The revolving door keeps spinning at Boston.com. Garrett Quinn of Boston magazine reports that editor Tim Molloy is out, just a few days after Eleanor Cleverly replaced Corey Gottlieb as general manager. Molloy had been editor only since March.
A new poll shows Clinton slumping. But why?
The email controversy has taken such a toll on Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy that it’s dragged her below 50 percent among Democrats, The Washington Post reports. But the new Post-ABC News poll from which that conclusion is drawn shows that other, more mundane factors may have more to do with her sagging numbers.
The poll shows that the percentage of Democratic-leaning voters who say they back Clinton has fallen from 63 percent in mid-July to just 42 percent last week — a 21-point drop. Sounds like trouble, especially when you look at numbers showing that a rising percentage of respondents believe Clinton is untrustworthy.
“Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost significant ground over the past two months, as she has struggled to manage the controversy over her use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state,” write the Post’s Dan Balz and Scott Clement.
But is that the most important explanation for her declining numbers? My guess is no.
First, Bernie Sanders’ support has risen from 14 percent to 24 percent, a phenomenon that strikes me as entirely independent of any concerns about Clinton’s emails. Sanders is experiencing the sort of surge that is not uncommon for the most clearly progressive candidate in the months leading up to the primaries — that is, the candidate who best represents “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” as Howard Dean once put it. Sanders is actually leading Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to some polls. We’ll see whether it lasts.
Second, a Joe Biden candidacy wasn’t on anyone’s radar in July, yet the vice president attracted 12 percent of respondents anyway. Last week, with Biden looking like he might jump in, he rose to 21 percent, just behind Sanders. Again, I don’t think it makes sense to assume the emails are mainly responsible for Biden’s rise, although I’m sure he looks better to some voters as a result of Clinton’s struggles. Mainly, though, Biden enjoys an enormous reservoir of goodwill. All it took was an indication that he might actually run for his numbers to go up.
And if you remove Biden from the equation, Clinton leads Sanders by a margin of 56 percent to 28 percent. With Biden seemingly signaling to Stephen Colbert that he won’t take the plunge, that seems like a truer picture of the state of the Democratic race.
Clinton may or may not be in trouble with the electorate as a whole, but there’s little indication that Democrats are inclined to reject her.
Best wishes to Maria Stephanos, the face of Fox 25
Good luck and best wishes to Maria Stephanos, who announced on Thursday that she’s leaving WFXT-TV (Channel 25). Garrett Quinn has the details at Boston magazine. Stephanos has been the face of Fox 25 News for a long time, and it’s not going to be the same without her.
As Quinn notes, Stephanos is Fox 25’s second recent high-profile departure. My Northeastern colleague Mike Beaudet, the station’s investigative reporter, recently announced he was stepping aside so that he could spend more time with us.
New general manager named at Boston.com
Boston.com general manager Corey Gottlieb is leaving to take a job at DraftKings, according to an email sent to the staff from Mike Sheehan, CEO of Boston Globe Media Partners. He will be replaced by Eleanor Cleverly, currently the company’s executive director of digital strategy and operations. A copy of Sheehan’s announcement wafted in on the breeze a little while ago, and I present it below in full.
I first met Corey Gottlieb about a month after he graduated from Amherst College, when he joined the ad agency world on the bottom rung of a very tall ladder as an assistant account executive. I was immediately impressed not only with his maturity, his creativity, and his intellect, but also his work ethic. Clearly, he was going to climb the career ladder by working, not by talking.
The following year, he came to my office and told me he had been offered a job as Director of Product Development at Major League Baseball Advanced Media. For someone that young who grew up in Brookline playing baseball and devoted to the Red Sox, it was a dream job. I countered with nothing but a handshake, my best wishes, and a plea to stay in touch.
Corey spent four years at MLBAM, and then went back to school for his M.B.A. at Harvard Business School. As he was finishing up there, Andrew Perlmutter brought him in to discuss a role within BGMP, and he joined us as General Manager of Digital Marketplaces and was subsequently promoted to General Manager of Boston.com, leading its transition into a discreet digital property separate from the Globe. While that separation caused its fair share of anxiety, it has resulted in BostonGlobe.com having the third highest number of paid digital subscribers in the country, behind the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. From a business standpoint, there is no greater priority than producing quality journalism for which readers are willing to pay and with which advertisers are happy to be associated.
A few weeks ago, in a moment of deja vu, Corey came into my office and told me he had been offered a job as VP, Content at DraftKings. It’s a terrific opportunity, getting in on the ground floor of a fast-growing, Boston-based startup in the sports space. My counter was no different than the one before; I know I speak for everyone when I thank Corey for all he’s done and wish him nothing but success in his new endeavor.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to look too long or too far for Corey’s successor — the first name that rolled of the tongues of Andrew, Corey, and David Skok was Eleanor Cleverly. And I couldn’t have agreed with them more. I’m pleased to announce Eleanor’s promotion to General Manager, Boston.com.
Since joining BGMP, Eleanor has served as Director of Content and General Manager of Digital Marketplaces, Interim Editor of Boston.com, and Executive Director of Digital Strategy overseeing Social Media. Eleanor joined BGMP from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government where she worked for the Center of Public Leadership. She also served as Assistant Director of the Harmony Institute where she conducted research for partners including Free Press, The Ford Foundation, and MTV. In 2009, she co-authored Net Neutrality for the Win: How Entertainment and the Science of Influence Can Save Your Internet.
Earlier in her career, Eleanor was Social Media Director for MEC, a media agency under the WPP umbrella where she oversaw strategy and media buying for IKEA, Citibank, and Colgate-Palmolive.
Eleanor not only has the resume to be successful leading Boston.com into the future, she has the leadership skills as well — she is universally admired and respected throughout the building. I couldn’t be more excited to have her leading Boston.com and I can guarantee she’ll continue to evolve it into a relevant, interesting property within the BGMP portfolio.
New Haven Independent celebrates its first decade
Congratulations to Paul Bass and the staff and friends of the New Haven Independent, who are celebrating the community website’s 10th anniversary.
On Wednesday evening a couple of dozen people gathered at the offices of La Voz Hispana, the Independent’s partner and landlord, to toast 10 years of nonprofit online journalism. It was a lower-key affair than the fifth anniversary — Bass and crew have been so busy launching the Independent’s low-power FM radio station, WNHH, that they didn’t have time to plan a proper celebration. (The Independent is the subject of my book “The Wired City.” I wrote about WNHH recently for the Nieman Journalism Lab, and was later a guest.)
The party was emceed by Norma Rodriguez-Reyes, the president of La Voz and chair of the Online Journalism Project, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Independent and its affiliated projects — WNHH, the Valley Independent Sentinel and the Branford Eagle.
Last week Bass marked the 10th anniversary with a special hour-long conversation on WNHH about the state of independent journalism with Rodriguez-Reyes; Christine Stuart, the editor and co-owner of CT News Junkie, a for-profit website covering politics and public policy in Connecticut; and Babz Rawls-Ivy, managing editor of The Inner-City News, an African-American newspaper based in New Haven, as well as a talk-show host on WNHH.
Among other things, Bass compares legacy media’s coverage of the decline of journalism to someone who spends all his time hanging out at a funeral home and concludes that everyone must be dead. Well worth a listen.
A wicked smart idea to fund public transportation
The Boston Globe’s Tim Logan has an important story today about an emerging new paradigm for funding public transportation: charging a fee to property owners who will benefit from it.
It’s already working in some areas, Logan reports. Columnist Shirley Leung notes that Steve Wynn is paying a substantial subsidy to improve Orange Line access to his proposed Everett casino (which I still hope will never get off the ground, but that’s another matter).
My wicked smart Facebook community has already been talking about using such fees to pay for the $1 billion extra that it’s going to cost to build the Green Line Extension into Somerville and Medford. It sounds to me like a great idea, especially since — as state Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack tells Logan — developers are already assessed fees for road improvements. I’d rather see them pay for a new MBTA station than a new interchange.
As always, we need to avoid unintended consequences. There’s already a danger that small, independent businesses will be forced out as property values soar. Perhaps they could be exempt from whatever fee structure the state ultimately decides to adopt.
Why you should keep your vintage CharlieCard
You can’t make this up.
Because I can be slow on the uptake, I thought MBTA CharlieCards were only for those with monthly passes. A friend told me otherwise, and a T worker at North Station gave me one.
I tried to register it online and got rejected. When I called the 800 number, a friendly employee explained that the online system only works with older cards. “Would you like me to send you an old one?” she asked. Sure, I said, and a few days later one arrived in the mail. I just registered online and added $20 to it without any problem. And the brand-new card sits unused.
Unbelievable.
Donald Trump as the face of white nationalism
Compelling analysis in The Washington Post. According to Danielle Allen, Trump made himself the face of white nationalism, which has been with us for quite some time. Trump = Le Pen.
Why #blacklivesmatter matters
A powerful conclusion to this New York Times editorial:
The “Black Lives Matter” movement focuses on the fact that black citizens have long been far more likely than whites to die at the hands of the police, and is of a piece with this history. Demonstrators who chant the phrase are making the same declaration that voting rights and civil rights activists made a half-century ago. They are not asserting that black lives are more precious than white lives. They are underlining an indisputable fact — that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered, and have been discounted and devalued. People who are unacquainted with this history are understandably uncomfortable with the language of the movement. But politicians who know better and seek to strip this issue of its racial content and context are acting in bad faith. They are trying to cover up an unpleasant truth and asking the country to collude with them.
A few thoughts on the Deflategate decision
We’ve had a lively discussion of this on Facebook, so I thought I’d post it here as well.
My first reaction to Deflategate was that Tom Brady was responsible. I based my opinion on his refusal to defend himself beyond a few vague statements. He said nothing after the Wells Report came out. I also had no idea the commissioner’s office was so corrupt — not too strong a word.
I changed my mind after we learned that Brady had denied under oath that he had any involvement or knowledge of footballs being deflated. Not only do I have no reason to think Brady is the sort of person who’d lie under oath, but he gave that statement knowing that Lenny and Squiggy could emerge from their lair and contradict him.
I see Judge Richard Berman’s ruling as total vindication. I know he had to be careful in ruling on narrow legal grounds rather than on the facts, but the facts mattered. He asked a lot of factual questions during the hearings, and of course he was well aware of Brady’s denial. There’s also the matter of the false ESPN report — clearly a smear job by the NFL. I can’t prove this, but I believe that if Berman thought Brady was responsible, he might have knocked the suspension down to two games on procedural grounds but wouldn’t have vacated it entirely. Judges are human, and they can’t help but let the facts influence their legal rulings. (And what’s wrong with that?)
Goodell now says he’s going to appeal. Frankly, the best outcome would be if the NFL owners decided he should spend more time with his family. What a clown.
I’m not even a football fan, but I’m glad Brady won. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Berman’s ruling legitimizes the Patriots’ championship. I never would have believed it, but the NFL really was out to get them.
As for all the media attention this has gotten, so what? I’ve heard a lot of comments along the lines of “this is so unimportant given what’s going on in the world.” Well, sports is a combination of entertainment and culture, and it’s something a lot of us follow — along with the presidential campaign and the horrors of ISIS and the refugee crisis in Europe. We all care about many different things. I’m not going to criticize anyone for caring about this. I care too.