Earlier today I received a little over $100 for displaying ads on Media Nation. I’d been waiting to reach that threshold because you don’t get paid until you hit it. And now I’ve turned off the ads.
I turned them on last September. Since that time, I’ve gotten more than 385,000 page views, yet ad revenues barely trickled in. By the way, for those of you who are interested, I was using Jetpack ads — a WordPress plug-in from Automattic, which an essential part of the WordPress ecosystem.
Advertising was an experiment, and that’s not to say I won’t try something else in the future. For now, though, Media Nation is ad-free.
The Mystic River, looking north toward the Lower Mystic Lake in Medford, Mass. Photo (cc) 2026 by Dan Kennedy.
I’ve been writing Media Nation in one iteration or another since 2001, making it one of the oldest media blogs still in existence. It took its current form in 2005. That’s 25 years of news and commentary about media, politics, local news and whatever else comes to mind.
Unlike the new wave of newsletters, Media Nation has always been free. Nevertheless, I put a lot of work into it, and I’m firmly of the belief that writers should be paid for what they produce. As Samuel Johnson put it, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
You’ll receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week. I don’t look at the newsletter as paid content — it’s just a thank-you for my readers.
The next time you sign up for a paid newsletter because it’s behind a paywall, think about the value you get from Media Nation — and consider becoming a paid supporter. Thank you.
More than 60 years of Boston Globe history is coming to an end. Sean P. Murphy, a reporter at the paper since 1987, is retiring. His father, Jeremiah V. Murphy, was a reporter and columnist at the Globe, and the earliest byline I could find for him dates back to 1961. That’s quite a stretch of time.
Sean Murphy has worked in a variety of reporting and editing jobs at the Globe, serving in recent years as the consumer advocate reporter. His column, “The Fine Print,” is popular and widely read. In a message to the newsroom shared with me by a trusted source, Murphy said in part:
There is no more honorable work than what we do. It is vital to our way of life, our well-being, our democracy, our systems of government and justice and business, our decency. Every morning, I spend a significant amount of time reading all sections of the noble Boston Globe. (At this stage of my life, I begin reading before dawn, sipping my one cup of coffee of the day, classical music in the background.) The Globe informs me, amuses me, fortifies me. For many years, I have been a part-time college instructor in media law. [Murphy earned a law degree from Suffolk University.] I tell my students there is no better investment than the cost of the Boston Globe. “Start a relationship with the Globe,” I say. “Read it every day. It will pay huge dividends.” Hurrah for every one of you, and for those who have gone before us at the Globe.
Business editor Greg Huang and assistant business editor Tim Logan wrote:
Sean was adamant (annoyingly so) that we not sing his praises or go through his lengthy list of achievements here. So we won’t mention that his “Fine Print” column built a large and dedicated readership over the past nine years, winning well over a million dollars back to mistreated consumers from corporations, landlords, and even the state. Or that his wide experience as a courts reporter, investigative reporter, city editor, and other roles at the Globe helped inform how this department, for one, handles its business. Or, more importantly, how his advice, mentorship, and friendship have influenced generations of journalists for the better.
Sean, we will miss you more than we can say. You are irreplaceable, we all know that. We also know you will stay connected. Thanks for all you’ve done. Below are Sean’s parting words to the room.
Our paths did not intersect much over the years, although I do recall that we were on a panel together in Gloucester a few years ago. I can also report that a graduate student in my opinion journalism class, Alexa Gagosz, who took Sean’s media law class at Suffolk University when she was an undergraduate, used to rave about his consumer column as an ideal blend of reporting and opinion. (Sean earned a law degree at Suffolk.) Alexa is now a star reporter for the Globe’s Rhode Island edition.
Congratulations to Sean, and best wishes for a long and satisfying retirement.
For quite a few years I used WordPress’ indent feature for blockquotes rather than the actual blockquote command. The reason was that blockquotes in the theme that I use (Twenty Sixteen) were ugly, with type larger than the regular text (the opposite of what you would see in a book or a printed article) and in italics.
But then I noticed that indents didn’t show up at all in posts that went out by email, leading to confusion among my subscribers — that is, my most engaged readers. I decided to find out if I could modify the blockquote feature. WordPress allows you to add custom CSS to your theme, but I know very little about how to use CSS. I could have asked in a WordPress forum, but I tried to see if I could get an answer from AI instead.
Northeastern has given us all access to the enterprise version of Claude, Anthropic’s AI platform. It’s a mixed blessing, although I’ve found that it’s very good as a search engine — often better than Google, which is now also glopped up by AI. I simply make sure I ask Claude to add the underlying links to its answer so I don’t get taken in by hallucinations. But Claude is also known for being quite good at coding. What I needed was low-level, so I thought maybe it could help.
Indeed it could. I began by asking, “In the Twenty Sixteen WordPress theme, how can I change the CSS so that blockquotes do not appear in italics?” Claude provided me with several options; I chose the simplest one, which was a short bit of custom CSS that I could add to my theme:
blockquote{
font-style: normal;
}
It worked. A subsequent query enabled me to make the blockquote type smaller. Then, just last week, I noticed that any formatting in the blockquote was stripped out. For instance, a recent memo from Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry contained boldface and italicized text, which did not appear when I reproduced her message. The formatting code was there; it just wasn’t visible. Claude produced CSS commands that overrode the theme. You can see the results here, with bold and italic type just as Henry had it in her message.
I make some light use of AI in my other work. When I need to transcribe an audio interview, I use Otter, which is powered by AI. I’ve experimented with using AI to compile summaries from transcripts and even (just for my own use) an actual news story. Very occasionally I’ve used AI to produce illustrations for this blog, which seems to draw more objections than other AI applications, probably because it’s right in people’s faces.
Just the other day, someone complained to me on social media that she was not going to visit a local news outlet I had mentioned because she had encountered an AI-produced illustration there. When I asked why, she replied that it was because AI relies on plagiarism. Oh, I get it. Sometime this year I’m hoping to receive $3,000 as my share of a class-action lawsuit against Anthropic because one of my books, “The Return of the Moguls,” was used to train Claude.
And let’s not overlook the massive amounts of energy that are required to power AI. On a recent New York Times podcast, Ezra Klein and his guests observed that AI is deeply unpopular with the public (sub. req.), even though they’re using it, because all they really know is that it’s going to take away jobs and is driving up electricity costs.
But AI isn’t going anywhere, and if we’re going to use it (and we are, even if we try to avoid it), we need to find ways to do so ethically and responsibly.
At the Pistachio Café in New Haven, Conn. Photo (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.
I launched Media Nation in 2005. If you count two predecessor blogs that I wrote solo and for The Boston Phoenix dating back to 2001, then Media Nation is among the oldest such projects in the country. It was also part of a dying breed until the past few years, when the rise of newsletters — blogs by another name — gave an enormous boost to independent media reporting and commentary.
Over the years, I’ve made several changes, and I’m planning to reposition Media Nation again in 2026. I had considered a hard reset but decided instead on a change of emphasis, which I can ignore as the news and my interests dictate.
First, I hope to cut way back on politically oriented media commentary. Nothing drives clicks like a post slamming Donald Trump, or slamming some failure in the way the media are covering him. But you can get that anywhere. My goal is write fewer such posts in favor of solutions to the local news crisis (my research specialty, after all); Boston- and New England-oriented media news (note to Boston Globe staffers: Keep those internal memos coming!); and music, books and whatever quirky stuff catches my eye.
Second, I plan to write less frequently. Counting this post, I wrote 306 blog posts in 2025, which adds up to nearly six per week. When I started doing this, I never intended to write so often. A lot of that comes from feeling like I’m obliged to write about every major news development that’s at the intersection of media and politics. As I said, I’m going to cut back on that. I think that two or three posts per week, more or less, is the right number, and I’m going to try not to feel guilty if I write only once. In exchange, I’ll aim to lean into substance and topics that you won’t find elsewhere.
Third, the collapse of social media led me to write a number of multi-item posts so that I could post short updates and observations as I used to do on Twitter. With the rise of Bluesky, I don’t feel like I need to do that. Bluesky is tiny, but that’s OK; you can use it without joining. I’ve embedded my Bluesky feed in the right-hand rail on Media Nation, which is easy to access if you’re reading on a laptop. On a phone, just scroll all the way down. You can also follow my feed without actually registering for Bluesky by clicking here — although if you do register, you can follow other worthwhile feeds as well.
Finally, a note about commenting: I have not changed my policy. You can still post comments here. But if you look at my revised policy, you’ll see that I’m emphasizing Facebook as the place where the deepest, most interesting conversations are taking place. For some reason, people are much more likely to weigh in on Facebook about something I’ve written than they are here. So why scream into the void? I post links to all of my Media Nation content on my public (that is, we don’t need to be “friends”) Facebook feed, which you can access here.
And if you’d like to support my work for just $6 a month, you can do so by visiting my Patreon. You’ll receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and music. Media Nation itself will remain free.
An artist’s rendition of Onesimus, the father of modern vaccination.
Why an 18th-century slave and a witch-hunting minister knew more about vaccinations than RFK Jr. Plus photography, a roundup of the week’s posts and a tribute to the late, great Steve Cropper. It’s all in my supporters newsletter. Please sign up today for $6 a month!
Duke Ellington performs for patients at Travis Air Force Base in 1954.
Whether you’re a major news organization like NPR or a solo blogger like me, you know that converting readers into paid supporters is a major challenge. Since starting Media Nation in 2005, I have offered it as a free source of news and commentary, and that’s not going to change. I think folks working in academia have an obligation to freely distribute at least some of their work, and I’d lose a lot of reach if I put up a paywall.
But generating some income from this blog has proved to be an uphill climb. Nearly 2,500 readers have signed up to receive new posts by email for free, and nearly 108,000 visitors have accessed more than 186,000 pages so far in 2025. I don’t disclose my number of paid supporters, but I’ll just say that it lags well behind those numbers.
This afternoon I’ll be sending out my weekly newsletter to paid supporters in which I recommend a terrific book about how Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie overcame racism and helped create the culture we live in today. There are other goodies as well: a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week. For just $6 month, you can become a supporter as well. I hope you’ll consider it. Just click here.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that more and more newsletters written by independent journalists are disappearing behind paywalls. It’s hard to know where it’s going to end. Subscription fatigue is real, and I can’t imagine that anyone except the most hardcore news consumer is going to pay for more than one or two newspapers, one or two magazines and a few newsletters. Even that’s a lot.
Since launching Media Nation in 2005, I have kept it free and open to all. That’s not going to change. Several years ago, though, I started a supporters tier so that readers who value my work could pay a small monthly fee in return for a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week. The newsletter is strictly an extra — a thank you. The real work continues to take place here, where anyone can access it.
I hope you will consider supporting this free source of news and commentary. The cost is $6 a month, and you can sign up by clicking here.
Ibram X. Kendi. Photo (cc) 2019 by Tony Turner Photography.
The Emancipator, a digital magazine covering racial justice that was launched with great fanfare four years ago, is leaving Boston.
The project was originally a joint venture of The Boston Globe’s opinion section and the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. The Globe ended its involvement two years later. The Emancipator will now be based at Howard University, the leading historically Black university.
The move was actually announced back in February, but it will formally take place on Monday, the last day of the academic year. Co-founder Ibram X. Kendi, the well-known antiracism scholar, is leaving BU to take a position at Howard, and The Emancipator is following him to Washington.
Amber Payne, The Emancipator’s publisher, announced on Thursday that she’ll be stepping down, writing:
After June 30, The Emancipator will transition from Boston University to Howard University as part of our co-founder Ibram X. Kendi’s Institute for Advanced Study, which will be dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of racism in the global African Diaspora. The Emancipator will be part of the institute’s larger mission to enhance the general public’s understanding of racism and evidence-based antiracist solutions through academic and publicly accessible research, public lectures, events, workshops, and outreach programs.
Payne was originally hired as co-editor along with Deborah Douglas, who now teaches journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School and is director of Medill’s newly created Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub.
I’m trying something new with Media Nation: I’ve embedded my Bluesky feed in the right-hand rail (scroll down), and I’m using it to post shorter items of news and commentary that aren’t worth a full blog post. I should say that this is what I used to do with Twitter before Elon Musk (1) turned the place into a toxic cesspool and (2) changed the API so that embedded feeds no longer worked.
Admittedly this will work best for readers who are using a computer. If you’re reading Media Nation on your phone, you’ll need to scroll to somewhere near the bottom. Of course, you can also follow me on Bluesky.
This might mean that I’ll write fewer multi-item posts, since the short items I was including often were the sorts of things I used to post to Twitter. I also realize it’s not of much help to folks who get new Media Nation posts delivered by email. But as I said, the solution to that is to join Bluesky and follow me there. I promise to try to be substantive.
