Category: Media

Kevin Convey on the art of tabloid-headline writing

There’s an interesting profile of former Boston Herald editor Kevin Convey, now editor of the New York Daily News, in the current issue of the Colby College alumni magazine. Written by old Northeastern friend David McKay Wilson, the profile begins with a good anecdote about the Daily News’ collector’s-item front page following the killing of Osama bin Laden: “Rot in Hell!”

Convey’s suggestions — “Dead,” a play on the famous Daily News front page on the execution of convicted killer Ruth Snyder, and “We Got Him” — were deemed not quite right before a copy editor came up with the winner.

“Tabloid headlines are a very demanding form,” Convey told Wilson. “You are putting big words on a page that 530,000 people will buy and 2 million will read. It’s like journalistic haiku.”

The Providence Journal’s print-first strategy (II)

Just out of curiosity, I tried out the Providence Journal on Mrs. Media Nation’s iPad last night. And though I haven’t changed my mind about PDF-based e-editions being generally miserable to navigate and read, the iPad app does make the experience decidedly less miserable.

Being able to use my hands to tap on stories and flip through the paper made using the e-edition sort of all right. I would have been hugely impressed if this were 2001 instead of 2011. Of course, if I wanted to look at the paper exactly as it was published, I’d go buy a copy — which, as I have argued, appears to be exactly what Journal officials have in mind.

But if the e-edition turns out to be reasonably priced, it may prove to be a viable option for people who’ve moved away and still need their daily fix of the Journal. I wonder if we’ll ever find out how many e-subscriptions the Journal ends up selling? I can’t imagine it will be more than a handful.

Libel suit against Herald will proceed

Judge Raymond Brassard

A Superior Court judge recently refused to throw out a libel suit brought against the Boston Herald by a woman who claims the paper defamed her by falsely reporting she’d had sex with an inmate during a visit to the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater. The suit was filed in 2010, and I posted some background on the case at that time.

The plaintiff, Joanna Marinova, accompanied state Rep. Gloria Fox, D-Boston, on a visit to the prison in May 2009. The Herald published a front-page story on May 28 of that year by reporter Jessica Van Sack saying that Fox had snuck Marinova in to see her boyfriend, a convicted murderer named Darrell Jones, and that Marinova had been “previously bagged for engaging in ‘sexual acts’ with the killer con.”

Marinova says the story is false. According to prison records introduced as part of the lawsuit, Jones had been disciplined for kissing Marinova and rubbing her leg, but there was no suggestion the two had had sex.

According to a story in the current Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (sub. req.), the Herald’s lawyer, Elizabeth Ritvo, argued that the case should be dismissed because Marinova’s contention that the Herald had claimed she and Jones had sex was “a strange and tortured interpretation” of what the paper actually published.

But Judge Raymond Brassard disagreed, saying “it seems to me that not only a reasonable reader, but virtually any reader, even a First Amendment lawyer would read that and think this person was involved in some sort of sexual intercourse with this man at the prison. I don’t know how a reasonable person could think otherwise.”

Marinova’s lawyer is David Rich, who was part of the legal team that successfully sued the Herald on behalf of former judge Ernest Murphy several years ago. In an unrelated action, Tom Scholz, leader of the band Boston, is suing the Herald for libel over accusations that were made following the suicide of lead singer Brad Delp.

Marinova had also sued WHDH-TV (Channel 7), which broadcast a story similar to the Herald’s. Lawyers Weekly reports that the two sides have apparently reached a settlement.

The hearing that led Judge Brassard not to grant the Herald’s motion for summary judgment was held on Sept. 22. I have posted the document here.

The Providence Journal’s print-first strategy

During the same week that the Boston Globe started charging for much of its online content and the New York Times announced it has signed up 324,000 paying digital customers, the Providence Journal unveiled its new website — a prelude to its long-promised (or long-threatened) paywall.

The new ProvidenceJournal.com — goodbye, Projo.com — includes just the first few paragraphs of most stories. If you want to read the whole paper online, you have to subscribe to one of those miserable e-editions, a PDF-like format that is difficult to navigate and even more difficult to read. (The Journal’s implementation does seem to be slightly less miserable than others I’ve seen.) There’s an iPad version, too.

Ted Nesi, who’s been writing about the Journal for WPRI.com, says it’s not yet clear what access will cost after the current free trial period expires. But this is not a digital strategy — it’s a print strategy, built on the idea of downgrading the Journal’s electronic presence. Nesi and I talked last December, when the Journal announced the new direction, and what I said then seems to apply now:

The Journal is sacrificing its website in order to bolster its print edition, which is where it makes most of its money. I understand why Journal managers are doing this, but it’s a short-term solution that could prove harmful in the long term. I also wonder whether it will even accomplish anything. Newspaper readers are skimmers, and a headline and brief synopsis of a story may be all that they want.

The Times is proving that people will pay for a well-thought-out, reasonably priced online edition. The Globe is about to learn whether readers in Greater Boston will do the same. The Journal, by contrast, is looking backwards. It might even work — but for no more than a few years.

BostonGlobe.com fires up the cash register

BostonGlobe.com is supposed to shut down any minute now. When it returns, at 5 a.m. on Wednesday, it will become a paid site, eventually costing $3.99 a week. The best deal: taking home delivery of the Sunday paper for $3.50 a week, which gives you access to all of the Globe’s digital content for no extra charge.

Since the debut of the website in September, I’ve heard people complain that it’s too cumbersome to use. My own experience is that it’s gotten better, and that folks at the Globe are responsive to suggestions. In particular, the “Today’s Paper” section has improved. But it works better as a breaking-news site.

Thus I still find myself making some use of GlobeReader, the Adobe Air-based platform that serves as a pretty good representation of that day’s Globe. It’s not perfect — content is sometimes missing, and photos seem like an afterthought. But for those of us who still like to flip through the paper, I find you can do so much more efficiently than you can with the website. (You can use GlobeReader with a laptop or desktop computer, but not with an iPad or a smartphone, since those don’t support Air.)

Globe publisher Chris Mayer told me in August that GlobeReader would continue to be offered for some time to come, but would not be improved and would eventually be phased out. So it’s not a permanent solution.

So let me suggest that the Globe work on something similar to New York Times Skimmer, a website that presents all of the Times’ major RSS feeds in a Reader-like format. I think offering that in addition to the standard website would give readers a couple of good options depending on how much time they had and what device they were using. And Skimmer works on the iPad.

Globe warns Occupy Boston on trademark

The Boston Globe is trying to stop the Occupy Boston demonstrators from using the paper’s name in its own publication, according to Metro Boston reporter Steve Annear. The protesters are planning to start a paper called the Occupy Boston Globe, similar to the Occupied Wall Street Journal in New York. (David Carr of the New York Times wrote about that last week.)

“We do not condone the use of our trademark-protected name and logo by any organization,” Globe spokesman Bob Powers is quoted as telling Annear.

Surely, though, the Globe’s lawyers know the Occupy Boston folks are within their legal rights. The Globe’s trademark prevents a would-be competitor from coming in and starting a newspaper called the Boston Globe. By contrast, the name “Occupy Boston Globe” is a parody of and a commentary on the Globe and on the media in general, expression that is protected by the First Amendment. A major consideration in trademark cases is whether readers might confuse the parody with the original. There doesn’t seem to be much chance of that.

Writing at BostInnovation, Lisa DeCanio reports that Occupy Boston Globe is trying to raise $8,000 to launch a daily and a full-color weekly, the latter of which would be published in English and Spanish. There’s already an online version of the paper, which in turn makes reference to a print edition. So maybe the presses have started to roll.

(Thanks to Greg Reibman, whose tweet alerted me to the Metro Boston story.)

Herald employees to pay for parking at new location

When the Boston Herald moves from the South End to the Seaport District in early 2012, it will be accompanied by a hefty bill for some Herald staff members: up to $150 a month for parking. That’s according to a “Dear Herald Employee” letter from publisher and owner Pat Purcell, obtained by Media Nation earlier this week.

“Free parking in Boston is a rarity and, sadly, there will not be free parking for any employee — myself included — when we move to the Seaport Center,” Purcell writes.

Employees currently pay nothing to use the expansive parking lot next to the Herald’s plant. So having to pay $1,800 a year for 24/7 parking amounts to a considerable reduction in pay.

Purcell begins his letter by saying he has been unable to meet with the staff in person because of recent hip-replacement surgery, and goes on to say that the new location has extensive public-transportation options, including a free shuttle bus that travels back and forth to North Station. He adds that there are other non-monthly parking lots in the area, though no rates are mentioned.

You can read the full text of Purcell’s letter here.

Rory O’Connor to talk about nuke book tonight

Friend of Media Nation Rory O’Connor will appear on “Greater Boston” this evening to talk with Emily Rooney about the 30th-anniversary edition of his book “Nukespeak: The Selling of Nuclear Technology from the Manhattan Project to Fukushima.”

As you can tell from the title, the book has been revised and updated. Co-written by O’Connor, Stephen Hilgartner and Richard C. Bell, it’s being published as an e-book by Sierra Club Books. You can find out more here.

The program begins at 7 p.m. on WGBH-TV (Channel 2).

The Globe, the tipster and the FBI (IV)

The FBI’s statement criticizing the Boston Globe for claiming the agency had acquiesced in the paper’s decision to name Whitey Bulger tipster Anna Bjornsdottir has breathed at least one day of new life into a story that seemed to be fading away. I’m not going to rehash everything, but here are a few observations for your consideration.

Dueling Michael Sullivans. When the Boston Herald first reported on Monday that the Globe may have endangered Bjornsdottir and harmed the FBI’s anonymous tipster program, it quoted former U.S. attorney Sullivan as saying, “They can’t guarantee her 100 percent safety going forward. It’s unnecessary publicity and unnecessary harassment.” Herald reporter Joe Dwinell uses that quote again in today’s follow-up.

Yet Sullivan appears to have had at least a partial change of heart, according to a story today by Denise Lavoie of the Associated Press. She writes:

Former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said he does not believe Bjornsdottir will face retaliation, citing testimony from several former Bulger loyalists who have cooperated with prosecutors in the past decade and not been harmed.

But Sullivan said he does worry the revelation could hurt the FBI’s ability to cultivate criminal informants and tipsters who report sightings in high-profile fugitive cases.

“For some folks who are informants or tipsters, the idea of anonymity is critical,” Sullivan said. “Some people just wouldn’t cooperate at all if they thought for a moment their identity is going to be revealed.”

I leave it to you to decide whether a news organization should be worried about reporting news that could harm the FBI’s internal operations, but that is clearly a far lower concern than Bjornsdottir’s safety.

And by the way, the Globe’s Travis Andersen covers the FBI statement here.

Dueling Herald columnists. Joe Fitzgerald today uses the FBI statement to go after the Globe big-time, calling the paper’s naming of Bjornsdottir “a chilling decision,” and writing: “Somewhere this morning, there’s a wannabe wiseguy hoping to move up, to ingratiate himself with the big boys, mulling the tipster’s whereabouts and thinking dark thoughts of career advancement.”

Yesterday, though, Peter Gelzinis, who spent years covering the Bulger saga while courageously continuing to live in Bulger’s South Boston neighborhood, was fairly dismissive of concerns about Bjornsdottir’s safety, writing: “If the Icelandic tipster had anything to fear after diming Whitey Bulger out to the FBI, then John Martorano and Kevin Weeks and Teresa Stanley, to name just a few, would already be dead.”

Gelzinis also makes the important point, as have others, that once law-enforcement officials revealed last June the tipster was from Iceland, it was only a matter of time before her name became known — a development that would suit the FBI’s purposes. Gelzinis wrote:

Having squandered their credibility for years in this city, the G-Men knew that unmasking the “phantom tipster” from Iceland would immediately remove the latest cloud of suspicion and skepticism hanging over the Boston office.

The FBI’s agenda. As guest columnist Juliette Kayyem, a terrorism expert, observes in today’s Globe, it was, in fact, federal authorities who outed Bjornsdottir last June, shortly after Bulger and Catherine Greig were arrested. The story that the tipster was from Iceland was first reported by David Boeri of WBUR Radio (90.9 FM), another longtime veteran of the Bulger wars.

Bulger and Greig had befriended Bjornsdottir during their years in Santa Monica, Calif. Once they learned of the Icelandic connection, they instantly knew who the tipster was. Kayyem writes:

Of course, that fact alone — the neighbor from Iceland — makes the whole debate over revealing her name somewhat irrelevant. Bjornsdottir was effectively identified as soon as law enforcement sources described her that way to WBUR’s David Boeri. Did anyone think there were two? Bjornsdottir’s identification was part of a very compelling narrative, controlled and then revealed by sources in the law enforcement world, about how the mythic Bulger was finally captured.

I think it’s likely that some observers would have expressed outrage at the time if so many hadn’t been caught up in speculation that federal authorities were lying about the Iceland connection. It just seemed too perfectly weird given the FBI’s long history of criminal dealings with Bulger and his gang. Now it turns out that it was true — or at least partly true. It’s still hard to know.

Which is what Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles gets at in an interview with the Herald’s Jessica Heslam today. Yesterday’s FBI statement says the Globe was wrong to interpret the agency’s silence as a sign that it did not believe Bjornsdottir’s safety would be endangered if she were named. Heslam writes:

[Bayles] said, “The FBI has been known to leak information when it suited them. The FBI has been known to manipulate the media in terms of its own investigations.” Bayles said he remains skeptical that the public will know the full scope of the Globe’s dealings with FBI agents in this matter. “It’s something that probably we’ll never get to the bottom of, as to whether or not the FBI did know about it and either said nothing or said ‘OK,’ and now they’re coming back to cover their asses.”

Will this story now begin to fade away, or is there more to come? Well, we haven’t heard from Bjornsdottir yet, so my guess is there’s still another shoe or two to drop.