Media Nation

More details on the Globe’s tweaked-up opinion section

The Boston Globe’s interim editorial-page editor, Ellen Clegg, wasn’t ready to go public about this when we spoke last week. But this week the paper announced a project called “Opinion Reel,” which will run “short documentaries with a point of view” submitted by “local professionals, students, and smartphone auteurs.”

“You could even be Ken Burns and we’ll take a look,” Clegg says.

It’s an intriguing idea, and it will be interesting to see what gets posted. I’ve already made sure our journalism students at Northeastern know about it.

• As I wrote last week, the redesign of the opinion pages in print can’t be looked at in isolation. Instead, the two-page print spread should be seen as kind of a “best of” taken from the larger online opinion section. I’ve heard several people say they were afraid the pages were being dumbed down, a concern that makes sense only if you’re still focused on print. (People: It’s 2015.)

Case in point: On Wednesday, as the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev death-penalty case was being turned over to the jury, the Globe posted a commentary by Boston College Law School professor Kari Hong arguing that the time has come to bring back firing squads. Her piece does not appear in the print edition.

As Mark Twain said of Wagner’s music, Hong’s essay is better than it sounds. Hong, an opponent of capital punishment who’s represented clients on death row, makes a strong case that the firing squad would be more humane than lethal injection.

“If jurors had to choose between giving someone life in prison — without the possibility of parole — or putting them in front of a firing squad,” she concludes, “I have no doubt that many would opt for the former.”

The Globe gets ready to unveil its life-sciences vertical

A couple of news briefs about The Boston Globe:

Benjamin Mullin has an interesting story at Poynter about the Globe’s life-sciences vertical, which is scheduled to begin a slow-roll launch this fall. The project already has a high-profile editor, Rick Berke, formerly of Politico and The New York Times. Berke tells Mullin that he expects the unnamed website will also have a “print component” — unlike (so far) Crux, the Globe’s vertical covering the Catholic Church. Like Crux and BetaBoston, which covers tech and innovation, it sounds like life-sciences stories of broad interest will also appear in the Globe itself.
Globe Magazine editor Susanne Althoff is leaving the paper to become an assistant professor in Emerson College’s Writing, Literature, and Publishing Department at Emerson College. In a characteristically effusive email to the staff, editor Brian McGrory writes, “Her team consistently produces some of the highest quality journalism to come out of the Globe, beautifully portrayed in print. And the magazine’s creativity and savvy in story selection, execution, and packaging have routinely led to massive readership online. Look no further than the feature on being poor at an Ivy League school, guaranteed to be one of the most read Globe stories of 2015.”

GateHouse keeps slashing at the Telegram & Gazette

GateHouse Media keeps slashing at the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester — and editorial-page editor Chris Sinacola has quit. Noah Lombard of MassLive has the details.

The Globe drags its opinion pages into the 21st century

Of all the hoary traditions of 20th-century newspapering, few seem quite so hoary as the editorial and op-ed pages. Mixing editorials (unsigned because they represent the institutional views of the newspaper), cartoons, columns by staff members and outside contributors, and letters from readers, the opinion pages often seem anachronistic in the digital age — a bit too formal, more than a bit too predictable and way too slow off the mark.

Starting today, The Boston Globe is attempting to bring that nearly half-century-old construct up to date. No longer is the left-hand page labeled “Editorial” and the right “Opinion.” Instead, both pages are unified under “Opinion.” Content — some of it new, some familiar — is free-floating.

Much of it is what you’d expect: a pro-Olympics editorial (sigh) as well as staff columns by Joan Vennochi and Dante Ramos. Some is new: a roundup of opinion from elsewhere called “What They’re Saying,” a very short take by staff columnist Joanna Weiss on a much-delayed skate park, and an amalgamation of letters, tweets and online comments rebranded as “Inbox.” (The changes are outlined here.)

“You could look at this as a meal where you want snackable content and meatier content and the occasional dessert,” says interim editorial-page editor Ellen Clegg. Some of the ideas, she adds, were developed by experimenting with the opinion content of Capital, the Globe’s Friday political section.

Globe Opinion pages

Regular columns have been cut from 700 to 600 words. But op-ed-page editor Marjorie Pritchard says that the new Opinion section will also be more flexible, with pieces running from 400 to 1,200 or more words. (Coincidentally, this article in Digiday, in which Kevin Delaney of Quartz calls for the demise of the standard 800-word article, is the talk of Twitter this week.)

The Globe’s opinion operation has been on a roll under Clegg and her predecessor, Peter Canellos (now executive editor of Politico), with Kathleen Kingsbury winning a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing last month and Ramos being named a finalist in 2014. But the look and feel of the pages haven’t changed much since the 1970s.

And then there’s the whole matter of print in the digital age. Globe editor Brian McGrory recently told his staff that a print-first mentality still prevails, writing that “too many of us — editors, reporters, photographers, graphic artists — think of just print too often.”

McGrory does not run the opinion pages, as both he and Clegg report directly to publisher John Henry. But the redesigned print section, with its careful attention to art and graphics, has the look and feel of a print-first play. In fact, Clegg is pursuing a two-track strategy — an improved but tightly curated print section and a larger online Opinion site. “Brian as usual captured it beautifully,” Clegg says. “I think that captured the ethos of where we’re all going, where we’re all headed.”

For some time now Clegg herself has been writing an online-only “Morning Opinion Digest” with summaries and links to provocative content elsewhere. Opinion pieces often run online before they appear in print. And some pieces are Web exclusives, such as this commentary by editorial writer Marcela García on the cultural stereotypes surrounding Cinco de Mayo.

Says Pritchard: “We’ve run a lot of online exclusives in the past, and we’re trying to beef that up.” Clegg adds that “we certainly don’t want to shortchange the print reader, but we want to enhance the digital experience. There has to be a balance.”

It was a half-century ago that The New York Times developed the modern op-ed page. Times editorial board member John Oakes, the Ochs-Sulzberger family member who was largely responsible for the idea, once called it “one of the great newspaper innovations of the century,” according to this Jack Shafer piece.

By contrast, the Globe’s new Opinion section should be seen as a modest improvement. But at a time when newspapers, both in print and online, are fighting to maintain their relevance, the Globe deserves credit for trying something new.

Also posted at WGBHNews.org.

Caught in a Web of bad headlines

By Adam Smith

After working too long at tiny newspapers around Boston, I finally got  my break — a job as a copy editor in the Boston Herald’s business  section. It was 2008, just as smartphones were about to change how we  present and get the news, and years after the creations of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Yet, at the Herald, Atex computer terminals still dominated the newsroom.

For those who don’t know what Atex machines are, I’ll explain. They were cruel, crude and unforgiving computers, with one-color screens, usually green on black. They had no spell-check capabilities, no ability to browse the Web — save for wire feeds — and they crashed nearly every night before deadline. They were also efficient for producing print newspapers, which was probably why decades after they were installed in the Herald’s desks, they were still in use.

I would have to use these machines not only for copy editing, but for writing headlines. If there was a good reason to have a panic attack the first day on the job, this was it.

The Herald has been long known for its headlines. We believed that a certain other newspaper’s were mostly long and boring, and ours were short and sparky. For the paper to sell, and at the same time for people  to read it with ease, the headlines had to be witty and well written. It  was to be a big part of the job, and I still don’t know how I made it  through the paper’s probation period, but I did. As it turned out,  writing on Atex would prove good training, in the same kind way that  learning how to ride a bicycle with no helmet or training wheels down  Comm. Ave. at rush hour would: If you mess up, you’re screwed.

No one ever told me how to pen headlines at the Herald, but they guided me and led by example. The expectations were always high. These headlines had to, first, be true to the story, giving the reader an accurate set of clues as to what he would be reading about. Second, they had to be clear and concise. Third, they had to be fun to read, or, better, clever.

But, equally as critical, they had to fit the space of the tabloid. This often meant they were limited to five or six words, sometimes only four.

The last part is where the beauty of Atex came in. You were given a set of requirements for what your headline would be — number of letters, size and typeface — and you had no choice but to meet them. Atex wouldn’t let you tinker around by writing too long or too short. And even if it did, the head copy editor would make sure the headline went right back to you for a rewrite, or worse, he just rewrote the damn  thing for you. It was a tough but efficient way to learn how to write good headlines. I came to appreciate that headline writing should be a painful, practical art, just as the rest of journalism is. And constraints are part of what make it an art. It’s just like a haiku — it wouldn’t be a haiku if the poem could be 30 lines long.

Years later, I got a Web writing gig elsewhere and received a memo on so-called “social” headline writing tips. They were all things I would  have avoided at the Herald, and probably things that would have gotten  me made fun of there, too. The list encouraged writing lists, using odd-numbered lists, and including words such as “smart,” “surprising,”  “huge,” “doing” and “saying.” It advised against being too clever.

The advice was no doubt based on some type of Web-headline writing formula, as I see these types of titles all over the Internet. These headlines are usually lists (like “19 Male Characters Who Are Obviously  Hufflepuffs” from BuzzFeed), questions (like “Is Rand Paul Sexist or  just a Jerk?” from Slate) or writing that’s too long and tries to  sound conversational (like “Rick Porcello Didn’t Have to Be an Ace to Do  His Job in the Red Sox Home Opener” from Boston.com). Then there’s the  CNN favorite: “Here’s What We Know About…” or “Here’s What We Don’t Know About…” headlines. How many question headlines will lure us into  a story? How many lists can we take before realize our lives have too  many lists and they start to seem like work?

While headlines based on the best of the newspaper model tease at our curiosity and or compel us to read, especially if their stories are also compelling, these increasingly popular made-for-Web headlines were interesting when they first appeared, but now are mostly just tiring  and, often worse, biased and misleading.

As the Rand Paul headline shows, how can journalists expect to keep credibility when headlines (and stories) like these are written? Question headlines can even be misleadingly dangerous, which is I why I was told at the Herald to avoid writing them. By asking something you cannot assert, you plant an idea, possibly a biased or incorrect one, into readers’ minds.

I remember when living in Japan last year, I was struck by such reckless headlines from respectable online publications. “Will Japan and China Go to War?” was written by Time, and “Will Japan Abandon Pacifism?” was  written by The Atlantic. Why not write something more exact such as  “China and Japan Edge Closer to War” or “Japan to Shed Pacifist Past”?  Probably because neither is true. But yet those are the impressions I  got when reading the two headlines. Those kinds of headlines are like if your co-worker asks you, “Do you think Jim is a pervert?” Of course! Jim must be a perv! Because now that you asked I can’t shake that image from my head!

Question headlines were rare at the Herald, and usually when we used them, they weren’t really questions. I still remember one I wrote for a story by the awesomely prolific Laurel Sweet. It read: “Dying for a Snack?” The subhead, I think, explained the rest: “Bill Would Allow Munchies at Funerals.”

While we run to embrace all that we’re told we should do in the brave new world of electronic journalism — often with the promise it will bring back readers and their money — we shouldn’t forget what got us here in the first place: Journalism as it has been practiced — and refined — for the past many decades.

And, in case you’re wondering, no, we should not bring back the Atex machines.

Adam Smith worked as a staff copy editor at the Boston Herald from 2008 to 2013 and occasionally freelances for the newspaper as well as other publications, online and in print. He can be reached at smith_dam {at} neomailbox {dot} ch.

How social media contribute to ‘remote-control terrorism’

By Bill Kirtz

NEW YORK — Tracking “remote control terrorism,” showing climate change’s impact and following readers’ shifts to mobile devices were panel highlights at last weekend’s Columbia Journalism School reunion.

Top reporters stressed the so-called Islamic State’s ability to innovate, forge social media connections and take “credit” for terrorist attacks it didn’t plan.

NPR counterterrorism expert Dina Temple-Raston noted that while U.S. anti-terrorism efforts are a “matrix,” ISIS keeps experimenting and improving their outreach to alienated youths.

“Don’t over-ascribe associations” between ISIS and every case of violence, she said. “But they’re very careful to take credit” for such incidents.

Washington Post reporter Abigail Hauslohner expanded on that. “An obsessive focus on ‘who gives the orders’” for a terrorist attack misses the point, she said. You can find “inspiration online.” You don’t have to go to Yemen for training.

“The remote-control terrorist” is a new phenomenon, said Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge. With social media, today’s teenagers can have “one-on-one intimacy” with ISIS recruiters without the need for face-to-face contact.

A former Al Jazeera English producer and host, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, said that framing the war against terror as a “clash of civilizations plays into ISIL’s hands. Two to three weeks of incessant texting” can convince alienated youths to adapt terrorism as a way of defending their culture.

It’s not easy being green

Climate change is a concept that’s hard to grasp. But its effects are real, and ClimateWire editor John Fialka tries to deliver the message through stories that use popular-culture references.

An example this week cites “Game of Thrones”: “As fans well know, winter is coming. But they might not realize some people are using the HBO megahit’s catchphrase to spark a conversation about shifting weather patterns brought about by climate change.”

Former Associated Press environmental journalist Dina Cappiello said the topic is underreported because “politics dictates where the coverage goes.” Now with a public relations firm, she said 2016 presidential voters will focus on health care, the economy and their own jobs — not on the environment.

Serving the mobile audience

How to give time-starved mobile device clickers both what they need to know and what they want to know?

Lydia Polgreen, New York Times deputy international editor, said her paper’s “future lies in figuring out what 20 stories each reader wants to know.”

She said the Times hopes to provide a personal and a general experience. The challenge is how to preserve the serendipity of riffling through the paper and finding interesting stories about random topics — while giving them what they need to know.

Bill Kirtz is an associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University.

Barry Crimmins gets his overdue due in ‘Call Me Lucky’

still_callme — Barry Crimmins in “Call Me Lucky”

What can you say about a film that stars someone you know and admire telling the world about being raped repeatedly — and nearly killed — when he was 3 years old?

Since we’re talking about Barry Crimmins, I would say that you should see it as soon as you can.

“Call Me Lucky,” directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, had its New England premiere on Saturday at the Somerville Theatre as part of the Independent Film Festival. As befits the subject, the documentary almost feels like two films. In the first part we meet Crimmins the caustic left-wing performer, who almost single-handedly created Boston’s comedy scene in the 1980s. In the second part, Crimmins comes to terms with his past as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

It was during this second phase that I got to know Barry. He revealed what had happened to him in the early 1990s in a harrowing front-page essay for The Boston Phoenix headlined “Baby Rape.” (I had a small role in copy-editing it, but most of the heavy lifting was handled by the late Caroline Knapp — and, of course, by Barry himself.) Later, Barry was a valuable resource as I was doing my own reporting about child sexual abuse. This was around the time Barry was engaged in a very public campaign against AOL and the pedophiles it allowed to run rampant in its chatrooms, a centerpiece of “Call Me Lucky.” Even though I can’t pretend to be a close friend of Barry’s, I’ve always been struck by his fundamental kindness and decency — a quality that comes through repeatedly in the film. (I was among many people Goldthwait interviewed, but I didn’t make the cut.)

Barry was a regular in the Phoenix, writing a satirical year-in-review piece every Christmas as well as other humor pieces. This 2003 takedown of Dennis Miller works as well today as it did 12 years ago. I still laugh when I recall his referring to George W. Bush as “the court-appointed president.” Barry was a big part of the Phoenix, and vice-versa. So I was pleased to see him pay tribute to the late managing editor Clif Garboden in the credits, saying he learned to write through Clif’s editing. Fittingly, Clif’s own classic apex as an angry humorist begins with a quote from Barry.

Despite its somber subject matter, there are plenty of laughs in “Call Me Lucky” — not just from Crimmins, but from many other comedians, including Jimmy Tingle, Margaret Cho and Lenny Clarke. The biggest laughs, though, are reserved for Ronald Reagan, who is seen attempting to explain what he knew and didn’t know about the Iran-Contra scandal. The man was a comic genius.

Barry was — and is — a comic genius as well. Because I wasn’t taking notes, I’ll rely on the press release for one of my favorite bits from the movie. A protégé of Barry’s, Bill Hicks, recalls that a member of the audience once yelled, “If you don’t love America why don’t you get out?” Crimmins’ response: “Because I don’t want to be a victim of its foreign policy!”

Also posted at WGBHNews.org.

A hike along the Skyline Trail

I decided to hike the Skyline Trail today rather than go running. We took the Webelos there about 14 years ago, but this was my first time since then. It’s a serious hike — about seven miles of rocky terrain with a lot of steep ups and downs. Not quite New Hampshire, but definitely reminiscent of the Berkshires and the Green Mountains. It’s a pretty amazing resource to have so close to the city.

Don’t take away Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s chance to repent

If Dzhokhar Tsarnaev doesn’t get the death penalty, he’ll be sentenced to a prison where he’s pretty much guaranteed to go insane, David Abel reports in The Boston Globe.

Tsarnaev deserves no luxuries and no special treatment. But he does deserve to be treated humanely, even though he treated his victims with wanton cruelty. Because that’s who we are — or should be.

We used to call prisons penitentiaries. Sometimes prisoners come to understand the horror of their crimes and undergo conversion experiences. That doesn’t mean Tsarnaev should ever be let out of prison — of course he shouldn’t. But we should not take away his chance to repent.

Comcastic news for free speech

This broke at Bloomberg and is now being confirmed: In the face of opposition from the Justice Department and the FCC, Comcast is giving up on its proposed $45.2 billion merger with Time Warner Cable.

This is a great victory for everyone who fought against Comcast’s bid to tighten its stranglehold on the telecommunications infrastructure on which all of us are so dependent. Kudos to Free Press and other public interest groups that worked so hard on this issue.

One thing you can be sure of is that this and similar issues will be back, especially since the next administration is either likely (i.e., Hillary Clinton becomes president) or certain (a Republican is elected) to be more sympathetic to such deals than the Obama White House has been. Continued vigilance will be needed.