Category: Uncategorized

When did editors at the Boston Globe know they might have a problem with a memo purportedly written in 1999 by a Big Dig safety officer named John Keaveney? Perhaps as early as Thursday. The memo — which warned that part of the tunnel ceiling could collapse — appeared to be a significant advance when the Globe’s Sean Murphy broke the story a day earlier.

According to this Thursday article, though, Slate’s Timothy Noah asked the Globe for a copy of the memo for his “Hot Document” column and was turned down. Noah writes:

The Globe, unfortunately, has published only excerpts of the two-page memo. “We are not releasing the Keveaney memo now,” Carolyn Ryan, the Globe‘s assistant managing editor for metropolitan news, e-mailed me after the article’s author, Sean P. Murphy, directed me her way. The paper “may [release it] in the future.” Ryan did not answer my followup e-mail asking why the Globe is witholding the memo.

Today, both the Globe’s Murphy and the Boston Herald’s Casey Ross and Dave Wedge report that Keaveney is being questioned to determine whether his memo was really a recently penned exercise in ex-post-facto butt-covering.

Among other things, it appears that Keaveney, who worked for the contractor Modern Continental, didn’t get his timing straight: He claimed to have observed problems with drill holes before the work had actually been done. Whoops.

Dan Kennedy invited me to guest blog on Media Nation today. Since I’m a Tour de France fanatic, he asked me for my reactions to the news that Tour de France champ Floyd Landis apparently tested positive for testosterone, a performance-enhancing drug, during this year’s tour.

For me, the biggest surprise out of all the media coverage has been learning that the elite athlete had consumed “moderate” amounts of beer and whiskey the night after his flame-out in Alps in Stage 16 when he dropped from first place to 11th and lost about 10 minutes on the new leaders. The Boston Globe reports, “He thought his chances of winning the Tour were slim and was looking for ‘a way to get through the night.’”

Jack Daniel’s? Whatever it takes, I guess.

Although, as we’re learning now, that may not have been all that it took to get Floyd through the night. He may very well have chased his chaser with a testosterone patch.

The collapse — or “bonk” in athletic performance parlance — was painful to watch. Floyd literally ran out of gas. It was evidence, ironically, that this year’s tour was the cleanest it’s been in years. Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, who’s been outspoken about the need to clean up the sport, told The Guardian that he thought the riders this year were honest: “Riders looked tired, they had bad days. For years you never saw any suffering in the riders.”

Did Floyd cheat? The Boston Globe quotes two experts who say that an athlete trying to recover from bonking the way Floyd did would not have turned to testosterone for help:

However, two leading physicians and crusaders in anti-doping circles deplored the release of the damaging information before the second analysis. They added that it would have been nonsensical for Landis to use testosterone as an instant fix.

An elite rider who needed to perform well in a climbing stage as Landis did would be likely to turn to stimulants or blood-boosting techniques such as erythropoietin injections to improve oxygen processing capability, rather than using a strength-building substance like testosterone, they said.

“Something seems a little smelly here,” said Dr. Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor emeritus of exercise and sport science and nationally recognized expert on steroid use. “Testosterone is a training drug, not a competition drug. It doesn’t act that quickly. It’s not going to change your life in a day or a week.

“I feel in an odd position defending any Tour de France rider, but if you wanted to make up eight minutes, you’d blood-dope.”

His view was backed by Dr. Gary Wadler of New York University, who helped craft the current WADA code. “You don’t take anabolic steroids in the morning and race in the afternoon,” Wadler said. “It takes many weeks to get benefits from them. There’s no good evidence that they enhance the aerobic system, although they do shorten recovery time and make you more aggressive and assertive. This makes no sense pharmaceutically.”

But CyclingNews.com has this from German doctor Kurt Moosburger (though the interview took place before news of Floyd’s positive test result and he was not talking about Floyd):

In a frank interview, Moosburger pointed to the average speeds of modern professional races, especially hard tours. “The average in last year’s Tour was 41 kilometres per hour – that is incredible. You can do a hard Alpine stage without doping. But after that, the muscles are exhausted. You need – depending on your training conditions – up to three days in order to regenerate.”

To help recover, testosterone and human growth hormone can be used. “Both are made by the body and are therefore natural substances,” he said. “They help to build
muscle as well as in muscle recovery.”

Dr Moosburger explained how it was done. “You put a standard testosterone patch that is used for male hormone replacement therapy on your scrotum and leave it there for about six hours. The small dose is not sufficient to produce a positive urine result in the doping test, but the body actually recovers faster.”

I’m a Tour de France fan thanks to Lance Armstrong and the OLN Network. Every July for the last seven years, my days have revolved around watching the Tour. Like many, my favorite stage is L’Alpe d’Huez, an insane ride up a mountain so steep that it’s categorized as “beyond classification.” It’s the stage Lance Armstrong dropped German rider Jan Ullrich on in 2001 with what’s now remembered as “the look.” The two were riding head to head on the final part of the climb when Armstrong surged ahead. Instead of just sprinting away without notice, Armstrong arrogantly telegraphed his move by looking directly at Ullrich as if to say: “You coming with me?” And then he took off. Ullrich never recovered. Ullrich, of course, was a favorite to win this year’s Tour until he, along with a bunch of other riders, was booted out of the race under suspicion that he was using performance-enhancing drugs.

I thought this year’s race, without Armstrong, wouldn’t be that exciting to watch. I was wrong. This was the best Tour I’ve ever seen. It was impossible to predict what was going to happen from day to day. The race leader changed from Stage to Stage and, as LeMond remarked, the riders just seemed more human this year. As for now infamous Stage 17, breathlessly described as an “epic” performance by everyone who saw it? It was all that and more.

I hate to think that Floyd cheated. He’s such an appealing character. Check out Outside Magazine’s profile of him from its July issue (Z-man refers to professional rider Dave Zabriskie, who is a close friend of Landis’s):

Landis begins our visit by showing me something on his computer: an image of his grimacing face superimposed on the heavily muscled body of an ax-wielding maniac. Beneath the image, in stylish typescript, are the words I’M A HOMO.

“I e-mailed this to Lance and Z-Man and my wife,” Landis says, smiling hugely. “Z-Man and my wife got right back to me—they thought it was pretty funny. I never heard back from Lance, though.”

“I wonder why?” Z-Man asks, deadpan.

We’ll probably never know if Landis cheated. But if he did, I want him to come clean about it, like world championship rider David Millar. Drugs aren’t going to kill the sport. After all, if that were the case, it would have happened by now. But there are consequences. The German public broadcast network, which airs the Tour de France annually, is rethinking that move: “We signed a broadcasting contract for a sporting event, not a show demonstrating the performances of the pharmaceutical industry,” ZDF editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender said. “We are going to think about our future as broadcaster and maybe refuse to broadcast this event.”

I’m sure I’ll watch again next year. It’s become a July tradition. But it won’t be with nearly the same excitement I felt in watching this year’s race.

My latest “Mass. Media” column in CommonWealth Magazine focuses on WAVM Radio, a true community resource that was nearly driven off the air last year.

Based at Maynard High School and run almost entirely by students, the station almost went under when its license was preliminarily awarded to a religious broadcaster that had filed a challenge with the Federal Communications Commission. To make matters worse, the station’s longtime faculty adviser was arrested and charged with sexually abusing several of his former students. But parents and students pulled together and saved their station.

Pending final approval by the FCC, it looks like WAVM is here to stay — and with a stronger signal, thanks to its unique partnership with WUMB Radio of UMass Boston.

Did the Big Dig claim its second victim this week?

Yesterday the Boston Herald weighed in with an exclusive: a report by Michele McPhee, O’Ryan Johnson and Casey Ross that a 64-year-old man who’d suffered a heart attack died in an ambulance that was stuck in gridlocked traffic on Wednesday. The Herald’s lead:

An ambulance racing to get a heart attack victim to the hospital was snagged in Big Dig tunnel gridlock, turning what should have been a four-minute trip into a desperate 24-minute ordeal that ended with the man’s death, public safety and transportation sources said.

It was a nice hit for the Herald, showing that the tabloid is still in the game even though the much-larger Boston Globe, smelling Pulitzer, has been flooding the zone. (Media Nation: Your first stop for hoary clichés!)

Today the Herald follows up and the Globe splashes in. Among other things, we learn that the victim, Bruce Olsen, was a 64- or 65-year-old former Norfolk County commissioner (why do the papers never seem to agree?) who had recently been arrested in Florida on charges of selling marijuana. And you will not be surprised to learn that the two accounts differ on the importance of yesterday’s story.

Each paper makes its case on the basis of quotes by Tom Tinlin, acting commissioner of the Boston Transportation Department. In the Herald story, by McPhee, Tinlin says:

When you have an event like this, even though you know you did everything right, there is a real personal sense of frustration. Everyone understands how gravely ill this man was, but there is a real desire to make sure we do everything we can to make sure traffic flows in a safe manner and to make sure emergency vehicles have the access they need.

Nobody wants anything like this to happen again.

Here, on the other hand, is Tinlin talking to the Globe’s Raja Mishra:

Any time there’s a loss of life, it’s a tragedy, but it’s kind of a stretch to attribute this to the traffic situation. The plan worked that day.

Well, now. What are we to think? The Herald never directly asserts that Olsen died because of the traffic delay. In fact, a modern ambulance staffed by well-trained paramedics can be as good a place to be treated for a heart attack as a hospital emergency room — and, as McPhee reports, officials say they actually pulled over twice so they could concentrate on treating Olsen, thus adding to the delay.

But is there any question that Olsen was treated differently because of Big Dig-related traffic delays? Not really. It’s a serious enough situation that Mayor Tom Menino has ordered an investigation.

Bottom line: Even though Olsen should have arrived at the hospital sooner than he did, he almost certainly didn’t die because of the Big Dig. But unless the traffic problem is solved soon (unlikely, to say the least), someone will.

Several Media Nation readers have taken some pleasure in Bronson Arroyo’s recent slump. For example, Mike writes, “Over his past seven starts, Lover Boy Arroyo is 0-4 with a 4.79 ERA. Why can’t we get players like that?”

Let’s leave aside the fact that Wily Mo Peña is rehabbing from surgery for an injury he suffered before coming to the Red Sox, that David Wells (at least until Monday) and Matt Clement have contributed zippo, and that Tim Wakefield is on the disabled list. Instead, let’s ask: How bad is Arroyo’s slump?

Arroyo got off to a blistering start against the weaker National League. He’s currently 9-7 with a 3.20 ERA. He’s probably on a pace to turn in his usual performance: 14 or so wins, with an ERA of 4.00.

And yes, it’s true that he hasn’t won since June 19. But consider his last 10 starts. What do we find?

• Six of those were “quality starts” — that is, six or more innings with three or fewer earned runs. A seventh was borderline — four earned runs in seven innings.
• He stunk out the joint yesterday against Houston. But in his two starts before that, he appeared to be coming out of his slump: 15 innings and two earned runs, for two no-decisions that easily could have been wins.
• His ERA for those 10 starts is 4.17. That’s not half-bad in this hitter’s era. And if you overlook yesterday’s doozy, his ERA for the first nine of those starts is a very respectable 3.59.

This is not a guy whose wheels have fallen off.

The Sox have played incredibly well up to this point. How much better might they be playing — and how much better might they be suited for the post-season — if Arroyo were filling one of the two spots at the back of the rotation?

Peter Kadzis put my career back on track twice.

In 1991 he hired me as a copy editor at the Boston Phoenix, a job I had never done before at any level, never mind at a paper as large and prestigious as the Phoenix. Without that break, I’m sure I would have left the business: I was 34, with our first child on the way, and working as production manager at the Pilot, of all places, after a failed attempt at launching a magazine in Boston’s northern and northwestern suburbs. (Not that there’s anything wrong with working for the Pilot, but it was an odd place for a non-Christian to be.)

Then, in 1994, the Phoenix’s media critic, Mark Jurkowitz, left. Although I had worked as the paper’s managing editor and news editor, Peter knew I wanted to switch to a writing position. He took a chance, and I embarked on what would prove to be an 11-year run.

Now Kadzis is changing positions, as you may have heard, moving up from editor of the Phoenix to executive editor of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group, a post that will enable him to plan strategy for the three Phoenix papers, the magazine Stuff@Night, ThePhoenix.com and the FNX radio stations. The new editor of the Boston Phoenix will be associate editor Bill Jensen, whom I do not know well (he joined the staff just as I was leaving), but who gets good reviews from my former colleagues.

Kadzis will continue to be a strong presence at the Phoenix, so this isn’t a farewell tribute. But people should understand that the Phoenix is as strong today as it is editorially because of his vision. More than anything, what stands out in my mind is his refusal to give up on a story. There was always another rewrite to be done, always another source to be called. He could drive us crazy sometimes, but it made all of us better journalists. I consider him a mentor and a friend.

Below is the complete text of a press release put out by the Phoenix earlier this week announcing not just Kadzis’ and Jensen’s promotions, but a number of other moves as well:

Brad Mindich, Executive Vice-President of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group, today announced an internal reorganization of top management within the group’s newspaper, radio, and online operations that will affect sales, editorial, and in-house operations.

In addition, Mindich also reorganized the overall management structure of some of the group’s technology-focused properties. “The idea,” said Mindich, “is to bring together all of the talented resources we have in the organization across the board so we can maximize our flexibility and creativity as we continue to grow.”

On January 1, 2007, Mindich will become President of the PM/CG, replacing long-time President and Chief Operating Officer H. Barry Morris, whose year-end retirement was announced in late March. Morris, 62, has been with the PM/CG since 1970. He began as an advertising sales representative at the Phoenix’s predecessor, Boston After Dark and rose through the ranks to become the newspaper’s Sales Director before being named president of the PM/CG in 1985.

Mindich, 38, is the son of Boston Phoenix founder and publisher Stephen Mindich, chairman of the PM/CG.

The Boston Phoenix, the oldest and perhaps best known of the PM/CG family of companies, is — like all of the PM/CG — family-owned and privately held.

“The Boston Phoenix is preparing to celebrate its 40th anniversary later this year. As we all know, the media world is moving very quickly, and the companies that can adapt early — and, in some cases, first — to the way users consume content are the ones who will continue to thrive. This reorganization is designed so we, at the PM/CG, can continue to do just that,” said Brad Mindich. “I’m inheriting an extraordinary legacy and am excited — and more than a bit daunted — at the idea of steering our newspapers, radio stations, Web sites, and our mobile and other operations into the future. But fortunately, we have many extraordinarily talented people across all areas of the PM/CG, so expect great things from us during the next 40 years.”

All told, Mindich announced 13 changes at six of the media group’s companies. Among the significant appointments:

— Andy Kingston, who goes from General Manager of the WFNX Radio Network to become Senior Vice-President of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group. Kingston will be responsible for the operations of all PM/CG radio (WFNX, WPHX, WFEX) and online outlets (thephoenix.com, stuffatnight.com, fnxradio.com). and business operations of all newspapers (the Boston Phoenix, Providence Phoenix, Portland Phoenix) and magazines (Stuff@Night, the Bruins yearbook, the Celtics Yearbook, Boston Marathon Official Guide, Tweeter Center Guide, Bank of American Pavilion Guide).

Speaking of his new role Kingston said, “I am a very big fan of all our media companies. We are unique in that decades ago we found ways to reach out to a community of young, intelligent adults defined by their active lifestyles and desire to be ahead of the mainstream. Through the years, we have found ways to grow the PM/CG and interact with this large and vital community by using many different platforms while maintaining the integrity of our editorial content and programming. I see first hand that we have major opportunities in the years ahead and am thrilled that Brad Mindich has chosen me to help him position our media companies to take advantage of them.”

— Peter Kadzis, who goes from being Editor of the Boston Phoenix to become Executive Editor of the PM/CG. Kadzis will be responsible for the editorial content of the three newspapers, Stuff@Night magazine, and thephoenix.com, as well as for coordinating feature and news operations with the FNX Radio Network.

Said Kadzis, “In my 18 years at the Phoenix, I’ve helped extend our style of journalism from Boston into Providence and Portland and onto the Web. Now my job is to synthesize the many into a new whole, to forge a stronger regional and national presence. The Web will allow the PM/CG to combine the immediacy and intimacy of broadcast with the depth and impact of print. It’s a new and challenging future.”

— Bill Jensen, who goes from being Associate Editor of the Boston Phoenix to become Editor of the Boston Phoenix. Jensen will be responsible for the day-to-day and week-to-week operations of the Boston Phoenix, the PM/CG flagship and one of the nation’s oldest and best-known alternative weeklies.

Jensen said: “As a newspaper, the Phoenix is incredibly strong. My charge is to maintain that level of excellence and introduce new features that will continue to keep the paper relevant, while at the same time creating a must-read Web presence. The Phoenix will continue to tell compelling stories — the story will always be king — but with the Web, we’re enhancing those stories in ways that new and younger readers now expect. These are exciting days in media. But we can’t just roll with changes, we have to lead with change.”

Of his son being poised to take over control of the companies he founded, Stephen Mindich, said:

“When I founded the Phoenix, rock and roll and the movements for civil rights and against the Vietnam War were revolutionizing society. Today it is the media business that is in the middle of its own revolution. It’s reassuring to know that we have the right mix of talent — of seasoned experience and more youthful ambition — under our roof to carry all the Phoenix companies into the 21st century. To say that I’m proud that my son, Brad, is leading the charge is an understatement. And anyone who knows me, knows I’m not prone to understatement.”

Of continuity in terms of editorial mission and advertising strategy, Brad Mindich said:

“Phoenix core values are a constant: we believe in crusading journalism, progressive politics, and the intensive coverage of traditional and pop culture. Our aim is to deliver to print, radio, and online advertisers an audience of young, well-educated, and activist readers and listeners who — because they are single — have disposable income.”

The full text of Brad Mindich’s e-mail to the PM/CG detailing all of the changes follows.

“A couple of months ago, I announced Barry’s retirement from the PM/CG at the end of this year. As part of this ongoing transition process, I am pleased to announce several exciting — and well-deserved — promotions and changes within the PM/CG structure.

“Although all of these changes will happen now, the full impact of them will occur at the end of the year when reporting structures change.

“Andy Kingston: from GM, FNX Radio Network to Senior Vice-President, PM/CG

“Peter Kadzis: from Editor of the Boston Phoenix to Executive Editor, PM/CG

“Bill Jensen: from Associate Editor, Boston Phoenix to Editor, Boston Phoenix

“Bill Risteen: from Sales Director, Print Media to Vice-President of Print Media Sales, PM/CG

“Michael Bornhorst: from Associate Director of Sales, Print Division to Vice-President, Marketing and Business Development, PM/CG

“Everett Finkelstein: from National Sales Director, Print to Vice-President of National Print Sales, PM/CG

“Dick Gooding: from GM, Mass Web Printing to Vice-President, Mass Web Printing

“David Dinnage: from President, People2People Group to Vice-President of Operations, PM/CG

“Kathleen Parrish: from HR Manager, PM/CG to HR Director, PM/CG

“Travis Ritch: from Production Manager, Boston Phoenix to Corporate Production Manager, PM/CG

“Tory Williams: appointment as President, People2People Group

“Adam Segel: from GM, People2People Group to Vice-President, People2People Group

“In addition to the promotions within the company, we will also be recruiting some additions to the PM/CG family to allow us to pursue new opportunities and continue our growth as a converged media organization. I will let you know as we begin to finalize these details.

“Please join me in congratulating everyone and thanks to all of you for your continued commitment and dedication.”

Media Nation Jr. and I are heading up to Imp Campsite this afternoon and the summit of Mount Moriah tomorrow. (We hope to work in a trip here, too.) I’ll try to post comments Thursday morning before heading back to New Hampshire to pick up Miss Media Nation from Girl Scout camp.

So now White House spokesman Tony Snow has apologized for referring to embryonic-stem-cell research as “murder,” explaining it was a rhetorical flourish that went quite a bit farther than President Bush was willling to go. Which only makes it more inexplicable that chief of staff Josh Bolten wasn’t prepared to clarify this in his hapless appearance on “Meet the Press.”

Snow says he “feel[s] bad” about what happened to Bolten. But any political operatives who aren’t rank amateurs should have seen this coming. And the Bushies have never struck anyone as rank amateurs when it comes to politics. Until now, perhaps.

BostonHerald.com has been tweaked. It’s not a full redesign, and navigating it can still be a bit bewildering. But it’s — well, better.

The emphasis is on the Herald’s Web-only and Web-enhanced features. There’s a “Today’s Most Popular” box on the right and prominent space given to the paper’s bloggers.

The section-front guides that you encounter as you scroll down are an improvement, although they appear not to have been fully implemented yet — right now, “News & Opinion” consists of obits.

Not bad, but I’d still like to see a full redesign. Here is one of the best. (Well, they’re both tabloids, aren’t they?)

Sunday marked White House chief of staff Josh Bolten’s first appearance on “Meet the Press.” I suspect he won’t be back soon — and that when he does return, he’ll have a strategy other than stonewalling Tim Russert by repeating the same non-answer over and over again.

Russert is no Ted Koppel, but he is dogged, and he can get pretty riled up when someone simply refuses to answer his questions. He seemed especially put out by Bolten, who dodged him on Lebanon, Iraq and — most notably — whether President Bush believes that embryonic-stem-cell research involves “murder,” as White House spokesman Tony Snow claimed last week before Bush vetoed a federal funding measure.

Do read the whole interview, but here is an illuminating excerpt. (Note: All ellipses except the final one come straight from the MSNBC transcript.)

MR. RUSSERT: Then if the president believes it is human life, how can he allow private stem cell research to go forward, go forward, if, in fact, that is murder?

MR. BOLTEN: It’s a very, it’s a very difficult balance. I mean, the president recognizes that there are millions of Americans who don’t recognize that as a human life, and that the promise of that research for the saving of life is so important that they, that they want that to go forward. What the president has said is that as far as the federal policy is concerned, no federal funds, your tax dollars and my tax dollars, will go towards promoting the destruction of that human embryo.

MR. RUSSERT: But you’re using federal funds for existing lines, which were of embryos. So were those embryos that the federal government is experimenting on obtained by homicidal means?

MR. BOLTEN: Those, those embryos, those stem cell lines, were already — those embryos were already destroyed, and, and that’s where the president — the president’s policies draw the line. That is that our tax dollars, from the point that the president made his policy statement forward, our tax dollars are not going to go to further incent the destruction of those fertilized embryos. Let me, let me…

MR. RUSSERT: The logic, Mr. Bolten, as people are listening to this, the president is saying no, we can’t use embryos that are going to be discarded by in vitro clinics because, according to a spokesman, that’s murder. But we can use embryos that were existing before I became president, that’s OK. And if you have a private company and you want to use those embryos, that’s OK. Back to the central question: does the president agree with his spokesman, Tony Snow, that the research on the embryo in, in fact, to use that embryo is murder?

MR. BOLTEN: The president thinks that that embryo, that fertilized embryo, is a human life that deserves protection…

MR. RUSSERT: But does he accept or reject the use of the word “murder”?

MR. BOLTEN: I haven’t spoken to him about the use, the use of particular terminology…

Granted, no one answers a question if he doesn’t want to. But Bolten’s inability to dodge and shift gracefully, along with his obvious lack of preparation, are unusual for someone who has attained such power and influence.

His post-“MTP” conversation with Karl Rove couldn’t have been pleasant.