Globe editor McGrory seeks to create a digital-first paper without neglecting print

Earlier today The Boston Globe published editor Brian McGrory’s latest update on the paper’s ongoing reinvention effort. For anyone who read his January memo, it shouldn’t contain too many surprises. Essentially it represents his and his staff’s latest thinking on how to build a digital-first news organization while not letting the print edition wither away. The idea, McGrory writes, is:

to once and for all break the stubborn rhythms of a print operation, allowing us to unabashedly pursue digital subscriptions even while honoring the many loyal readers who subscribe to the physical paper.

The main takeaways:

  • Managing editor for news Christine Chinlund, the newsroom veteran who’s overseeing the move to the paper’s new headquarters at 53 State St., may depart later this year, though McGrory writes that he’s trying to talk her out of it.
  • An “express desk” will push out “in-the-moment important, quirky and just plain fascinating stories that metrics show our readership craves.”
  • Much of the paper’s metro, business and lifestyle operations will be merged into what McGrory is calling a “super department” — an idea he says he first had when he was metro editor. “Admittedly, it was a failed power grab then, but now it’s just common sense,” he writes. The idea is that a big local story might cut across areas that have traditionally been divided by departmental lines. “Think the scourge of student debt, the era of political engagement, and a new consumer advocate, among many others,” McGrory writes. “Some beats are meant to last but a few months, others longer, but all will need to be constantly reassessed.”

Also of note: The Globe is looking to add a position to its Washington bureau, and may sell sports-only subscriptions outside New England in the near future. And, McGrory writes, “we are going to do whatever we can to put the 600-word incremental story out of its sad little end-state misery.” (Studies show that online readers prefer both shorter and longer stories, but that the medium-length story so beloved of newspapers because of the way they fit on a page no longer resonate.)

More Twitter reaction:

There’s a lot more to McGrory’s memo than I’m highlighting here. If you’re interested in the future of the Globe, you should definitely read the whole thing.

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GateHouse agrees to settle class-action suit over charges for ‘premium’ publications

Notice posted on GateHouse websites.

GateHouse Media, which owns more than 100 daily and weekly community newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts, has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought over the company’s practice of charging for “premium” publications that subscribers hadn’t asked for. The legal documents in the case are posted here.

The money was extracted by shortening the length of customers’ subscriptions. Most prominent among those premium publications was Lens, an advertising vehicle published several times a year that was delivered along with GateHouse papers. Lens carried a cover price of $3.95, though subscribers to the papers were assessed $2. A year ago I wrote about the Lens ploy here and here.

GateHouse, according to the proposed settlement, “denies any wrongdoing on its part” but agreed to the settlement based on “the risks and potential cost of the litigation” and “the benefits of the proposed Settlement.” Kirk Davis, GateHouse’s chief executive officer, declined to comment.

Under the agreement, subscribers may receive a refund or have their subscriptions extended if the proposed settlement is approved in Superior Court. According to court documents, the settlement is scheduled to be finalized on Aug. 1. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of two GateHouse newspaper subscribers by Kurtzman Carson Consultants, claimed that GateHouse violated Massachusetts law by failing to disclose its subscription policies adequately.

Although GateHouse, based in Pittsford, New York, has agreed to stop labeling Lens as a premium publication for which subscribers must pay extra, it would continue that practice with other publications, which would cost about $2 in the form of shortened subscriptions. GateHouse would also continue to charge a $4.95 “activation fee” for new subscribers. Disclosure would be clearer and more prominent than it had been previously.

If you visit many GateHouse papers online right now,* you’ll see a “Legal Notice” linking to the settlement documents, which include instructions on how to file a claim. The not-very-helpful text of the notice: “To learn more about the proposed class action settlement in the Steven Keenholtz, M.D., et al. v. GateHouse Media, LLC, et al. action, pleaes click here.” Keenholtz, of Marblehead, and Dorothy Guillicksen, of Hanover, are the plaintiffs named in the class-action suit.

Let’s be clear: This is a very, very small matter. From the time I learned about it, I was astounded that GateHouse would go to the trouble of hitting subscribers with an “activation” fee and charging them for publications they hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. Why not just raise the subscription price?

Meanwhile, David Harris recently reported in the Boston Business Journal that GateHouse was laying off 49 people at its Framingham facility as it consolidated print operations. And Ian Donnis of Rhode Island Public Radio writes that GateHouse continues to hack away at The Providence Journal, and that layoffs may be coming.

*Update: I have learned that the proposed settlement pertains to most but not all GateHouse Media papers in Eastern Massachusetts. The settlement is restricted to papers that carried Lens, and are concentrated in Greater Boston.

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Boston Globe staffers prepare for June move to 53 State St.

The Boston Globe will be relocating to a spot not far from the old Newspaper Row. This 1927 photo is via the Globe.

Boston Globe employees are getting closer to moving out of their Dorchester headquarters and into new downtown digs at 53 State St. According to a memo to the staff from managing editor for news Christine Chinlund, a copy of which magically arrived in my inbox, the move will take place in waves this June.

Not much news other than that unless you are personally affected. Still, Chinlund’s memo amused me, and it might amuse you as well. Here it is:

The pace picked up this week, with many more folks voluntarily tossing out unneeded stuff, and emptying cabinets and bookshelves for removal. Thanks for that. Downtown, construction folks are working back-to-back shifts. The rest of the carpet is down, and polishing concrete (for the portions not carpeted) is underway. The finish work is also pretty far along. Furniture is set to arrive on May 8.

Questions?

Q: Is the whole building going to move at once?

A: No. We are looking at a six part move, starting in early June. First, HR and IT will go, followed two days later by the finance folks, and STAT. A couple of days later the ad/creative folks will follow. Then comes the newsroom, in three parts: Nearly half the newsroom will go in the first wave, followed two days later by almost everyone else except the copy desk, which will follow on the following Sunday, when news flow is relatively light. This plan is, of course, open to revision. But you get the general idea.

Q: At 53 State, may we have little fridges near desks, as we do now?

A: No, but there will be four or five big refrigerators in our kitchen/pantry, along with two monster microwaves. In the much smaller secondary pantry, which is at the corner of Sports and Metro/Business/Features, there will be another refrigerator and I think microwave.

Q: But will I still need to wash my salad bowl in the restroom?

A:  Never again. Both kitchen areas have nice sinks.

Q: I need to start moving stuff out of here now, and taking stuff home. Where do I get boxes?

A: We do not have special boxes for hauling stuff home. But good boxes can be salvaged pretty much daily from the recycle hamper (bin) in the back hall of the cafeteria. Shop early for best selection. Or borrow one of the plastic post office boxes you see around, but you must return it the next day. We need every one of those that we have.

Q: When we move, do we have to get all our computer stuff in our two allotted bankers boxes?

A: No. There will be a separate box for whatever computer hardware we end up taking.

Q: If I need only one of my two boxes for moving day, can I “sell” my second one to someone else?

A: Nice try, but no.

Q: Seems like we should have some sort of party as we leave this venerable old building. Are we?

A: We certainly hope so, and are trying to make it happen. Think good beer and pizza, and invitations to anyone who ever worked here. Hold that thought….

Want to know more? Come view the fresh photos posted on my office window. Of special note: the big photo showing the rather amazing 12th floor roof deck at our disposal. You won’t believe the view.

No, Spicer had no malevolent intent. Yes, he has to go.

Photo via Michael Itzkoff

There’s a school of thought that the harsh criticism of White House spokesman Sean Spicer over his bizarre statement about Hitler never gassing his own people has been overblown. According to this line of thinking, expressed by (among others) Michael Scherer of Time magazine, Spicer deserves the benefit of the doubt because he obviously experienced a brain cramp and had no malevolent intent.

I agree that Spicer’s offensive statements were of the brain-cramp variety and not an actual expression of anti-Semitism. But I disagree that he should get a pass. He is the press secretary for the president of the United States, not an aide to a state rep. A person in that job needs to be quick on his feet and to be able to avoid stumbling into such offensive language, no matter how inadvertent. I couldn’t do it. By all indications, neither can Spicer. Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple puts it this way:

The halting, hard-to-follow speech patterns reflect an unflattering truth about the top spokesperson at the White House: He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. A press secretary needs to have command of a vast topical landscape. Spicer has mastered bluster, and not much else.

Consider, too, that when he realized what he had done, he managed to dig himself in deeper, referring to Nazi death camps as “Holocaust centers,” and then attempting to clarify his remarks with this reference to Hitler: “I think when you come to sarin gas, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.”

“His own people.” Hitler, of course, did not believe that German Jews were “his own people,” and as a result 6 million Jews were exterminated. To see Spicer carelessly adopt the same idea in defense of his own misstatement is pretty shocking.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a sharp analysis of Spicer’s meltdown. He agrees with the point that Spicer was trying to make: that Hitler, even while he was semi-secretly gassing Jews in concentration camps (his own people, you might say), refrained from using chemical weapons on the battlefield, probably because to do so would have risked overwhelming retaliation. “Spicer is simply too big a boob not to know this and too inept to clean up his mess without digging deeper,” Marshall says.

It’s time for Spicer to go.

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Fahrenthold and journalism’s limits; the power of local; and the Globe’s near-winners

Few reporters have ever had the kind of year that David Fahrenthold experienced in 2016. From exposing the Trump Foundation’s bogus and illegal practices to unearthing a tape on which then-candidate Donald Trump could be heard crudely boasting about sexual assault, Fahrenthold single-handedly defined large swaths of the presidential campaign.

Fahrenthold, a Washington Post reporter, was recognized for his efforts Monday with a Pulitzer Prize, which was surely among the least surprising Pulitzers in history. It represented the third year in a row that the Post had won in the National Reporting category, but the first time in 24 years that a Pulitzer had been awarded for covering a presidential campaign.

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Is trust-based journalism the future? Jay Rosen thinks so.

Jay Rosen announced last week that he would be taking a role with The Correspondent, the American version of a Dutch news project that its founders hope to launch next year. Rosen, a New York University journalism professor and one of our most perceptive media observers, explained in an essay for the Nieman Journalism Lab that he was intrigued because The Correspondent has been “optimized for trust.” Among other things, the site will be free of advertising, and reporters will be required to engage in an ongoing conversation with their readers.

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Yes, Dems should filibuster Gorsuch — even though it’s not really about Gorsuch

Judge Merrick Garland, left, meets Sen. Al Franken last March. Photo (cc) 2016 by Senate Democrats.

You may have missed it amid the Sturm und Drang over the fate of health care, but late last week Chuck Schumer announced that Senate Democrats would filibuster President Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Schumer will almost certainly fail. But it’s worth trying to stop this illegitimate nomination. And if Senate Democrats approach it in the right way, they can make an important statement about our broken system of government and what happens when only one of our major parties is willing to respect the norms and traditions that have long guided us.

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It wasn’t the politics of health care that did in Trumpcare. It was the substance.

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer earlier this year. Photo (cc) 2017 by Lorie Scholl.

I find myself frustrated at the tone of much of the commentary following the humiliating withdrawal of the Trump-Ryan health-care bill Friday. I could find a bunch of stuff to link to, but we’ve all seen it. It’s all about winning. So much winning. And if the bill had been approved, most commentators would be hailing President Trump for his big victory.

Yes, Trump got the politics wrong. But of far greater significance is that he and House Speaker Paul Ryan got the substance wrong. There was nothing in their legislation other than a chest-thumping assertion that Obamacare is dead — and that we’re going to screw the poor, help the rich, and dismantle much of what was accomplished by the Affordable Care Act.

The two groups that defeated the legislation did so on principled grounds: Democrats and moderate Republicans who wanted Obamacare to remain entirely or mostly intact; and the House Freedom Caucus, whose extremist members don’t want any government involvement in health care whatsoever. On the other side, those who supported Trumpcare couldn’t point to a single provision that would have improved anyone’s lives other than the wealthy people who’d get a tax cut.

After the defeat, Trump blamed House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. He’s right — it’s on them. And we should thank them for saving the most important piece of social legislation since Medicare was approved in the 1960s. And these folks, too:

Any major new program needs technical fixes along the way. Unfortunately, after Obamacare was approved, congressional Republicans refused to consider any such legislation. That, along with attempts by many Republican governors to undermine it in their states, is responsible for the ACA’s not working as well as it should.

On Friday, the ACA was saved. It now must withstand at least two years of Republican attempts to starve it of funds. But as Jonathan Chait of New York magazine points out, it’s not likely to be repealed after the debacle of this week. Trump and congressional Republicans won’t be in power forever. At some point, we’ll have an opportunity to get this right.

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Gather ’round the keg and let Paul Ryan explain why hurting the poor is freedom

Paul Ryan. Photo (cc) 2016 by Gage Skidmore.

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s slide in the public eye from policy wonk to partisan hack was a long time coming. But it finally reached its bottom during the past few weeks in two revealingly smug displays of insolence.

The first came in the form of Ryan’s prediction that a report by the Congressional Budget Office would show that fewer Americans would be insured under his plan to replace President Barack Obama’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

“The one thing I’m certain will happen is CBO will say, ‘Well, gosh, not as many people will get coverage.’ You know why? Because this isn’t a government mandate,” Ryan said in a television interview. “So there’s no way we can compete with, on paper, a government mandate with coverage.”

Sure enough, the CBO reported that 24 million more Americans would go without coverage under Ryan’s plan than under Obamacare. And Ryan pronounced himself to be delighted, saying his legislation “is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they can afford.” As for all those millions of people who would go without health coverage, well, you know, freedom.

Ryan’s second offense came last week in the form of a public conversation with Rich Lowry of National Review. In a classic “Not The Onion” moment, Ryan shared with Lowry his excitement at the prospect of slashing health care for the poor:

So Medicaid, sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate. We’ve been dreaming of this since I’ve been around — since you and I were drinking at a keg…. I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a long time. We’re on the cusp of doing something we’ve long believed in.

Ryan was so proud that he posted the video on his own website, Speaker.gov. It speaks volumes that he feels so comfortable in his assault on poor people that he can crack frat-boy jokes about it in front of an audience.

Not too many years ago, Ryan was regularly described as the intellectual leader of conservative Republicanism. He was a reader of books — well, OK, Ayn Rand novels. He discussed complex policy issues as though he knew what he was talking about. And he thoroughly bamboozled much of the punditocracy.

In late 2015, shortly after Ryan deigned to become House speaker in response to the importunings of his leaderless party, Eric Alterman of The Nation dug up some choice quotes. Jacob Weisberg of Slate had referred to a Ryan plan to reform (that is, gut) Medicare as “brave, radical, and smart.” David Brooks of The New York Times wrote that Ryan had “set the standard of seriousness for anybody who wants to play in this discussion.”

According to a 2012 profile of Ryan by Alec MacGillis in The New Republic, the liberalish uberwonk Ezra Klein of The Washington Post — who later founded Vox — was also not immune to Ryan’s charms. Klein praised Ryan’s radical budget-cutting plans as “a more honest entry into the debate” than typical conservative boilerplate. MacGillis also observed: “Once you earn a reputation as a Serious Man in Washington, it’s almost impossible to lose it.”

Gradually, Ryan has managed to lose it. Without question, Ryan’s slide began after he accepted Mitt Romney’s offer to be his running mate during the 2012 presidential campaign. Ryan was demolished during his debate with Joe Biden — a far more intelligent man than he is generally given credit for, but someone who, unlike Ryan, has never been described as an “intellectual.” It was an embarrassing moment for Ryan, and one from which he has never completely recovered, despite his rise in the Republican hierarchy.

Some observers have always been onto Ryan’s act. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman — a Nobel Prize-winning economist, which really does qualify him as an intellectual — has described Ryan as a “con man” and worse. Charles Pierce of Esquire regularly refers to Ryan as a “zombie-eyed granny starver.”

Now Ryan is putting the finishing touches on his proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare. As I write this, he is making changes to mollify conservatives who don’t think the measure goes far enough and moderates who think it goes too far. It will be quite a trick if he can pull it off. But as Robert David Sullivan of the Jesuit magazine America put it in a discussion on Facebook, “Paul Ryan is the Julia Child of making policy drafting catastrophes look barely presentable enough to swallow.”

Which is perhaps the ultimate irony of Paul Ryan. Even though he has been revealed as more an ideologue than an intellectual, even though his clenched-teeth alliance with President Trump has diminished him, he may be on the verge of his greatest triumph — a triumph that will line the pockets of the rich and harm the poor, the sick, and the elderly.

Ayn Rand would be so proud.

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