Boston Herald reporter Jay Fitzgerald has some very good news: WTKK (96.9 FM) is moving Jim Braude and Margery Eagan’s mid-day talk show to morning drive, where it will now be heard Monday to Friday from 7 to 10 a.m. Aging has-been Don Imus’ syndicated program will be relegated to the decidedly unattractive 5-to-7 a.m. slot.
In making the move, WTKK rectifies a mistake that goes back to its failed attempt to lure Howie Carr from WRKO (AM 680) for morning drive. Carr wanted to come over, but he turned out to have the most restrictive contract since Curt Flood; indeed, he was whining about it as recently as yesterday.
Stuck with no Howie, ‘TKK took back Imus, who was returning to the airwaves following his penance for referring to African-American female basketball players as “nappy-headed hos.”
Naturally, a lot of attention will be focused on the duel between Eagan and Braude’s program and ‘RKO’s morning-drive show hosted by Tom Finneran and Todd Feinburg. That shouldn’t be much of a contest. Braude and Eagan are naturals. Finneran has never gotten comfortable behind the microphone, and Feinburg is all plodding, ultraconservative earnestness.
The far more interesting question is whether this is the first of several shoes to drop at ‘TKK. It’s hard to read the tea leaves, but the station has made a statement: Its signature program is now a morning talk show hosted by a liberal, Braude, and a moderate, Eagan, both of whom bring a light touch to the proceedings and are respectful toward and engaging with callers.
Where does that leave WTKK’s right-wing twins, yipping ninny Michael Graham and hatemongering afternoon host Jay Severin?
For the moment, they appear to be OK. Graham’s actually getting an extra hour. As for Severin, maybe I’m parsing this too finely, but I do find it interesting that he’s losing a drive-time hour (6 to 7 p.m.) and gaining a non-drive hour (2 to 3 p.m.). Michele McPhee is moving up a bit, from 6 to 10 p.m., which could be seen as an attempt to expose her to more listeners.
More than anything, Eagan and Braude’s move up is step toward civility on the airwaves — rare at any time, and something we ought to celebrate.
Here is the video of Princeton University professor Paul Starr at last night’s program on “Public Accountability After the Age of Newspapers,” featuring Starr, Boston Globe editor Marty Baron and me. Update: Video of the entire program has been posted here.
The event was sponsored by the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service and the Ford Hall Forum, and was held at Suffolk Law School. The moderator was law school professor Alasdair Roberts.
As you will see, one of Starr’s main themes was that, with the Internet having hollowed out the economic model for the newspaper business, government needs to step up with some type of subsidy — preferably an indirect subsidy created by tweaking the tax code, for instance. (Here is Starr’s recent congressional testimony on that subject.)
Before you start spluttering, Starr would not favor newspapers over other forms of media. And he pointed out that he’s not talking about anything new: Newspapers as we have come to know them got a huge assist in the earliest days of the republic through massive postal subsidies.
“Newspapers … have helped to create a self-aware urban public,” Starr said.
Baron disdained subsidies, saying, “I feel very strongly about our independence, and we have to maintain that.”
Instead, Baron suggested two governmental changes — a shift in the copyright law aimed at extracting money out of Google News and other aggregators, and an end to what he called the “antiquated” cross-ownership ban, which prevents media companies from owning a daily newspapers and a television or radio station in the same market.
Starr disagreed with Baron on copyright, noting that if linking without permission were made illegal (an extreme remedy that Baron did not actually suggest), the Web as we know it would soon cease to exist.
(Personally, I think the fair-use provision of copyright provides all the protection that newspapers need. If Globe executives want to opt out of Google, all they have to do is insert some code. They don’t for the simple reason that Google provides the Globe and other newspapers with a considerable amount of Web traffic.)
I talked about emerging alternative models at the local level, such as the New Haven Independent, CT News Junkie, Baristanet.com and the Batavian — projects that are too small to replicate the newspaper’s traditional mission in its entirety, but that have established themselves as vital news sources in a time of cutbacks.
Boston Herald reporter Christine McConville writes that she was kicked out of a meeting of the Labor and Employment Relations Association, where the recent union negotiations over the fate of the Boston Globe was the topic of the day.
The presentation, titled “Stop the Presses: The Story Behind the Boston Globe Negotiations,” starred Globe senior vice president Gregory Thornton and Boston Newspaper Guild lawyer David Wanger.
McConville would have loved to be there. I would have loved to be there. So here is today’s Media Nation challenge: If you were there, please send along an account, along with evidence of your bona fides.
I’ve really only got one thing to say about Dan Rather’s losing his lawsuit against CBS: What was he thinking?
OK, two things. When you’re caught passing off phony documents, you should smile and shut up, regardless of how badly your ex-employer might have behaved. Win or lose, there’s no way Rather could come out of this looking good.
This week in the Guardian, I argue that the so-called liberal media are up to their old Clinton-era tricks: coddling the right lest they be accused of liberal bias.
Please pardon the lack of blogging. I’m overcommitted this week, and, other than my students (of course!), my main priority is getting ready for tomorrow evening’s event with Princeton University professor Paul Starr and Boston Globe editor Marty Baron.
The following e-mail, dated Friday, was sent by Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten to Guild members. (The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam has been posting Guild communications as well.) Media Nation obtained a copy of Totten’s e-mail a short time ago.
Dear Boston Newspaper Guild Member;
The matter raised suddenly yesterday was in regard to a question regarding a counter-signature on my personal weekly paycheck. When this matter was originally discussed, I promptly provided an answer to our union Executive Committee. This matter was resolved to the satisfaction of the Executive Committee last Friday, September 18, 2009.
Now, there are those who are engaging in a political vendetta as a result of the hard feelings that remain in our Union following our contentious contract negotiation. While nobody could be happy with the outcome of what the NYT did to every member, some members who were not happy with the outcome of negotiations are manipulating a simple matter, in an attack against me.
I am prepared to address whatever questions anyone might have, according to our union’s process. I am dismayed and angered that these disgruntled individuals are seeking to discredit me publicly, but I must put the interest of our Union first, and will do so.
I look forward to resolving this matter swiftly and assure our membership that there has been no financial impropriety.
Again, all union funds remain intact and have always been so. The Boston Newspaper Guild does an excellent job of managing the funds that we are entrusted with, a fact I am certain will be clear to all once the review process is completed.
Sincerely,
Daniel B. Totten
President
Boston Newspaper Guild
TNG – CWA Local 31245
David Carr’s report in the New York Times that Boston-based GlobalPost will partner with CBS News strikes me as a potentially significant development.
It’s unclear from Carr’s story exactly how much use CBS intends to make of GlobalPost’s journalism. But this could be just the boost that Phil Balboni, Charlie Sennott and company need to keep GlobalPost moving forward.
Particularly eye-catching were a couple of numbers. GlobalPost is reportedly attracting 400,000 unique visitors per month, which appears to impress Carr, but which strikes me as dangerously low — even if it’s as good as could be expected for a new project. (For purposes of comparison, the Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, attracts between 4 million and 5 million unique visitors each month.)
Even worse, only a few hundred people have signed up for premium (paid) membership.
Anyone who’s perused the site, though, knows that GlobalPost’s journalism is both engaging and substantive. With network news divisions cutting their international reporting to the bone, GlobalPost has a real opportunity.
Former New York Times columnist William Safire, who died on Sunday at 79, brought three great passions to his work: a love of the English language; a devotion to dogged reporting; and an abiding commitment to civil liberties.
It was that last quality that brought Safire, a conservative who’d worked as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, into frequent conflict with the Republican Party — though, as he was quick to point out, the Democrats have frequently been no prize when it comes to civil liberties, either.
I did a bit of digging this morning and came up with a few examples of Safire on civil liberties. Enjoy.
George Bush, now that he’s ahead, is adopting a Flying Rose Garden strategy, ducking interviews. Worse, his campaign has been taking cheap shots at the American Civil Liberties Union, which leads me to believe he would extend the intrusive “lie-detector” mania to enshrine secrecy — the most offensive legacy of the Reagan Administration. (Sept. 12, 1988)
The Freedom of Information Act is a blessing for those who value a check on Government snooping. Individuals can now find out what the F.B.I. file says about them. Even better, individuals can force the Federal bureaucracy to disgorge rulings made without public scrutiny, and documents more politically embarrassing than secret.
Mr. Reagan’s Attorney General evidently finds the Freedom of Information Act an annoyance. He has reversed the policy supporting F.O.I.A. followed by Carter Attorney General Griffin Bell, and now the Justice Department intends to help bureaucrats who wish to hide their dealings from taxpayers. (Mr. Bell is looking better every day.) (May 25, 1981)
I think the ever-popular Director Freeh — dutifully following the lead of President Clinton in politically exploiting the public’s rage at bombers — is proposing a bureaucratic subversion of our civil liberties….
To the applause of voters fearful of terrorism, the proactivists declare their intent to prevent crime. This would be followed by surveillance of suspect groups by new technology; the infiltration of political movements deemed radical or violence-prone; and the stretching of the guidelines put in place 20 years ago to restrain yesterday’s zealots. (May 8, 1995)
Now, in the spotlight of pitiless publicity, the police are overreacting in the other direction. Yesterday’s heavily covered search of Condit’s condo, at his invitation, was a stunt to show activity rather than a search for evidence. The “lie detector” test, requested by the Levy family, will be worse than a stunt — it is a civil-liberties abomination. Condit is “not a suspect,” the police keep saying, but even the unaccused have rights. (July 12, 2001)
Democratic liberals are fine on civil liberties, standing up against random drug and polygraph tests — but where are they when you need them to defend freedom in Central America? Republican conservatives are dandy at cutting Federal spending, but why do they think they can flutter me as a condition of employment or coerce my kid to pray in school? (April 16, 1987)
This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra…. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the “data-mining” power to snoop on every public and private act of every American.
Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter’s assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight. (Nov. 14, 2002)
With President Obama proving to be something of a disappointment on civil liberties and governmental openness, it’s a shame that Safire’s voice has been silenced.
The following e-mail has been sent to the members of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the largest union at the Boston Globe. A copy was obtained by Media Nation earlier today.
September 25, 2009
Dear Colleague,
I understand that many questions have arisen from yesterday’s e-mail from the Executive Committee regarding alleged financial impropriety by BNG President Daniel Totten.
As treasurer, I have a fiduciary responsibility, which I take very seriously. I intend to fulfill that responsibility to the fullest extent. I assure you that the Executive Committee is asserting due diligence on this matter. Once made aware of the situation, the appropriate steps were taken to ensure the safety of your union funds.
The second order of business was to notify you. It would have been preferable to notify you, and file the charges simultaneously. But time constraints did not allow that to happen. We took the position that notification was our next priority.
We are guided in this process by the constitution of the CWA [the Communications Workers of America], our parent union. The by-laws require that charges be filed within 60 days from the time an offense becomes known. I intend to draft the charges and file them early next week with our Recording Secretary Kathy McCabe, as required by the by-laws. We are well within the 60 day time frame. After they are filed, members will be notified of the details of the charges.
I know that there may be more questions as this process moves forward. We are working with the guidance of legal counsel from both the CWA and the BNG. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
