The power to rename things and to demand that others recognize that power is something that is right out of the authoritarian’s playbook. So if you think Donald Trump’s insistence that we refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America isn’t a big deal, think again. By getting us to go along, he makes us complicit.
Earlier today I wrote that Google Maps is now using the Gulf of America name despite 400 years of custom and a complete lack of international support. Now comes more ominous news: The Associated Press, which issued style guidance that keeps it as the Gulf of Mexico, says the Trump administration denied AP journalists access to a White House event. Here is what AP executive editor Julie Pace said:
Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.
It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.
The AP Stylebook is the industry standard, used not just by the agency’s own journalists but by many other news organizations besides. I hope the AP stands firm.
And shame on Google. Throughout the day, I saw anti-Trump folks on social media announce they would switch to Apple Maps or Microsoft’s Bing Maps. It’s futile. They’re standing fast for now, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or both of them give in a few days from now.
Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan has written an interesting examination of what’s gone wrong at the Portland Press Herald and other papers that are part of the Maine Trust for Local News.
On the one hand, the story feels provisional — we still don’t know why two top executives left suddenly, and severe cuts that observers had told me were coming are, well, still coming. The executives who left recently were Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, co-founder and CEO of the National Trust for Local News, which acquired the papers in 2023, and Lisa DeSisto, CEO of the Maine Trust — and, before that, publisher of the Press Herald. Other top people have departed as well.
On the other hand, Ryan has some details I hadn’t seen before. For one thing, the Trust reported that it lost $500,000 in 2024 as the decline of advertising outpaced gains in digital subscription revenue.
More shocking is that former owner Reade Brower apparently considered David Smith as a potential buyer before selling to the National Trust. Smith, the head of the right-wing television network Sinclair Broadcasting, is currently turning The Baltimore Sun into an embarrassment. Sinclair owns WGME-TV (Channel 13) in Portland, so who knows what sort of synergistic hell Smith had in mind.
Brower instead sold the papers to the National Trust for $15 million (a figure that’s being reported for the first time from documents that Ryan obtained) in the hope that a nonprofit organization would prove to be a better steward.
One data point I do want to address is Dr. Hansen Shapiro’s compensation, reported in the National Trust’s public 1099 filings and noted by both the Press Herald at the time that she stepped down and now by the Globe.
Hansen Shapiro did make a lot of money — nearly $371,000 in 2023 compared to just $117,000 in 2021. At the same time, though, 2021 was when the Trust pulled off its first deal, buying 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in the Denver suburbs. The Trust today owns 65 papers in Colorado, Georgia and Maine. Given the Trust’s pivot to a hands-on operating role, Hansen Shapiro’s job responsibilities changed as well.
I’m not writing this to defend her compensation or, for that matter, the Trust’s change of focus. But it’s important context to think about.
“Journalists employed by the Maine Trust said while they remain hopeful about the new ownership, they question aspects of its approach,” Ryan writes, who notes that no one among the rank and file would speak with him on the record “because they feared retaliation.”
Finally, my usual disclosures: Ellen Clegg and I interviewed Hansen Shapiro for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and featured her on our podcast; we are both professional friends with DeSisto; and we gave a book talk at a fundraiser for the Maine Trust last fall.
Google caves
I learned this last night from journalist Dan Gillmor’s Bluesky feed: Google has apparently become the first of the internet map publishers to give in to Donald Trump’s ridiculous demand that the Gulf of Mexico now be referred to as the Gulf of America.
“I typed Gulf of Mexico into Google Maps,” Gillmor wrote. “It edited my query without permission and showed me the Trump cult invention that isn’t and never will be the real thing.”
At least as of this writing, Apple Maps and Microsoft’s Bing Maps are sticking with the Gulf of Mexico. But who knows what we’ll find tomorrow?
After Trump announced that he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Denali mountain in Alaska (it is reverting back to Mount McKinley), The Associated Press issued guidance for its bureaus and any other news outlets who use its stylebook.
The AP will continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico, which is an international body of water whose name has 400 years of tradition behind it; but it will go along with Mount McKinley because it is entirely on U.S. territory. It was only in 2015 that President Barack Obama issued an order restoring the mountain’s original Indigenous name.
By the way, the U.S. Geological Survey is going with Gulf of America too — but that’s hardly surprising given that it’s a federal agency.
No thanks to their owners
Good work is the best answer to the damage that two billionaire owners have done to their storied newspapers.
Semafor reports that The Washington Post has seen an upsurge in web traffic since Trump’s chaotic return to office, notwithstanding owner Jeff Bezos’ untimely killing of a Kamala Harris endorsement just before the election. One especially hot story: a report on the White House’s illegal federal spending freeze.
Meanwhile, Sarah Scire reports for Nieman Lab that the Los Angeles Times experienced a rise in paid subscriptions during the recent wildfires even though the paper had temporarily dropped its paywall. Like Bezos, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong canceled a Harris endorsement, provoking outrage, resignations and cancellations.
FCC chair Brendan Carr. Photo (cc) by Gage Skidmore.
Donald Trump is unleashing so much chaos in service to his authoritarian agenda that it is literally impossible to keep up. So today let’s just look at how Trump is threatening the broadcast news media.
Trump’s tool in this battle is Brendan Carr, whom he appointed to the Federal Communications Commission in 2017 and then recently elevated to the chairmanship. There are currently four members of the FCC — two Republicans, two Democrats and one vacancy, which Trump will presumably fill in the near future.
Not that the current tie matters. Carr helped author Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term that Trump said he knew nothing about during the campaign. Among other things, Carr wrote that the FCC chair has extra special powers that the other members of the commission lack. Thus Carr is large and in charge, at least until someone with power challenges him.
I want to share with you just three actions that Carr has taken during his brief time as chair, all of which represent a threat to the media’s ability to provide us with the news and information we need in a democratic society.
◘ First, he is helping Trump with his bogus $10 billion lawsuit against CBS. Trump is suing the network over an interview that “60 Minutes” conducted last fall with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, claiming that the program was edited to make Harris sound more coherent than she really was.
CBS responded that it edits all of its recorded interviews, and that there was nothing unusual about the way it handled its conversation with Harris. (And really? If you watched her debate Trump or listened to her long, unedited conversations with Howard Stern and Alexandra Cooper, you know she has no problem speaking extemporaneously.) Nevertheless, the network may be on the verge of settling the lawsuit, perhaps to ease the regulatory path for CBS’s parent company, Paramount, to merge with Skydance, as Alena Botros writes for Fortune.
Carr, for his part, placed the FCC’s heavy thumb on the scale by ordering CBS to turn over the raw footage and transcripts of the Harris interview, thus making use of a public agency’s regulatory authority to help Trump do his dirty work, as David Folkenflik reports for NPR. To be clear: Trump would likely have gotten those materials anyway in the course of pre-trial discovery. Carr’s actions serve the purpose of amplifying Trump’s fact-free claim that there was something corrupt about how the interview was edited.
“60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens has said he will not apologize as part of any settlement, according to Michael Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin of The New York Times. Which raises a question: Will he resign? And if he does, will others follow him out the door?
◘ Second, and speaking of NPR, Carr has announced that he’s investigating NPR and PBS to see whether the public broadcasters’ underwriting practices violate their noncommercial mandate.
According to Liam Reilly of CNN, Carr is “concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” adding: “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
Well, guess what? A lot of underwriting announcements on NPR and PBS do seem like commercials. They’re more restrained than what’s on commercial television and radio, and tbut when a cruise line pops up before or after the “PBS NewsHour,” or when a rug company’s sponsorship is heard on WBUR Radio, it’s because they want you to take a cruise or buy a rug.
Public broadcasters have to get their money from somebody, and it can’t all come from viewers (and listeners) like you. Very little in the way of tax revenues support PBS and NPR. The rest of it has to come from foundation grants and corporate underwriting. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the BNSF Railway notice that sometimes appears on the “NewsHour,” but that’s because I like trains.
What Carr’s doing is pure harassment.
◘ Third, Carr said last week that the FCC is investigating a San Francisco radio station for the offense of committing journalism. Garrett Leahy reports in The San Francisco Standard that KCBS revealed the location of agents from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and identified their unmarked vehicles in a place “known for violent gang activity.”
“We have sent a letter of inquiry, a formal investigation into that matter, and they have just a matter of days left to respond to that inquiry and explain how this could possibly be consistent with their public-interest obligations,” said Carr, who made his remarks during an appearance on — where else? — Fox News.
According to Leahy, KCBS declined to comment. But Juan Carlos Lara of public radio station KQED interviewed David Loy, legal director of the California-based First Amendment Coalition, who said:
Law enforcement operations, immigration or otherwise, are matters of public interest. People generally have the right to report this on social media and in print and so on. So it’s very troubling because it’s possible the FCC is potentially being weaponized to crack down on reporting that the administration simply just doesn’t like.
No doubt there will be much more to say about Carr in the months ahead. For now, it’s enough to observe that he is off to a predictably ominous start.
News organizations are loading up on stories about Donald Trump’s ridiculous and offensive proposal that the U.S. take over Gaza, relocate its Palestinian residents to Egypt and Jordan, and turn it into a beach resort. At the moment, for instance, The New York Times homepage leads with five stories about Trump and Gaza. The lead headline in The Boston Globe’s print edition is “Audacious Gaza idea has officials scrambling.” (Audacious?)
But we’re also hearing warnings not to get too caught up in Trump’s latest outrage of the day. The real news, we’re told, is that Elon Musk and his merry band of 19-year-olds are illegally taking a wrecking ball to the government, blowing a hole through privacy protections and potentially interfering with federal payment systems.
For instance, Patrick Reiss, who produces a daily newsletter for Vox called The Logoff, writes:
Beware the shiny object: So often, Trump says something wild that takes everyone’s focus and stirs up outrage — and then it gets walked back. It takes all of our attention, but we end up right where we started…. Trump right now is attempting to massively expand his power over the US government, and he’s using that expanded power to make policy moves with ramifications at home and all over the world. That’s the Trump story to keep tracking.
If you’re not familiar with The Logoff, it’s a short daily newsletter that focuses on one Trump story in the news. It’s designed to help you avoid doomscrolling through an endless stream of updates about Trump’s latest shockers. I learned about it from Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab, and I recommend it. You can sign up here.
All that said, I’m not so sure that Trump isn’t serious about Gaza, and shame on the news media for paying so little attention when he brought it up last fall. What? You don’t remember? I do. To his credit, John T. Bennett wrote a long news analysis for Roll Call last October after Trump. Here’s how it began:
A Middle East Monaco? That was what former President Donald Trump recently floated for post-war Gaza — but there are reasons why the concept has yet to gain traction.
Prompted by a conservative radio host earlier this month, the Republican presidential nominee and real estate mogul suggested the obliterated strip one day could rival the ritzy city-state that has become a playground for the world’s rich and famous along the French Riviera.
Trump made those remarks in an interview with right-wing talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt, in which he lied (according to PolitiFact) about having visited Gaza at one time. He told Hewitt: “You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place — the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate. It could be so beautiful. It could be the best thing in the Middle East, but it could be one of the best places in the world.”
Axios mentioned it but put the emphasis on Trump’s lie about having visited Gaza. The much-maligned Newsweek published a story about it. But there was very little mainstream pickup. After all, Roll Call isn’t exactly breakfast-table reading in most homes. The Times even reported on the Trump family’s plan to build a luxury hotel in Israel without making any reference to Trump’s Gaza musings.
Given that this has been rattling around Trump’s head for months, maybe we ought to take it as something more than a distraction from President Musk’s activities. And given that his son-in-law Jared Kushner had previously talked about moving the Palestinian residents out and building and that its waterfront property was “very valuable,” as Patrick Wintour of The Guardian reported in March 2024, maybe we ought to take it very seriously indeed.
Is it going to happen? To quote Patrick Reiss again, “almost certainly not.” As Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman report in the Times (gift link), Trump simply blurted out his idea in a joint appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without any preparation. “There was little beyond an idea inside the president’s head,” they wrote.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to do it. The media simultaneously give Trump too much and too little credit at moments like this. Too much: Oh, he’s a mastermind, blurting out crap to distract us from what’s really important. Too little: He’s an idiot, he doesn’t really mean it, don’t worry about it.
I hope this crazy story will fade away in a day or two. But I wouldn’t be so sure.
Some very good news for freedom of the press in Massachusetts: Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone has ruled that Boston magazine reporter Gretchen Voss will not be compelled to produce notes she took from an off-the-record interview with murder suspect Karen Read (earlier coverage).
The ruling was first reported by Lance Reynolds of the Boston Herald.
Cannone’s decision reverses an order she had issued in December that would have required Voss to turn over her notes. In so doing, the judge found that those notes “are of a different character than the unredacted recordings of the ‘on the record’ interviews produced pursuant to the Court’s previous order.” Cannone continues:
Voss has articulated a compelling argument that requiring disclosure of the notes poses a greater risk to the free flow of information than the other materials produced. Conversely, the Commonwealth [that is, the prosecution] has not demonstrated to the Court that its need for the handwritten notes, separate from the audio recordings, outweighs the danger posed to the public interest in the free flow of information.
What Cannone is referring to is her earlier decision to allow the prosecution access to recordings Voss had made in the course of interviewing Read. The judge’s new decision, handed down on Friday, pertains to handwritten notes that Voss had taken while conducting an off-the-record interview with Read in June 2023. In an affidavit, Voss said:
The entire meeting was off the record; I agreed in advance with Ms. Read and her lawyers that if there were any quotes I wanted to attribute to her during this meeting, I would need her and their express permission. As I did not actually use any of Ms. Read’s statements from that meeting in the article, such permission did not end up being necessary.
Moreover, Voss said, being forced to turn over her notes would open herself up to a campaign of villification that began after her article about the case was published in September 2023 and had only recently begun to abate:
[T]he notes, standing alone, will likely require further explanation on my part to make sense of them. I have already suffered an enormous emotional toll from publishing this story: I have been routinely harassed, both online and in person; have received text messages from strangers to my private cell phone containing photographs of my children and indirect threats against them; have had my photograph posted without my consent on Facebook, with hordes of strangers accusing me of unethical behavior and other defamatory accusations; have been approached, verbally assaulted and photographed without my consent in public, including in the courthouse, among many, many other acts and incidents against my person, my family, my character and my career. While the level of harassment has subsided somewhat over time, I have no doubt it will pick up again if my interview with Ms. Read becomes an issue for debate at trial.
A separate affidavit was submitted by BoMag editor Chris Vogel, who said that allowing Cannone’s earlier order to stand would impede investigative reporting because it would increase the costs and resources necessary to produce such work. “Magazines like ours will not be able to risk becoming enmeshed in situations such as this one, with the result that the flow of vigorous reporting will suffer,” Vogel said. “We will feel we have no choice but to select tamer, less controversial topics for our coverage.” Continue reading “Boston magazine ruling advances press freedom; plus, a tale of two obits, and the late Ted Rowse”
I want to express a contrarian view regarding Jim Acosta’s departure from CNN. As you may know, Costa announced this morning that he’s leaving after CEO Mark Thompson told him he was being moved off his 10 a.m. program, which draws good ratings. Costa decided to leave after rejecting Thompson’s offer to be moved from midnight to 2 a.m.
This is widely being portrayed as another example of a media outlet doing Donald Trump’s bidding. Costa is not one of Trump’s favorites, to put it mildly; his White House press credentials were briefly revoked following a confrontation between him and Trump in 2018, and he has used his morning show to speak truth to power. That’s something we need more of.
Acosta’s admirers have been erupting in outrage on social media. Political commentator Chris Cillizza did not offer a benign interpretation, writing, “Acosta’s removal … is rightly understood as a piece of a broader movement of the legacy media to accommodate Trump — or at least take a far-less adversarial tack in covering his second term.”
Media writer Oliver Darcy, who first broke the news that Acosta might be leaving, wrote that the “move … conspicuously coincided with Donald Trump’s return to power.”
“Just Jack,” who has nearly 435,000 followers on Bluesky, added, “Jim Acosta is leaving CNN. He will not capitulate to his oligarch bosses. He will not kiss the Trump ring.”
Now, I don’t have any insight into what went on behind the scenes at CNN, but I don’t think this is as bad as it sounds. As Darcy observes, Acosta’s midnight special would have run in prime time, from 9 to 11 p.m., on the West Coast, which is traditionally underserved by network television.
About 50 million Americans live in that time zone, which includes major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland and Seattle. Moreover, CNN was reportedly willing to pay for Acosta to move to Los Angeles.
I can also understand why Thompson might want to move away from an opinionated show in the morning and replace it with straight news. The 10 a.m.-to-noon slot will now be anchored by Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown.
Could this be an example of CNN caving in to Trump? Yes, it could. As I said, I have no insight into what’s going on behind the scenes. But more news and less opinion in the morning coupled with a capable host like Acosta anchoring during prime time on the West Coast does not strike me as unreasonable. In fact, it seems like it could have been a pretty smart move.
But Acosta said no, leave us to wonder what’s next. In his sign-off, he said he’ll be announcing something soon. MSNBC is a possibility, although its lineup seems to be getting pretty crowded. Maybe he’ll do something completely unexpected.
The Massachusetts Statehouse. Photo (cc) 2024 by Dan Kennedy.
One of the first media pieces I wrote for The Boston Phoenix was about the declining number of reporters who were covering state government in Massachusetts. I spent some time in the press gallery at the Statehouse interviewing members of the shrinking press corps, including Carolyn Ryan, then with The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, now managing editor of The New York Times.
Although I can’t find the story online, I know this was in 1995 or thereabouts. The situation has not improved over the past 30 years.
Last week Gintautas Dumcius of CommonWealth Beacon, who definitely knows his way around the Statehouse, reported that The Associated Press’ Steve LeBlanc is leaving Beacon Hill after taking a buyout and is unlikely to be replaced. Although an AP spokesman said the wire service will continue to cover the Legislature, Glen Johnson, who’s a former AP Statehouse bureau chief, told Dumcius that it won’t be the same without someone in the building:
There’s no substitute for being physically present where news happens and in a statehouse, there’s few things more powerful than being able to confront a newsmaker in person and at times other than official events. That only comes from proximity to power….
Some of the biggest stories I got as a statehouse reporter came because I bumped into somebody unexpectedly or saw something that I otherwise wouldn’t have seen.
As Dumcius points out, the move comes at a time when two newspaper chains owned by hedge funds, Gannett and McClatchy, have dropped the AP as a cost-cutting move. It’s a vicious circle. An AP subscription is expensive. News organizations walk away. The AP is left with fewer clients and thus has to increase its prices even more or cut back on coverage. Or both.
Jerry Berger, a former Statehouse bureau chief for United Press International who’s now a journalism professor at Boston University, recalls a time when the AP and UPI competed fiercely for news about state government. In his newsletter, “In Other Words…,” Berger says:
The Massachusetts Statehouse Press Gallery used to be a rowdy and raucous place, where reporters for two wire services and outlets from around the state worked side-by-side, in fierce competition, to document the daily workings of Massachusetts government.
Today, you can hear a pin drop — and the echoes just got a bit louder with word the Associated Press no longer has someone stationed in Room 456.
While I continue on my trip down memory lane, I’ll observe here that The Daily Times Chronicle of Woburn, where I worked in the 1980s, got its Statehouse news from UPI. I used to do a bit of stringing for the agency, and I think I’m the only freelancer who ever wrote for UPI and got all the money that was due him. Today, as Berger notes, UPI is owned by a company affiliated with the Unification Church, once headed by the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Fortunately, there are still multiple news outlets covering state government in Massachusetts, including The Boston Globe, State House News Service, CommonWealth Beacon, Politico, WBUR, GBH News and local television newscasts. Just last week on our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” Ellen Clegg and I interviewed Alison Bethel, the chief content officer and editor-in-chief of State Affairs, yet another statehouse-focused news organization that is rolling out a Massachusetts edition in partnership with State House News.
Still, it’s a far cry from when the Statehouse press gallery was full of reporters hanging on every word from governors, legislative leaders and reform-minded rebels — that last category something that has virtually disappeared. Maybe if there were a few more reporters at the Statehouse keeping tabs on what’s going on, there would be a few more rebels as well.
More on the AP
The Associated Press is in the news for two other reasons today.
First, editors of the influential AP Stylebook have announced that they’re sticking with the Gulf of Mexico, despite President Trump’s insistence that it be called the Gulf of America, but that they’re following Trump’s lead in referring to Alaska’s Denali mountain as Mount McKinley, as it had been known previously.
The reason, the AP explains, is that the Gulf of Mexico name goes back 400 years and that the body of water is international. Denali, by contrast, is entirely within U.S. borders, and the president has the right to change its name by executive order, as President Barack Obama did in 2015.
Second, a new documentary film claims that AP photographer Nick Ut did not take an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of a Vietnamese girl running naked from an American napalm attack, an image that may have hastened the end of the Vietnam War. The AP vociferously disagrees, saying that its own investigation shows Ut was indeed the photographer. Poynter media columnist Tom Jones has the details (fourth item).
I find my Northeastern journalism ethics students’ analyses of the news fascinating and insightful, so I want to share with you their latest. I asked them to find a piece of journalism related to the inauguration — straight news, opinion, whatever — and share it along with some commentary of their own. They came up with a great mix of mainstream and alternative sources, and all of the pieces are worthwhile. It’s a small class, so I’m going to present the eight that I received plus one I thought was worth adding to the mix.
On day one, Trump pits his administration against transgender people, by Orion Rummler and Kate Sosin, The 19th. Student comment: “I think a lot of journalists and platforms will have to test the limits of our good friend neutral objectivity over the next four years, especially when it comes to reporting on the trans community. With trans rights being a popular and divisive issue right now, a lot of questions about objectivity come to mind…. If news organizations continue to give a lot of space to this ‘debate’ on trans rights (although trans people represent less than 2% of the US population), it almost validates the idea that there is a debate to be had on whether or not trans people deserve to exist.”
Three ways Democrats are breaking with tradition before inauguration,by James FitzGerald, BBC News. Student comment: “Democrats have emphasized the importance of peaceful transfers of power but are seemingly following in Trump’s footsteps by abandoning the traditions in place…. Democrats following Republicans’ lead in breaking with tradition could further destabilize democracy and the public’s trust in institutions.”
Pomp, Policy, and Pardons, by Jon Allsop, Columbia Journalism Review. Student comment: “I’m still burnt out from the first four years of Trump, to be honest, so I appreciate round-ups like this CJR one.”
Bishop Asks Trump to “Have Mercy” on Immigrants and Gay Children,by Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tim Balk and Erica L. Green, New York Times. Student comment: “As member of LGBTIAQ+ community, hearing President Trump talk about taking away millions of people’s right, including my own, was dehumanizing…. It was courageous of the Bishop to speak out in that particular enviroment — most of the people invited might have been too afraid to do so — therefore I applaud her for that.”
Welcome Home, by Tom Scocca, Defector. Student comment: “What I enjoyed most from this article was its forthrightness. Scocca understands that getting to a point like this means that almost everyone, whether consciously or not, has played a part. To elide that while laying out ethical issues as they currently stand is itself unethical.”
6 takeaways from Trump’s inaugural address, by Aaron Blake, Washington Post. Student comment: “From the journalist’s perspective, I think fact-checking is a fundamental part of journalism, but it became even more critical under the Trump administration. Given his frequent use of misleading statements and false claims, journalists had a greater responsibility to verify information and contextualize his rhetoric.”
Trump’s Inauguration Speech Threatened New Depths of State Cruelty,by David Renton, Truthout. Student comment: “While I, personally, may not need a terrible amount of convincing to believe Trump’s intentions are cruel, I think this simple and concise piece would do a fine job of leading anyone to understand this underlying connection. That being said, most ardent supporters would likely entirely dismiss every claim. So maybe Renton is preaching to the choir.”
4 takeaways from Trump’s second inaugural address,by Domenico Montanaro, NPR. Student comment: “What caught my eye in the article is that Trump spoke of very specific plans for the next four years during his official address to the country. However, this was all on a script he read off a teleprompter. Later on, he gave a non-scripted speech to supporters to purposely reveal more plans. The questions I, as a journalist have, start with, if journalists have to be transparent with the public, why does the president not have to? Should a president not be held to a higher standard when dealing with the public? Why is Trump not being criticized more for this?”
And, finally, my own find:
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, by Oliver Darcy, Status. My comment: “Darcy documents all the national media figures who’ve been highly critical of Donald Trump in the past but who rolled over for him on Monday…. I thought Darcy did a great job of combining reporting, opinion and attitude. By focusing on how the media covered the inauguration rather than the inauguration itself, he provided valuable insights into an aspect of the day that wasn’t center stage.”
Media notes
• Too much Trump? Joshua Benton, writing at Nieman Lab, introduces a daily newsletter from Vox that catches you up on the major Trump news of the day without wallowing in it. The Logoff, produced by a top Vox editor, Patrick Reiss, comprises one short item and then hands you off to something more uplifting at the close. I’ve signed up, and I think it will definitely be useful for some people, though it’s probably not enough for someone who needs to be immersed in the news — like Reiss, for instance. Or me.
• This was CNN. Mark Thompson, the news network’s chief executive, explains his plans to implement cuts on the broadcast side, beef up digital and stave of the apocalypse as the audience for linear TV continues to shrink and age. Thompson may have saved The New York Times in his last job. But based on what he says in his interview with the Times’ Benjamin Mullin (gift link), I’d say his mission to save CNN sounds infinitely more complex, and perhaps undoable.
• The end of social media. It is surely worth noting that all of our major social media platforms are now in thrall to Trump — Twitter/X, TikTok and Meta’s various services, which include Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Bluesky (where I’m most active these days) and Mastodon are barely a blip. Writing at 404 Media, Jason Koebler argues that what we need are decentralization combined with interoperability. It’s a great idea — and firmly rooted in a democratic vision for media that has been receding almost from the moment that the internet evolved into a mass medium.
Boston Globe Media is acquiring Boston magazine, thus consummating a deal whose existence I revealed on Dec. 6. The glossy monthly, which combines lifestyle features with some serious investigative reporting, will continue with its current staff, as Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan writes that no one will lose their jobs in the transaction. Globe Media CEO Linda Henry is quoted as saying:
As so many other iconic publications that once shaped our city have faded away, we feel an immense responsibility to honor and preserve Boston magazine’s legacy. This is not just about sustaining a magazine — it’s about strengthening a cornerstone of Boston’s identity and ensuring its stories continue to inspire, connect, and resonate with our community for generations to come.
It will be interesting to see how the Globe integrates BoMag with its existing Sunday magazine given that the two publications overlap to some extent.
Boston magazine was purchased in 1970 by the late D. Herbert Lipson from the city’s chamber of commerce. Lipson, who was based in Philadelphia, was also the owner of Philadelphia magazine and was involved in several other publishing ventures over the years as well. The company he created, Metrocorp, is still family-owned, with his son David H. Lipson Jr. serving as chairman and CEO.
BoMag’s circulation is around 55,000, down from 75,000 in 2018, according to Ryan’s story.
Back when I was working for The Boston Phoenix, we considered Boston magazine to be one of our principal rivals given that its mix of long-form reporting, arts and culture was in our wheelhouse as well. The Phoenix closed in 2013, and BoMag has carried on in an increasingly difficult media environment.
The Globe, meanwhile, is profitable and growing, although it’s been making some cuts recently. Among other things, the paper has ended my former Phoenix colleague Nina MacLaughlin‘s excellent Sunday column as it dials back its coverage of books. Boston is a literary hub, and I hope the editors will reverse that ill-considered decision.
In addition to Boston magazine and the Globe itself, Globe Media publishes a free website, Boston.com, and Stat News, which covers health and medicine.
Update: A couple of sources just forwarded to me Linda Henry’s email to the staff. Here it is:
Dear Boston Globe Media Team —
We are thrilled to formally welcome Boston Magazine into the Boston Globe Media fold today as we work to connect our award-winning journalism to more audiences.
While many regional magazines in our area have faded away over the years, Boston Magazine has been an important chronicler of the people and culture of Boston for over six decades. For so many families in our community, The Boston Globe is on their kitchen table each day and BostonMagazine is on their coffee table each month, two publications serving the same region in different ways.
A bit of background: The Lipson family, owners of Philadelphia magazine, acquired Boston Magazine from the Boston Chamber of Commerce in 1970. The two publications operated under Metro Corp, based in Philadelphia. Following the passing of founder Herb Lipson in 2017, the company came under the leadership of his three children, with his son David taking the helm. The family made the decision to sell the whole company, leading to a long and complex process. We are delighted to announce that Boston Globe Media has acquired just Boston Magazine from Metro Corp, bringing this enduring publication under local stewardship.
I’m pleased to share that the entire Boston Magazine team has been given offers to retain their current positions, and we’ve been working diligently to ensure a seamless transition of operations. In the coming months and in our next Town Hall meeting on Monday, February 10, we will share more on our strategy and plans.
A heartfelt thank you to the fantastic Globe team who worked tirelessly to make this happen. To our new colleagues, welcome! We look forward to collaborating and continuing to find ways to better serve our community.
Washington Post publisher Will Lewis. 2019 public domain photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The ongoing implosion of The Washington Post is unfolding at a moment when we’ve never been more in need of tough, independent journalism. The latest, as Sara Fischer reports for Axios, is that Phil Rucker is leaving as the Post’s national editor in order to become senior vice president of editorial strategy and news at CNN.
It seems that anyone who can leave the Post is doing so now that billionaire owner Jeff Bezos has thrown in with Donald Trump. I don’t blame people for staying; after all, jobs in journalism are hard to come by, and there’s still reason to hope the paper’s news reporters will be allowed to do good work. Still, Bezos has done incalculable harm over the past year following a decade of model ownership; I wrote about the first years of his reign in my 2018 book, “The Return of The Moguls.” What’s happening now is depressing.
Before I get back to the Post, a word about CNN, about which there is reason to worry and reason to be hopeful. On the one hand, you have to be concerned about independent media reporter Oliver Darcy’s story Tuesday evening that chief executive Mark Thompson had told his staff before the inauguration that he wanted them not to dwell on the past. Darcy writes:
The next day, the network executed as directed…. CNN’s journalists entirely avoided pointing out during special inauguration coverage various inconvenient truths, such as the fact Trump is the first convicted felon to take office or that he was impeached for his role in inciting an insurrection on the very place he took his second oath. It was a glaring omission, but not one by accident.
On the other hand, Thompson is the guy who, in his previous job, revived The New York Times’ fortunes, transforming the newspaper into a growing, profitable digital powerhouse not just on the strength of its journalism but through ancillary products such as games, consumer advice and food. And he somehow convinced an outstanding news leader like Rucker that CNN is a better place to be right now than The Washington Post.
About which: As I was getting ready to write this item, the Post’s Karla Adam reported (gift link) that Rupert Murdoch’s British publishing empire had settled an invasion-of-privacy suit brought by Prince Harry for more than $10 million and an apology. Adam writes:
As part of the deal, Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) issued a formal apology, which was read out in court by Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne, conceding “unlawful activities” carried out by private investigators working for Murdoch’s newspapers, including “phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information.”
Scan down further into the story and you’ll come across this:
An executive summary of the claimants’ arguments, shared with The Washington Post before the settlement, indicated that Harry and [Labour Party politician Tom] Watson’s legal teams planned to allege that “over 30 million emails were deliberately destroyed” as part of a scheme to keep evidence from police investigators. The document asserted that “a pivotal role” in directing the email deletions had been played by former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, still a senior executive for Murdoch, and former NGN general manager William Lewis, now publisher and CEO of The Washington Post.
Both Brooks and Lewis have denied allegations of wrongdoing. NGN has acknowledged that emails were removed, but said that was part of a planned system migration and a new data retention policy, and that additional instructions were given to preserve emails potentially relevant to a police investigation.
The problems at the Post may have come to public attention starting with Bezos’ stunning decision last fall to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris with just days to go before the election. But the downward spiral really began with the appointment of Lewis to replace outgoing publisher Fred Ryan, and with Bezos’ stubborn insistence on sticking with Lewis despite embarrassing revelations about his involvement in the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal.
NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, who broke the news about Lewis’ involvement earlier this year, revisited that issue on Tuesday after reports of a settlement were circulating but before it was consummated. Though Folkenflik was careful to note that Lewis was “not a defendant in the case, and has denied all wrongdoing,” he added:
The plaintiffs allege that Lewis and the other executives orchestrated the deletion of millions of emails and withheld other material from police. According to police notes presented in court filings, Lewis told a police investigation they had to delete the emails to head off a scheme by Watson and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get materials surreptitiously from Brooks’ computer.
Brown and Watson have denied any such plot; News UK has not to date produced any evidence publicly to support its existence. Brown has demanded a criminal investigation from Scotland Yard, which opened a preliminary review to determine whether a full investigation is warranted.
Former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, now a contributor to The Guardian, wrote last Friday that Bezos needs to act quickly in order to save the Post. Her recommendations: hold an on-the-record meeting with the staff; make it clear that “he understands the importance of editorial freedom and pledge not to interfere with it”; and fire Lewis.
I wonder if it might be too late, though Sullivan’s advice would at least represent a dramatic break with the way Bezos has run the Post over the past year. My preference, given his unimaginable wealth, is that donate the Post to a nonprofit foundation and endow it, as the late Gerry Lenfest did with The Philadelphia Inquirer did in 2016.
Clearly, though, Bezos has to do something. Actually, let me revise that: He doesn’t have to do a damn thing. But I’m ever hopeful that he will.
