Colby Hall’s Mediaite commentary about Olivia Nuzzi is winning a lot of praise. The redoubtable Jay Rosen goes so far as to call it “the best thing I have read about her.”
This morning I’d like to offer a countervailing view. Hall’s take is smart, but it’s not quite as smart as a lot of people seem to think. Ultimately, Hall is caught up in a particular kind of insular, New York-based media world that has little to do with the experience of actual journalists. As just one example, I’m going to offer the career that independent journalist Marisa Kabas has built for herself, so stay tuned.
Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund responsible for hollowing out newspapers from coast to coast and at all points in between, is trying to have the last laugh at rival Hearst’s expense.
Earlier this week it was reported that The Dallas Morning News would lay off 26 employees, eliminating the entire copy desk and outsourcing print page production. Rachel Behrndt of WFAA-TV wrote that the paper’s union said the move violated the collective bargaining agreement.
But Behrndt also noted that the Morning News was adding 18 new positions.
The Hearst chain acquired the Morning News in September after a several-months-long bidding war with Alden that resulted in Hearst’s paying a higher price than it had originally offered — but less than Alden was prepared to pay.
Following the layoffs, Alden’s MediaNews Group, one of two newspaper chains that it owns, issued a statement saying that it was “unfortunate that Hearst duped Dallas Morning News controlling shareholder Robert Decherd into handing over control of this storied newspaper, his legacy now tarnished forever,” according to Bron Maher of A Media Operator.
“MediaNews Group was obviously the superior operator bidding to buy the newspaper,” the statement continued. “These newsroom cuts should be a stark warning to anyone who considers selling to Hearst and, even worse, at a massive discount.”
Current and former staff members at papers such as the Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register and the Boston Herald, all of which have been hollowed out under Alden’s ownership, might differ with that assertion.
Not to get all dewy-eyed about Hearst, a corporate chain with multiple media holdings, including 28 daily newspapers. But those papers are generally held in high regard. The Hearst approach is to form groups of newspapers within a state and to focus on statewide and regional coverage. Thus the chain has rolled up most of Texas’ papers, including the Houston Chronicle, the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express-News — and now The Dallas Morning News.
Nor should the layoffs have come as a surprise. The Morning News’ public editor, Stephen Buckley, wrote more than a month ago:
We will be removing positions that are duplicated as a result of the merger, and those employees will be leaving the company over the next six months. In many cases, we will reinvest those dollars in positions we need to take advantage of the new digital capabilities.
Indeed, the whole point to forming regional groups is to eliminate redundancies, which leads to layoffs but also to the opportunity to add new positions, as Hearst is doing in Dallas.
There is no substitute for committed local ownership, and it’s a shame that the previous owners of the Morning News decided to sell. In both the short and the long term, though, its staff and its readers are far better off with Hearst than they would have been with Alden Global Capital.
The Lexington Minuteman would not approve. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.
Kyle York had a simple request. He asked the school department in Lexington, Massachusetts, to provide him with public records in order to bolster his request that the system provide support services for his daughter, who has dyslexia.
But thanks to the state’s notoriously weak public records law, school officials were able to stonewall him by demanding fees that were grossly excessive, essentially daring him to file an appeal. Fortunately for York, those officials were also sloppy — they documented their ruse in an email and included that email in a trove of records that they eventually provided to him without charge, Christopher Huffaker reports (sub. req.) in The Boston Globe.
In his story, he includes an incredibly blatant internal email sent to a school employee by Kristen McGrath, the executive administrative assistant for human resources:
Attached is a spreadsheet and it looks like a pdf of the spreadsheet. The dates are 2019-2025. Can you over estimate the time it would take to compile/copy the invoices requested and let me know when you have a chance? Hopefully, when I let them know the cost they will not want to do it.
Thank you!
Kristen
The subterfuge has earned a New England Muzzle Award for the Lexington Public Schools. As Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, tells the Globe, “It’s a symptom of our poor public records law that allows those in government agencies, whether it’s a school or some other public body, to play games with the law to withhold records that should be given to the public, and most of the time do so without any kind of accountability.”
York has been fighting for services to help his daughter for some time. In February 2024, Shannon Garrido of The Lexington Observer reported that he was one of a number of parents who were frustrated by what they perceived as a lack of support for their children.
“We probably spent in the last year like $20,000, between advocates, attorneys, [and] private tutors,” York told Garrido at that time.
As Huffaker reports in the Globe, York has received an apology from Schools Supt. Julie Hackett. But the article also notes that the public records law, despite some tightening up in 2016, remain grossly inadequate, with uncertain prospects for anyone who appeals to the secretary of state’s office and the attorney general, plus little in the way of penalties for offending government officials.
The Washington Post’s increasingly Trump-friendly editorial page has rediscovered its soul, however briefly.
In a piece published Tuesday afternoon, the Post tears into Donald Trump for his friendly White House get-together with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, according to a CIA intelligence assessment, was behind the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident (and Post columnist) Jamal Khashoggi.
The editorial is unsigned, which means that it represents the institutional voice of the newspaper, including its owner, Jeff Bezos. Better still, The New York Times reports that Bezos was not among the tech moguls who attended Trump’s dinner for bin Salman, even though others were there — including Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Dell’s Michael Dell, Cisco’s Chuck Robbins, Elon Musk and others.
Paul Krugman and Margaret Sullivan. Photo via Paul Krugman’s newsletter.
Media critic Margaret Sullivan made an error recently. No big deal — we all do it. But her account of what happened next is worth thinking about.
First, the error. Sullivan writes in her newsletter, American Crisis, that she recently appeared on economist Paul Krugman’s podcast and said that Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong was among the billionaires who joined Donald Trump at his second inauguration earlier this year, along with the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. “I was wrong about that,” she notes, although she adds that Soon-Shiong “has been friendly to Trump in other ways.” Then she writes:
But — how’s this for a cautionary tale about the dubious accuracy of artificial intelligence? — a Google “AI overview,” in response to a search, almost immediately took my error and spread it around: “Yes, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong attended Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025. He was seen there alongside other prominent figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.” It cited Krugman’s and my conversation. Again, I was wrong and I regret the error.
It does appear that the error was corrected fairly quickly. I asked Google this morning and got this from AI: “Patrick Soon-Shiong did not attend Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Earlier reports and AI overviews that claimed he did were based on an error by a journalist who later issued a correction.” It links to Sullivan’s newsletter.
Unlike Google, Claude makes no mention Sullivan’s original mistake, concluding, accurately: “While the search results don’t show Patrick Soon-Shiong listed among the most prominent billionaires seated in the Capitol Rotunda (such as Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and others who received extensive coverage), the evidence suggests he was engaged with the inauguration events and has maintained a relationship with Trump’s administration.”
And here’s the verdict from ChatGPT: “I found no credible public evidence that Patrick Soon-Shiong attended Donald Trump’s second inauguration.”
You might cite my findings as evidence that AI corrects mistakes quickly, and in this case it did. (By the way, the error has not yet been corrected at Krugman’s site.) But a less careful journalist than Sullivan might have let the original error hang out there, and it would soon have become part of the established record of who did and didn’t pay homage to Trump on that particular occasion.
In other words: always follow your queries back to the source.
Vibraphonists Joe Locke, left, and Warren Wolf, accompanied by bassist Richie Goods. Photo (cc) 2025 by Dan Kennedy.
We recently decided to make a return trip to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown after a too-brief visit in August. While we were looking for other things to do, we noticed that the museum was hosting a jazz combo called Dueling Vibes on Saturday evening.
What we didn’t realize was that we were going to see (and hear) three world-class musicians — vibraphonists Warren Wolf and Joe Locke, accompanied by Richie Goods on upright and electric bass. Wolf and Locke came out early to talk with the audience for a half hour, then three of them returned to wow us for 90 minutes.
These guys were terrific, performing everything from jazz standards to some Tina Marie funk. The two-vibes lineup was varied occasionally with Locke and then Wolfe moving to piano, but mainly it was all mallets, all the time, with some pieces played at lightning speed. I am not a vibes aficionado, so I have to admit that Wolf and Locke were new to me. But their bios show that they are at the top of the heap.
The show was hosted by Jazz in the Berkshires, and it turned out to be the unexpected highlight of our trip.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has been harshly criticized for his handling of the government shutdown. Photo (cc) 2024 by the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
We’ve been hashing out the pros and cons of ending the government shutdown on Facebook this week. My position has been that the Democrats shouldn’t have caved, but that it was a close call. Certainly the shutdown couldn’t have gone on too much longer, especially with families in danger of going hungry and federal workers not receiving paychecks.
More than anything, I didn’t see any possible way that the Democrats could achieve their stated objective of forcing Donald Trump and the Republican Congress to extend health-care subsidies. The government could have stayed shut for six more months and that wouldn’t have changed.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, I talk with Kade Krichko, the founder of Ori magazine, a beautifully crafted premium print publication devoted to grassroots storytelling across the globe. (Ellen Clegg is recovering from knee replacement surgery but is producing behind the scenes. She’ll return to the air soon.)
Kade describes himself as a world wanderer with a knack for misadventure. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, ESPN, Vice and Outside, among other publications. He admits to loving a good story, and writes, “If the tale has a pulse, I’m listening.” Kade is a Northeastern University graduate and a part-time lecturer in the School of Journalism. He created and taught a course in Sports, Media and Digital Storytelling.
Jon Keller. Photo via WBZ-TV.
I also check in with longtime political journalist Jon Keller. Jon was recently laid off by WBZ-TV (Channel 4) after a 20-year career there. He was one of five staff members who lost their jobs as part of what appears to be a deep corporate purge by David Ellison, whose Skydance Media company bought Paramount earlier this fall. CBS is part of Paramount, and WBZ is part of CBS.
Jon is not going away, fortunately, and is still writing for MASSterList and Boston magazine. He has some sharp observations on the role of local TV news in covering state and city politics.
Later on in the podcast, I’ve got a Quick Take about the latest bad news from our tech overlords. The Columbia Journalism Review reports that the new AI-powered web browsers designed to replace Chrome and Safari are able to circumvent a news organization’s digital paywall. Not always — it depends on the technology that was used to build the paywall. But at a time when publishers are already losing traffic because of AI, this is a direct assault on the business model for journalism in the digital age.
Imagine, if you will, a public school, supported by taxpayer dollars, claiming that it’s a private corporation and doesn’t have to comply with the state’s public records law. It is absurd on the face of it. Yet that’s what the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School is arguing in a case before the Supreme Judicial Court.
According to an account by Jennifer Smith in CommonWealth Beacon, at least two of the justices appeared to be unimpressed by the Malden-based school’s claims when the case was argued at a recent hearing.
“You’re in real trouble,” Justice Scott Kafker told Charles Waters, a lawyer for the school, explaining, “It quacks like a duck, it waddles like a duck, it paddles like a duck.” Added Justice Dalia Wendlandt:
I understand charter schools were created to be independent in certain ways, to foster innovation in education and have the ability to do that in a way that the average public school does not. Good. But that doesn’t carry you to the argument that they’re not subject to the public record law.
At issue are some 10 instances in which public records were sought by a Facebook-based local news organization called the Malden News Network, Commonwealth Transparency and Malden mayoral candidate Lissette Alvarado. Smith reports that the requested information includes “corporate statements, contracts, ledgers, lease records, conflict of interest disclosures filed by board members, payments made to employees or professional services, and confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements.”
The case dates back to mid-2023, when state Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a legal action against the school to force it to comply with the public records law. For fighting so stubbornly to conduct the public’s business behind closed doors, the Mystic Valley school has earned a New England Muzzle Award — its second. In 2017, I awarded a Muzzle to the school for discriminating against Black students by banning long braids and dreads. In 2022, the school sent a female Muslim student home because she was wearing a hijab in violation of the student dress code.
Despite the school’s reputation for academic excellence, there is clearly a culture problem that needs to be addressed.
According to Smith’s report in CommonWealth Beacon, Mystic Valley is claiming that it’s not subject to the public records law because “Charter schools, in their view, are public schools that are structured and treated in some ways more like corporations.” Among those disagreeing is the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. Then again, Mystic Valley is one of just three charter schools that are not members of that organization.
In an editorial (sub. req.) calling for the SJC to rule against Mystic Valley, The Boston Globe observes that the school has already lost in decisions rendered by the state supervisor of records, the attorney general and a Superior Court judge. The editorial concludes: “Charter schools have been a great asset to Massachusetts families; indeed, Mystic Valley has been ranked as one of the best schools in the state. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is that the public has a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”
On several occasions recently, I’ve argued that The Boston Globe ought to make a few gift links available each month so that subscribers can share them. Among other things, it might entice some casual readers into subscribing.
That’s the practice at The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which allot subscribers 10 gift links per month. The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic let subscribers share an unlimited number of stories. Surely the Globe could offer, oh, five or six.
Well, the other day I heard from a reader who told me that the Globe does allow sharing in a limited way. If you email someone the link to a Globe article by copying the URL at the top of your web browser and sending it with your email program, they will hit the paywall. But if you use the email thingie embedded at the top of each article (as in the illustration above), it will produce a link that can be opened by a non-subscriber. I’ve tested it with some of my social media followers, and it works.
What won’t work is if you use any of the other sharing bottons for Facebook, Bluesky and the rest. You’ll get a link, but it won’t get anyone around the paywall. But, uh, let me just also say that the link you get when you use the email button can be shared on social media or anywhere else, and anyone who opens it will have free access to that article.
I’m not going to use those free links on social media. Globe executives have the right charge for their journalism the way they see fit, and the social sharing workaround is clearly an unintended backdoor. On the other hand, I’m not inclined to keep this information to myself. I imagine they’ll implement a fix at some point. But it’s there — at least for now.
But thanks to the state’s notoriously weak public records law, school officials were able to stonewall him by demanding fees that were grossly excessive, essentially daring him to file an appeal. Fortunately for York, those officials were also sloppy — they documented their ruse in an email and included that email in a trove of records that they eventually provided to him without charge, 
