The Boston Globe calls its decision not to print a paper today “unprecedented.” But as Aidan Ryan reports (sub. req.), it depends on your definition of unprecedented: “Even during the historic Blizzard of ’78, the Globe printed a few thousand copies of the Feb. 7, 1978, edition, though its delivery trucks couldn’t get through the piles of snow around its old offices on Morrissey Boulevard.”
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Moreover, Ryan notes that today’s edition will be printed and delivered with Wednesday’s paper. It strikes me as an odd move given that the Globe’s website is up and running, including the daily e-paper. But maybe there are a few print customers who really don’t want to read the paper online and who will appreciate having today’s paper — perhaps to commemorate the Blizzard of ’26.
This past November I wrote about how a Boston Globe subscriber could share a gift link with a non-subscriber via email. It was strictly a one-to-one feature — there was no authorized way of sending a gift link to a social-media platform. (There are unauthorized ways, which I’ll let you figure out.)
Within the past day or so, though, a new item suddenly popped up on the Globe’s sharing options called “Gift an Article.” My hope was that the Globe had joined multiple other papers and was now offering a few free gift shares a month that would work anywhere, not just through email.
With great anticipation, I clicked. And I was greeted with a text-entry box that said “Gift This Article Through Email.” The rest of the sharing features — Facebook, Bluesky, etc. — give you a link that lead to a paywall when a non-subscriber clicks on them.
Oh, well. I’ll be optimistic and hope that this is the first step toward a real sharing feature.
The Massachusetts Statehouse. Photo (cc) 2024 by Dan Kennedy.
Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook, a morning email newsletter about state politics, is coming to an end. Kelly Garrity made the announcement earlier today and said she’ll be writing a political newsletter for The Boston Globe that will debut later this year. She writes:
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who ever read, emailed, sent a tip, answered a late-night call/email/text or submitted a birthday. This newsletter is what first put POLITICO on my radar and I feel so lucky to have had the chance to be a part of making something I was a fan of for so long.
The Playbook was launched in September 2015 with Lauren Dezenski at the helm. Dezenski, a Dorchester Reporter alum, is now at Bloomberg. The Playbook has served as an important stepping stone for a number of journalists who have held that position, but now it’s coming to an end.
Although Boston has a number of morning newsletters, I think it’s fair to say that Politico’s only direct competitor in terms of tracking the Massachusetts political scene was MASSter List, from State House News Service, produced by veteran journalist Gintautas Dumcius. Also deserving mention is CommonWealth Beacon, a nonprofit that covers politics and public policy, which has a mid-morning newsletter that’s a little bit different — less insidery and more focused on pulling readers onto its website. (Note: I’m on CommonWealth’s editorial advisory board.)
The move is part of broader cutbacks at Politico as a whole. Corbin Bolies recently reported for The Wrap that Politico was eliminating 3% of its staff. Meanwhile, Axios, founded by two of Politico’s three co-founders, is expanding its local news coverage — although, unfortunately, AI is playing a significant role. (Boston is among the cities with a morning Axios newsletter, but it’s not strictly about politics.)
This also strikes me as a smart move by the Globe, since it’s a way to bring in a reporter who’s already respected by folks who follow state politics closely.
The Cambridge Public Library is part of the Minuteman Library Network, which is now offering digital access to The Boston Globe. Public domain photo circa 1889 via Wikimedia Commons.
Probably the single most frequent complaint I hear about The Boston Globe is that it’s too expensive. A non-discounted digital-only subscription costs $36 a month, and the paper doesn’t make any gift links available for sharing on social media.
Perhaps that’s changing. Last fall, the Globe unveiled a flexible paywall for its Boston.com satellite site. Subscribers can give away some free shares every month. Boston.com had previously been entirely free, but it does give the tech folks a chance to experiment before deciding whether to introduce the same feature at the Globe itself.
And now the Globe is adding free digital access to anyone with a library card in the Minuteman Library Network, which comprises more than 40 libraries in the Boston area. It already has a similar arrangement with the Boston Public Library. Five hundred users will be allowed to log in simultaneously for a maximum of 72 hours. Is that enough? I don’t know, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’d also like to see some provision for out-of-state readers who might need to access a few Globe stories each year.
Here’s the full press release, which I grabbed from the trade website Editor & Publisher:
The Boston Globe and Minuteman Library Network recently announced a partnership providing their cardholders with access to Boston Globe digital content. This new collaboration continues The Boston Globe’s work with library systems across Massachusetts, bolstering its mission to provide access to award-winning local journalism and high-quality news and information.
Through this partnership, Minuteman cardholders can sign up for a 72-hour digital pass to Globe.com, accessing Boston Globe journalism, puzzles and games, podcasts, videos, Globe Magazine and more. A maximum of 500 passes are available on a first come first serve basis, allowing cardholders from across more than 40 member libraries to access Boston Globe content and the Globe E-Paper, as well as an archive of articles extending back through The Boston Globe’s 153-year history.
Just last year, The Boston Globe announced an expanded partnership with Boston Public Library. With the Globe’s collaboration with Minuteman, Metrowest communities outside Boston, including Westwood, Natick, Cambridge and Newton, will be able to offer free access to The Boston Globe to library members.
“At Boston Globe Media, we are always exploring new ways to deepen our connection with the communities we serve in Massachusetts,” said Michelle Micone, chief marketing and strategic initiatives officer, Boston Globe Media. “Partnering with invaluable institutions like the Minuteman Library Network allows us to expand access to our trusted journalism and ensure more people can engage with the news and information that matter most.”
“The libraries of the Minuteman Library Network are eager to secure access for their cardholders to the Boston Globe’s in-depth reporting in an online platform that renders the full reading experience of the print editions,” said Phil McNulty, executive director, Minuteman Library Network.
Clarification: I’ve updated this item to note that though the Globe doesn’t make gift links available on social media, it does allow subscribers to send a full copy of an article to a non-subscriber via email — which I wrote about a few months ago.
A prominent editor has unleashed a scathing attack on journalism schools for what he claims is their retrograde attitude toward artificial intelligence. Since the editor, Chris Quinn of Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, is invading my turf, I thought I’d take a look at what he has to say and offer some context.
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Quinn begins his recent “Letter from the Editor” column with an anecdote about a recent college graduate who turned down a job because of the way Quinn’s publications use AI. Increasingly, they ask reporters to do nothing but report, turning over their notes to be transformed into news stories by AI, with human editors looking them over to make sure the final product is accurate and coherent.
Journalism faces yet another tech-driven crisis: AI-powered Google search deprives news publishers of as much as 30% to 40% of their web traffic as users stay on Google rather than following the links. What’s more, users of other AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Claude, can search for clickless news as well. Now an expert on copyright and licensing has come up with a possible solution.
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Paul Gerbino, president of Creative Licensing International, writes that publishers need to move away from negotiating one-time deals with AI companies to scrape their content for training purposes. Instead, Gerbino says, they should push for a system by which they will be compensated for the use of their content on a recurring basis, whether through per-use fees or subscriptions. As Gerbino puts it:
Training is a singular, non-recurring event that offers only a front-loaded burst of revenue. It possesses no capacity to scale or recur at the level required to effectively sustain the complex and costly operation of the publishing industry….
The singular, non-negotiable strategic imperative for every publisher is to execute a complete and fundamental pivot from the outdated mindset of “sell content once” to the forward-looking, sustainable model of “monetize access forever.”
It’s a fascinating idea, although we should be cautious given that forcing Google and other platforms to pay for the news they repurpose hasn’t gone much of anywhere over the years. When such schemes have been implemented, they’ve been hampered by unexpected consequences, such as threats to remove all links to news sources. It’s not clear why Google would suddenly flip because it’s now using AI.
Gerbino acknowledges this, arguing that publishers should negotiate with the AI companies collectively, observing: “Individual publishers operating alone possess negligible leverage against the behemoths of the AI industry. Collective frameworks represent the only viable path to successful negotiation.” But that may require passage of a law so that the publishers don’t run afoul of antitrust violations.
Gerbino also says that publishers need to develop paywalls that are impervious to AI. Not all of them are.
The possibility that a substantial part of the news audience will never move beyond AI-generated results — no matter how wrong they may be — represents a significant threat to publishers, who are already dealing with the challenge of finding a path to sustainability in a post-advertising world.
Gerbino has laid out some interesting proposals on how to extract revenues from AI companies, which may represent the biggest threat to news since the internet flickered into view more than 30 years ago. It remains to be seen, though, whether his ideas will form the basis for action — or if, instead, they will simply fade into the ether.
A lot of me flapping my gums this week, and here’s another one. I recently was interviewed by Alexander Russo for his vodcast, which is part of The Grade, a multimedia venture that also comprises weekly columns, a free newsletter featuring timely media commentary and an annual update on newsroom diversity in education journalism.
According to project’s About page, “The Grade provides independent analysis of media coverage of education, helping to promote and improve the quality of that coverage.” I hope you’ll have a look.
I’ve written about Jeff Bezos’ defenestration of The Washington Post multiple times over the past two-plus years, and I’m not going to rehash it in any great detail today.
Suffice to say that today’s gutting of the Post, reported here by NPR’s David Folkenflik, is just the latest outrage that began when Bezos refused to do anything after his hand-chosen publisher, Will Lewis, turned out to be a terrible choice. Lewis was enmeshed in ethics scandals stemming from his time as a Murdoch lieutenant in the U.K., but Bezos remained silent. Later came the most visible sign that Bezos had turned — his decision to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election.
Retired Post executive editor Marty Baron has a withering essay up on Facebook that you should read in full. After acknowledging the very real challenges facing the Post, Baron writes:
The Post’s challenges … were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top — from a gutless order to kill a presidential endorsement 11 days before the 2024 election to a remake of the editorial page that now stands out only for its moral infirmity. Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post. In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands.
The owner, in a note to readers, wrote that he aimed to boost trust in The Post. The effect was something else entirely: Subscribers lost trust in his stewardship and, notwithstanding the newsroom’s stellar journalism, The Post overall. Similarly, many leading journalists at The Post lost confidence in Bezos, and jumped to other news organizations. They also, in effect, were driven away. Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I was at the Post interviewing Baron and others for my book “The Return of the Moguls.” In those days the Post was profitable and growing, and Bezos had developed a reputation for standing up to Donald Trump’s threats and bullying. Bezos has since transformed into a Trump toady, spending $75 million to make that ridiculous Melania Trump biopic for — for what? I guess to get the White House on board with his ambitions for the Blue Origin rocket company that he owns.
I can’t imagine why Bezos would want to be associated with what the Post has become — what he’s turned it into. He certainly shows no sign of interest in it. From 2013-23, he was a model owner. But people change. Bezos has changed, much for the worse. If there’s any chance that he might donate it to a nonprofit foundation, as the late billionaire Gerry Lenfest did with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2016, I hope he’ll do it sooner rather than later.
The Christian Science Church. Photo (cc) 2025 by Dan Kennedy.
The Christian Science Monitor is going through yet another rethink. Once one of the finest newspapers in the country, the Boston-based Monitor has been shrinking for two generations. Its journalism remains world-class, but there just isn’t nearly as much of it as there used to be.
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According to Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan (sub. req.), the Monitor today has 25,000 paid subscribers and about 60 journalists, both down considerably from its peak. Under editor Christa Case Bryant, a longtime Monitor staff member, the paper — a digital pioneer back in the day — is planning to unveil an app and make more use of distribution platforms like Apple News. “What I’m trying to do is to just be true to our original founding mission, but in a way that’s adapted for 2026,” she told him. Ryan writes:
The Monitor is also seeking to double down on its founding mission “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” and capture a broader range of perspectives in its reporting, including conservative voices that its editor said are often left out of mainstream coverage.
The changes led some staffers to take buyouts in December, and the Monitor cut several other positions, but is hiring for new roles.
I’m a longtime subscriber, and though I don’t read it every day, I appreciate its calm, optimistic approach and its embrace of solutions journalism. I wrote about a previous reinvention for CommonWealth Magazine (now CommonWealth Beacon) in 2009. It’s telling that the subhead all those years ago was “The Christian Science Monitor reinvents itself for the digital age.” Seventeen years later, if you search for Ryan’s story on Google, a teaser pops up that reads “The Christian Science Monitor tries to adapt to the digital age.”
The Monitor’s most essential product is a daily email comprising news briefs and a few stories. Monday’s newsletter covered European reaction to the occupation of Minnesota, high-tech glasses, an editorial on Kevin Warsh (Donald Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve) and a religious reflection from a Christian Science point of view — a requirement laid down by church founder Mary Baker Eddy.
The daily paper is long gone, although its website is deep and well-designed. The Monitor’s best journalism is aggregated in a weekly print newsmagazine that is sent to subscribers.
Founded in 1908, the Monitor thrived in the decades when there was no such thing as a national newspaper. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post were virtually unavailable outside their regional bases, and most city papers were abysmal. The Monitor provided a quality alternative, even if it arrived in the mail a day or two late.
The paper’s headquarters are at the Mother Church, right down the street from Northeastern. I hope this latest reinvention gives a boost to a great institution that continues to excel despite its small numbers.
Correction: Updated because my first version misspelled Christa Case Bryant’s name.
Don Lemon reporting from Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn.
On the new “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we look at Don Lemon’s arrest, when journalists should (and shouldn’t) use the word “murder,” looming cuts at The Washington Post, and transitions for Scot Lehigh, who’s retiring from The Boston Globe, and David Brooks, who’s moving from The New York Times to The Atlantic. With Emily, Scott Van Voorhis and me — plus a big assist from producer Tonia Magras.
