Protesters on Monday in Biddeford, Maine. Photo (cc) 2026 by Emma Davis / Maine Morning Star.
For the second time in a week, an ICE agent has shot and killed a man, this time in Biddeford, Maine, southeast of Portland.
The circumstances are murky. The Trump regime claims that the victim of Monday’s shooting, a Colombian named Joan Sebastian Guerrero, was endangering public safety as he attempted to drive away. There’s no evidence for that, and given the official lies that were told about the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year, we have every reason to be skeptical. It’s notable, too, that Guerrero was reportedly not even the person ICE was looking for.
Earlier today, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office put out a photo and a statement saying that he’s sick, not dead or comatose. The conspiracy theories started immediately. I’ll begin with a straight-news post on Bluesky from Phil Lewis, an editor at HuffPost:
Social media users started questioning when the newspaper he’s holding had been published. I’ve seen suggestions that it’s from April. Well, no. In fact, it’s the front page today’s Washington Post sports section. (And minor props to McConnell for grabbing the sports pages.)
Even more ridiculous: You can see in the top photo that McConnell has the requisite four fingers and a thumb on his left hand. Almost immediately, though, an image started circulating showing McConnell with five fingers, thus “proving” that the photo is an AI fake. If you hadn’t seen the original, you might even believe it. mfa08 is an anonymous Bluesky account with 1,000 followers.
With the meltdown of Graham Platner’s U.S. Senate candidacy still playing out, I want to take a look at how The New York Times let it slip away.
The pieces are clearly visible, so you may already know where I’m going with this. But it’s worth tying them together and asking how the Times could come so close to breaking it wide open only to be relegated to the sidelines while Politico delivered the final blow.
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Early Monday afternoon, rumors began spreading on social media that a big story was about to break. Platner, a Maine Democrat, was reportedly canceling campaign events. Then it dropped: Politico published an interview with Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine woman, who claimed that in 2021 Platner entered her home and drunkenly, violently raped her.
GBH headquarters in Brighton, Mass. Photo (cc) 2011 by Commonist.
There are some new details today on how Boston’s two news-focused public media stations, GBH and WBUR, are faring a year after Donald Trump and the Republican Congress zeroed out all public funding.
Recently I wrote that GBH chief executive Susan Goldberg had sent a memo to her staff touting new levels of fundraising success, including more than 50,000 new donors and members as well as 3% raises for everyone. Now The Boston Globe’s Aidan Ryan expands on that (sub. req.), reporting, among other things, that GBH has begun a new statewide radio show in collaboration with New England Public Media of Massachusetts, with which it recently merged, and with its Cape Cod operation, CAI. (NEPM had technically been part of GBH since 2019.)
The weekly program, “In Common,” debuted on July 4 and will be broadcast on Saturdays at 2 p.m. It’s also available as a podcast, which is a good thing given that time slot.
As Mike Deehan first reported in Axios, GBH will also receive $500,000 in state money during the next fiscal year, which is a first for public media in Massachusetts. The money comes from the millionaires’ tax, which is restricted to education and transportation. Ryan reports that the money will be spent on children’s television programs.
Fundraising and revenue from events are up at WBUR as well, Ryan writes, noting that WBUR and GBH are fundamentally two different types of entities — although both are committed to digital, GBH has a massive television operation in addition to a local radio station, whereas ’BUR is primarily a radio station. It’s in radio that the two operations compete on local news coverage.
Last August I wrote for CommonWealth Beacon on plans Goldberg and WBUR chief executive Margaret Low were making to negotiate the post-federal-funding era. At a webinar sponsored by the New England chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, they said they planned to emphasize trust and community.
That approach seems to be working so far, with the public responding to the harm done by Trump and his legislative lemmings. The question is whether public media outlets across the country can hang on until January 2029, when the political tides may shift in the White House and in one or both branches of Congress.
This is what the top of The Boston Globe’s homepage looks like today. When I checked out the e-paper, I saw that the first two pages are given over to 1776. If you’re a home delivery subscriber, I’d be curious to know exactly what it looks like in print. Is it the front page, or is it tucked inside somewhere?
More: My wife picked up a print edition at Wegmans. Nicely done!
As Sophie Culpepper correctly observes at Nieman Lab, book reviews in the mainstream press are fading away, with The Washington Post folding its standalone books section and The Associated Press getting rid of reviews.
Now Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has taken matters into its own hands. Culpepper reports that co-owner Josh Cook has launched something called the Porter Square Review of Books, which is publishing one review every week or so. Cook tells Culpepper:
A lot of bookselling is the first couple steps of writing a book review anyway. You assess it to see if you like it, you figure out how you’re going to describe it to other people, you decide whether you’re going to finish it … We already are part of the way there. Why not just see if we could do it?
It’s a positive step, but it’s hardly the only innovative attempt at keeping book reviews alive. So let me remind you of a couple that I’ve mentioned during the past several years.
📚 Midbrow, originally the Independent Review Crew, is a nonprofit project launched by New Haven Independent founder Paul Bass in 2023. Midbrow’s mission is to revive arts and culture reviewing across all genres — including books — in the spirit of the old alternative press. (Bass himself wrote about politics for the now-defunct New Haven Advocate for many years.)
Midbrow’s content is published on its own website and in eight cities that have correspondents. Boston is not among them at the moment, although in the past there was a local writer whose work was republished by Universal Hub. Bass talked about Midrow with Ellen Clegg and me on our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” around the time of its launch.
📚 The Arts Fuse, begun in 2007, offers high-brow arts criticism — again, including books — in the spirit of the late, great Boston Phoenix, where founder Bill Marx was a longtime critic and where I worked for many years as the media columnist. I’m an occasional contributor to The Arts Fuse, and in fact I’m working on a book review for Marx right now. The nonprofit, according to its website, is “a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries.”
📚 Marx is also a co-founder of Viva la Book Review, a nonprofit project aimed at fostering “thoughtful, well-crafted book criticism in community news media across the country,” as Ellen and I put it in our introduction to Marx’s appearance on “What Works” in 2025. We had a great conversation about how book reviewing intersects with local news.
📚 Finally, another former Phoenix colleague of mine, acclaimed author Nina MacLaughlin, started an email newsletter after The Boston Globe short-sightedly dropped her Sunday column about local book news. MacLaughlin now writes essentially the same column on her own. She doesn’t write reviews; rather, she rounds up news about literary happenings in Boston and across the region. It’s called New England Literary News, and yes, you should subscribe.
A trusted source just sent along an unexpectedly upbeat message to the staff from Susan Goldberg, CEO of GBH, one of Boston’s two major news-focused public media outlets.
GBH has been cutting local programming since before Donald Trump and the Republican Congress zeroed out funding for public media. It’s also added some back, and it recently completed a merger with New England Public Media in Western Massachusetts. But it was only in March that Goldberg told Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan that she was interested in merging (sub. req.) with GBH’s main rival, WBUR — something that the latter’s general manager, Margaret Low, sounded distinctly uninterested in.
Anyway, Goldberg emphasizes the positive in her missive to employees, writing that GBH has broken fundraising records, added 50,000 members and supporters, and created news business models, especially on YouTube. And she puts the operation’s money where her mouth is, annoucing 3% across-the-board raises. Her full message follows.
Folks,
It was just over 11 months ago that Congress clawed back $1.1 billion from public media — a vote that ultimately cost GBH alone some $20 million a year. And that doesn’t count the millions of dollars we also lost when a different federal program that paid for children’s programming was suspended.
Without a doubt, it was a big hit.
Today, a week away from the close of FY26, we officially can celebrate what has turned out to be a remarkable and enormously successful year. Despite that rocky start — and because of your hard work, ingenuity, and determination — we:
— Broke fundraising records across the board, at every giving level, age range, geography, and platform.
— Added more than 50,000 new members and supporters (with half signing up as sustainers), bringing total membership among GBH, NEPM, and CAI to more than 250,000.
— Gained efficiencies and synergies by breaking down silos, including the new documentary unit (especially with digital strategies), and the merger with NEPM, which will allow true collaborations statewide on everything from news to development to marketing.
— Began in earnest to create new business models, including an advertising strategy on YouTube, a broader footprint for sponsorship across platforms, and the formation of a brand studio.
— Kept a tight rein on expenses and hiring, operating nimbly across the organization. Keep it up!
— Expanded our excellent, relevant, and, at times, revelatory storytelling, with new programs and dramas designed to make a difference — and attract audiences and attention.
We are delighted to be able to acknowledge these financial and creative successes with across-the-board raises of 3% — approved by our Board of Trustees at their June meeting — and, additionally, bonuses tied to individual performance.
We are proud of what we have accomplished, and thrilled a year that started in a trough ended in a triumph. None of it would have happened without you.
As we turn our attention to FY27, we have the opportunity to be proactive — rather than just reactive — about our goals. The last year gives us an incredible foundation on which to build, and there is much exciting work ahead to cement and multiply these gains.
This year should remind us that people of all ages and stages believe in our mission, and that they’ll take direct action to keep it, helping us expand our work on every platform — for kids, communities, news junkies, music buffs, documentary watchers, social media followers, and more.
As I think about the last 12 months, I feel inspired by where we’ve been — and energized about where we’re going. I hope you feel the same way.
Thank you again for all you did to make it possible, and congratulations.
Fintan O’Toole’s review in The New York Times of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” includes a perfect summation of the fundamental challenge to journalism in the Age of Trump:
The profession is shaped by an assumption that has been around at least since the Greek tragedians: Revelation is followed by reversal. When Oedipus’ (or Richard Nixon’s) crimes are exposed, he must fall from power. But not so Trump. With a few notable exceptions, he relies on a collective shrug of indifference from those in his support system, and defies exposure. What can journalists do in a world where there is no shame and, apparently, no consequence?
It calls to mind then-Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron’s well-known response to a question about whether the Post was at war with Trump. “We’re not at war with the administration, we’re at work,” he replied — a succinct statement of how journalists should approach their coverage.
John Yemma, at the far end of the conference table, presides over a news meeting at The Christian Science Monitor. Photo (cc) 2011 by Dan Kennedy.
John Yemma, the retired top editor of The Christian Science Monitor, whose journalism career was long and distinguished, died June 10 at 74. If you’re a Boston Globe subscriber, I recommend this obituary, written by Bryan Marquard wrote. If not, you should read this.
Yemma filled a number of top positions at the Globe, but it was at the Monitor that I got to spend some time with him in reporting a 2009 story for CommonWealth Magazine (now CommonWealth Beacon) about his plans to reinvent the venerable newspaper for the digital age. He struck me as someone who is fundamentally serene and kind, confirmed by the tributes I’ve seen pouring in for him the past few days.
The basics of Yemma’s plan for the Monitor are still in place: a daily email newsletter; a digital-first approach to covering the news; and a weekly print magazine gathering the best of the Monitor’s journalism. The Monitor’s journalistic approach might be described as calm and solutions-oriented, and it remains a first-rate news organization. Here’s what I wrote in 2009.
Second life
The Christian Science Monitor reinvents itself for the digital age
CommonWealth Magazine | Jan. 20, 2009
Sometime this April, one of New England’s most venerable daily newspapers will cease to be a daily newspaper.
The Christian Science Monitor, which marked its 100th anniversary this past November, is beginning its second century as a multi-platform, multimedia news organization. Central to this new identity will be its free website, CSMonitor.com, begun a dozen years ago and now freed from the constraints of the daily print cycle. The website, in turn, will be supplemented by a daily email edition and a weekly, subscriber-supported magazine.
Though the transformation has long been anticipated, it nevertheless represents a signal moment for the five-days-a-week paper, whose circulation exceeded 230,000 at its peak in the early 1970s. (It’s currently around 55,000.) A few small, local papers have abandoned their daily print editions, but the Monitor is the first national paper to do so.
Eddie Andelman. Boston Herald Radio photo via YouTube.
Sports radio pioneer Eddie Andelman has died at 89. I grew up listening to Andelman, and in 1997 I had a chance to write a profile of him for Northeastern Magazine, which was Northeastern University’s alumni publication at the time; Andelman earned his MBA in 1962.
An anecdote that didn’t make it into the story: In the summer of 1975, Andelman, who was then a contributor to one of the local TV stations, was standing outside Park Station, offering $5 to anyone who could spell “Yastrzemski.” I nailed it, and appeared on the news that evening.
Like all of us, Andelman had his good and bad sides. I was glad that the magazine didn’t insist on hagiography, although in retrospect I wish we had described a racist joke Andelman told on the air as, you know, racist. As you’ll see, we settled on “outrageous.” It was worse than that, and that’s not just on him but on me and my editor, too.
Getting a handle on Eddie Andelman
Northeastern Magazine | May 1997
It’s a few minutes before airtime, and Eddie Andelman, MBA’62, is going over some final instructions with one of his producers.
“You got any of that holy music?” Andelman asks. The producer replies in the affirmative. Andelman runs down the list. A burst of “The Hallelujah Chorus”? Check. Hank Williams singing “Jambalaya”? Check.
