Category: Uncategorized

An anonymous straw man

Doug Bailey want you to know there’s a local blog out there that’s not as reliable as maybe it should be. (Imagine that.) But he doesn’t want you to know what the blog is. Bailey, a former Boston Globe staffer-turned-media consultant, writes on the Globe’s op-ed page:

I recently contacted a blog that has apparently gained a reputation as an “authoritative source” on local news to point out an outrageously inaccurate — and easily verifiable — item posted on the site, attributed to one of its many “insiders.” The editor of the site conceded to me his “inside” information had actually come from an anonymous posting he saw on a newspaper website. If this wasn’t outrageous enough, this site has developed a following among traditional media reporters who apparently believe this blogger is wired and who regularly republish his missives unaware that his “exclusive” sources come from anonymous comments on their own websites. The identities of the “insiders” are unknown even to the original blogger.

Without the name of the blog and its author, and a chance for him to respond, the value of Bailey’s anecdote is approximately zero. Let’s have it, Doug. And let’s see the Globe give his target an opportunity to defend himself.

If only David Brudnoy had lived to see it

One side benefit related to the demise of WBCN Radio (104.1 FM) is that CBS will move Bruins games from WBZ (AM 1030) to the new WBZ-FM (98.5 FM).

The late, legendary WBZ talk-show host David Brudnoy spent years lamenting the frequent Bruins interruptions. Ironically, the beneficiary of the move will be Dan Rea, who, unlike Brudnoy, is a hockey fan.

Forgotten but not gone — until now

Learning that WBCN Radio (104.1 FM) is leaving the airwaves leaves me feeling a bit wistful, but not much more. There was a time when I would have been outraged. But ‘BCN had become so irrelevant to my life that I had not listened to it in years.

It looks like I wasn’t alone, as the Phoenix’s Adam Reilly reports that CBS is doing a station switch, the main result of which will be a new sports-talk station, WBZ-FM, at 98.5 FM. Anything that makes the boyos at WEEI (AM 850) break into a sweat is all right by me.

Charles Laquidara greets the news of WBCN’s demise with an obscure one-liner, while Danny “The News Dissector” Schechter hasn’t mentioned it yet.

WBCN, an independently owned “underground” station that launched in 1968, was an ear-opener for an exurban adolescent growing up in the early 1970s. I listened to Laquidara and Schechter and Old Saxophone Joe and Maxanne Sartori and all the rest of that great crew.

Along with alternative papers like the Phoenix, Boston After Dark and the Real Paper, WBCN was my main source of information on leftist politics and the counterculture.

But the station had long since disappeared into the cog of corporate radio. It’s not that it won’t be missed. It’s that the time to miss it expired about 20 years ago.

Social-networking that cornice collapse

The student-run Huntington News is taking the social-media route to covering the collapse of a cornice on a Northeastern University-owned residence hall on Huntington Avenue.

Editor Maggie Cassidy used her Twitter account to get out the word that the News had posted a story online. And the photos were posted to the paper’s Flickr account.

Breaking news, from a paper that only comes out every other week during the summer. Good job, although the Flickr link from Twitter doesn’t work [note: now fixed]; pick it up from the story (or from here) instead.

Boston.com editor blames Celtics

Boston.com editor Dave Beard says that his site’s readership numbers are down over the previous May and June in large part because of the Boston Celtics’ early flameout. Since the Kevin Garnett-less Celts were eliminated on May 17, that explanation definitely makes some sense. Beard writes:

Two words: Boston Celtics.

No rolling rally. No euphoria. No heart-stopping NBA finals, sadly, with photo-friendly celebs packing the Garden. No May-to-June buildup for such a record season.

That said, despite a 40 percent dropoff from Sports in June pageviews, we made up most of it with News and Arts and Entertainment. By internal measurement, we came very close to our record June number for pageviews and for unique users, and we showed 11 percent more visits that the preceding June.

And, not to be a salesman on you, but July is looking very strong.

In short: We don’t read too much into a month or two of the widely variable and smallish samplings of Nielsen, as you mentioned in your lede. But we’re not relaxing one bit.

Boston.com’s missing readers

Web readership numbers tend to fluctuate so wildly that only a fool would try to read any deeper meaning into month-to-month changes.

Still, it’s hard not to notice that the number of unique monthly visitors to Boston.com, the Boston Globe’s Web site, has dropped considerably over the past two months, according to Nielsen Online figures provided by a reliable source who asked not to be identified.

After hitting an all-time peak of 8.5 million visitors in January of this year, perhaps tied to President Obama’s inauguration, the figure plunged all the way to 4 million in June, a drop of more than 23 percent over the previous June and the lowest number in two years.

Last June, then-senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were engaged in the final stages of their hard-fought battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, and I’ve been told that Boston.com’s political coverage does well in search engines and aggregators. So that could be an explanation.

Or maybe it’s Red Sox fatigue — it’s possible that the Sox have been so good for so long that casual fans are checking in less frequently than they used to. Could it be the Globe’s labor unrest? (Unlikely, though it’s interesting that readership figures for the Globe’s corporate cousin NYTimes.com were also down by 21 percent in May.) Or maybe it’s just one of those things.

Based on Nielsen’s May figures, Boston.com is now the ninth-ranked newspaper Web site overall — down from sixth for all of 2008, though it’s still the most widely read regional newspaper site in the United States*.

Among all news sites, including perennial ratings leaders MSNBC.com, CNN.com and Yahoo News, Boston.com now ranks 32nd, down from 17th in January.

What follows are Boston.com’s unique monthly visitors over the past two years. Percentages are increases and decreases over the previous year.

  • June 2009: 4,020,000 (-23.2%)
  • May 2009: 4,397,000 (-11.4%)
  • April 2009: 5,888,000 (+33.0%)
  • March 2009: 5,742,000 (+37.2%)
  • Feb. 2009: 5,659,000 (+15.4%)
  • Jan. 2009: 8,535,000 (+64.3%)
  • Dec. 2008: 4,086,000 (-6.4%)
  • Nov 2008: 5,436,000 (+12.3%)
  • Oct 2008: 6,133,000 (+11.4%)
  • Sept 2008: 8,610,000 (+121.5%)
  • Aug 2008: 4,479,000 (+3.9%)
  • July 2008: 4,891,000 (+21.4%)
  • June 2008: 5,233,000 (+23.0%)
  • May 2008: 4,962,000 (+22.9%)
  • April 2008: 4,428,000 (+6.2%)
  • March 2008: 4,184,000 (-1.4%)
  • Feb. 2008: 4,904,000 (N/A)
  • Jan. 2008: 5,194,000 (N/A)
  • Dec. 2007: 4,364,000 (N/A)
  • Nov. 2007: 4,839,000 (N/A)
  • Oct. 2007: 5,506,000 (N/A)
  • Sept. 2007: 3,887,000 (N/A)
  • Aug. 2007: 4,311,000 (N/A)
  • July 2007: 4,029,000 (N/A)
  • June 2007: 4,254,000 (N/A)
  • May 2007: 4,038,000 (N/A)
  • April 2007: 4,171,000 (N/A)
  • March 2007: 4,245,000 (N/A)

*I’ve been asked how Boston.com can be considered the most-read regional newspaper site when the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post and New York’s Daily News are all ahead of it.

My answer is that the LA Times has long been considered a national paper. Indeed, Slate includes it as one of the five papers it summarizes in its “Today’s Papers” feature. (The others are the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.)

It’s only recently that Boston.com’s readership dropped below those of the other three papers, so perhaps I’ll have to rethink my “most-read regional newspaper site” formulation. Both New York and Chicago are huge metropolitan areas that dwarf Greater Boston. Yet the Tribune, the Post and the Daily News are all more regional than they are national.

I’ll have to ponder that for a bit.

Globe publisher distributes Q&A

Boston Globe publisher Steve Ainsley has distributed a Q&A inside the Globe in advance of the Boston Newspaper Guild’s upcoming July 20 vote on the latest concessions negotiated between the Guild and the New York Times Co. Media Nation obtained a copy earlier today.

Dear Colleagues:

We thought it might be helpful to provide information about the components of the tentative agreement with the Guild, which is scheduled for a ratification vote on July 20th.

We have prepared a short list of Q&A’s for those elements that are different from the contract proposal of June 8th.

We also provide a link to the Q&A’s (previously distributed) for those components that have not changed from the June 8th contract proposal.

You’ll also find a link to the information about the wage mitigation, which is posted on Compass.

[Compass is an internal system for Globe employees. I do not have the links. — DK]

If you have any additional questions, please let us know.

Thank you.

— Steve

—

Guild Employees Q&A

New Elements of the Contract under Tentative Agreement

Q. What are the new elements of this proposal?

A. The major elements that have changed are outlined below:

  • A lower wage reduction: 5.94% vs. 8.388%
  • The elimination of retiree health insurance, going forward (post
  • 65 supplemental plan only)
  • 2 Vacation days and the Birthday holiday will be taken without pay
  • A further reduction of ‘quid pro quo’ for health insurance fund

Note: The last three items above, along with the partial wage mitigation, amount to exactly the savings needed to lower the wage reduction and maintain the $10 million in total savings necessary.

Q. What elements in this proposed agreement have remained the same?

A. Major elements that have remained the same include:

  • 2% wage reduction for Tier 2 positions
  • Five furlough days per year
  • Elimination of overtime unless employee works 40 hours in a week
  • Elimination of banked vacation accrual
  • Freeze pensions at current levels, and eliminate company’s
  • contributions
  • Elimination of company’s contributions to 401(k) accounts
  • Reduction of ‘quid pro quo’ payments for health insurance fund as
  • provided in the June 8 proposal
  • Elimination of tuition reimbursement, eye care, life insurance,
  • retiree death benefit
  • Modification of the lifetime job guarantee
  • 1% profit share program
  • Matching wage increase, up to 5%, if management’s 2009 wage cut is restored.

Q. What is the length of this contract?

A. Through the end of 2010.

Q. Date of ratification vote?

A. Monday, July 20, from 8am to 8pm at the Globe.

Q. Why not vote earlier?

A. The Guild’s bylaws require 30 days notice.

Q. What happens to post-65 retirement health benefits?

A. Going forward, all Guild members will not be eligible for retiree heath benefits through the company after age 65. What this means is that at age 65 you become eligible for Medicare and you would need to purchase a Medicare Supplement Plan on your own rather than it being provided by the company. There are many choices available on the market including plans from Blue Cross, Harvard Pilgrim and Tufts. (This is consistent with the change in benefits for managers and exempts instituted in March, 2009.)

Q. How will the unpaid vacation days and birthday holiday be administered?

A. Two vacation days per year will be unpaid. Employees may choose which of their vacation days will be unpaid, but need to schedule them at the beginning of the year. For 2010 they need to be scheduled with your manager by January 30.

For 2009, only 1 vacation day will be unpaid. It would need to be scheduled with your manager by August 15.

Employees are required to take their birthday holiday within the period that’s 2 weeks before or 2 weeks after their birthday. For 2009, only employees with birthdays after the ratification date will not be paid for their birthday holiday. They should schedule the day within the period outlined above.

Scheduling for all vacation and birthday holidays needs to be approved by your manager. In 2010 all unpaid days including furlough days will need to be scheduled by January 30.

Q. When would the pension freeze take effect? I’m close to earning another year of service.

A. The pension freeze will be effective on August 8, if the contract is ratified on July 20th. So, every full-time employee will have earned 1,000 hours this year and therefore another full year of accrual service.

You should have received a notice informing you that the pension plan would be frozen as of August 8th. This is contingent on ratification. There is a requirement under federal law to give employees 45 days advance notice that benefit accruals will stop (a 204(h) notice), which is why the notice was sent out early with knowledge and prior agreement with the Guild.

Global Voices and worldwide citizen media

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UXYXv3J_fE&hl=en&fs=1&]
My online-journalism video tour continues with Solana Larsen, managing editor of Global Voices Online, a project that tracks bloggers around the world. I interviewed Larsen on June 9 at her Brooklyn apartment.

On April 23 I interviewed Global Voices’ Central Asia editor, Adil Nurmakov, while I was attending the Eurasian Media Forum in Almaty, Kazakhstan.