

And despite Neppl’s claim that the city’s policy of funneling all media responses through one spokesperson is common, the Times Union reported that “few if any municipalities in the Times Union’s coverage area, large or small, have a similar requirement for all non-elected officials.”

The whole tale is just astonishing.

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Barbara Kennedy speaks with the Globe about the importance of family reading

Photo (cc) 2009 by San José Public Library

This morning I want to share a really great story that Brion O’Connor wrote for The Boston Globe about family reading for kids that quotes my wife, Barbara Kennedy, who works as a library media specialist in Winchester. She’s the reader in the family — social media has turned me into a skimmer. Sorry this is behind a paywall, but here’s what Barbara has to say:

Reading aloud “helps develop language and listening skills,” said Barbara Kennedy of Medford, library media specialist at the Vinson-Owen Elementary School in Winchester. “Stories offer a way to better understand ourselves and the world and strengthens social-emotional development.

“Picture books are often powerful teachers that can offer deeper, multilayered stories,” she said. “They can build visual literacy, empathy, and comprehension. They build fundamental literacy skills. Reading them together with your kids builds reading habits and feelings that reading is a pleasurable thing.

…

The bottom line, said Kennedy, is that reading benefits every child, and every person. And that benefits society as a whole.

“We grow readers where I work, and the data shows if they aren’t or don’t believe they are readers by third or fourth grade, success across the board plummets and rarely gets better,” she said. “Reading is important, and doing it regularly is critical to creating engaged, curious, and empathetic people.”

Barbara also has two recommendations for books that parents can read with their kids: “Shooting at the Stars,” by John Hendrix, and “The Carpenter’s Gift: A Christmas Tale about the Rockefeller Center Tree,” by David Rubel and Jim LaMarche.

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NH newspaper publisher fined $620 for running unlabeled political ads

The saga of Deb Paul, the New Hampshire newspaper publisher who was threatened with six years in prison for running improperly labeled political ads, has finally come to an end, reports Damien Fisher of InDepthNH. On Wednesday, Derry District Court Judge Kerry Steckowych fined Paul $620, which adds up to $124 for each of the five counts the judge had convicted her of on Dec. 7. Paul had originally been charged with six counts, which carry a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a $2,000 fine for each violation.

Paul publishes the Londonderry Times and, at the time that the offenses took place, was also the publisher of the Nutfield News and the Tri-Town Times, which have since folded. Under New Hampshire law, it is a crime to publish political advertising without labeling it as such. The First Amendment allows for some regulation of paid political ads, but the law making such minor violations a crime rather than a civil offense strikes me as excessive, as does the zeal of the state attorney general, John Formella, who let the possibility of prison time hang over Paul’s head for nearly a year and a half.

It has to be said that Paul seems like a piece of work. Back in August 2022, shortly after the charges were filed, I published the results of some digging by friend of Media Nation Aaron Read, who discovered that Paul was not just the owner of the Londonderry Times — she was also a member of the town council. In February 2021, her fellow councilors complained about an editorial she published, saying she had engaged in “bullying” for writing, “Are you frustrated that nobody at town hall is listening to you? Do you feel that your town or school officials have an excuse for everything or justify decisions you don’t agree with?” In an interview with The Eagle-Tribune, Paul denied that was aimed specifically at her colleagues. Paul is apparently no longer a member of the council.

According to InDepthNH, the prosecution argued that draconian action was necessary because Paul was a serial offender who had failed to comply with the law despite earlier warnings. Paul, through her lawyer, said her violations were inadvertent. She also declined to speak with InDepthNH.

Judge Steckowych deserves credit for meting out a punishment that is more or less in line with a civil offense. And it’s time for the state legislature to intervene and reform the law so that other publishers are no longer in danger of being locked up for what amounts to a minor campaign finance violation.

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What public media can learn from NJ Spotlight News: An excerpt from our book

John Mooney, founder and executive director of NJ Spotlight News. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.

Ellen Clegg and I are delighted to report that the first excerpt from “What Works in Community News” has just gone live at Current, a publication for people in public media. Current has published a section from our chapter on NJ Spotlight News, which merged a digital startup covering state policy and politics in New Jersey and the state’s public television outlet, NJ PBS. “What Works in Community News,” published by Beacon Press, goes public on Jan. 9. And thank you to Mike Janssen, Current’s digital editor, for making this happen.

Read the excerpt at Current.

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A Muzzle Award for the anonymous troll who reported ‘Gender Queer’ to the police

Photo (cc) 1928 by Blue Mountains Library, Local Studies

There’s an unidentified person somewhere out there who has richly earned a New England Muzzle Award, and I hope they’ll step forward to claim their trophy. Because this censorious busybody, hiding behind a cloak of anonymity, actually called the Great Barrington Police Department recently to complain that a middle school classroom had a copy of the notorious-though-it-shouldn’t-be book “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe, on its shelves.

The oft-banned book, which includes graphic images, is used by a number of educators as a resource for young people who are questioning their sexuality. At the W.E.B. DuBois Middle School, though, a police officer actually showed up after school hours and, accompanied by the principal, paid a visit to the classroom so he could see for himself. According to Heather Bellow of The Berkshire Eagle, the officer actually turned on his body camera before beginning his search. “The officer then searched for the book and planned to remove the book as part of the investigation,” Bellow reports, but he couldn’t locate it and ended up leaving. (Bellow also wrote the initial story about the incident.)

Now, you may ask why the police department in this Western Massachusetts town isn’t being awarded a Muzzle. The reason is that it’s not clear they did anything wrong. The person who called the police department sent images that they claimed were from an obscene book. Obscenity, a tiny subset of indecent material, is actually illegal. It can be hard to define (the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once memorably said, “I know it when I see it”), but you can imagine that it’s pretty bad given that nearly all indecency is protected by the First Amendment. To be clear: “Gender Queer” doesn’t come within a mile of violating any obscenity laws. But Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti told Adam Reilly of GBH News that his officers were obliged to respond to what may have been a legitimate complaint. Reilly quoted Storti as saying:

The interaction with the teacher was cordial. The officer didn’t touch anything. They didn’t search. They basically asked if the book was still there, to give the context of what we were dealing with dealing with. The teacher said the book wasn’t there, and the officer left.

I’ll grant you that Storti’s comments are at odds with the Eagle’s report that the officer “searched for the book,” but I’ll have to leave that unresolved for now. The larger issue is that a member of the community saw fit to mobilize law enforcement because of the possible presence of a much-praised book.

The fallout has been significant. The ACLU is seeking the body-camera footage. More than 100 students and staff walked out of Monument Regional High School to protest the attempt at censorship, earning praise from Gov. Maura Healey, who said, “Book banning has no place in Massachusetts.” And the Eagle ran a letter to the editor today that said in part, “Let’s make the book recommended reading for all middle school parents and faculty, and then organize a public forum to discuss the book.”

Although the Great Barrington Police Department has avoided the ignominy of receiving a Muzzle Award, Chief Storti and Berkshire District Attorney Timothy Shugrue, whose office also got involved, need to engage in some discussion and training about what to do the next time something like this happens. Because we all know that it will.

Correction, May 17, 2024: This post originally said that the search took place in the school library. In fact, it was in a classroom.

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How antisemitism is altering college plans in Brookline

Jewish high school students in Brookline are having second thoughts about where they want to go to college because of rising antisemitism on some campuses. One likely beneficiary: Brandeis University. Sam Mintz of Brookline.News has the story. (Via Universal Hub.)

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