Media Nation

We hold these truths to be self-evident

Joseph Warren dying at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Painting by John Trumbull.

One of my favorite Fourth of July traditions is reading the Declaration of Independence in The Boston Globe. It’s moved from print to the iPad, but the words ring just as clearly today as they did 237 years ago. (Believe it or not, the Declaration is behind the Globe’s paywall, but you can also read it here and in many other places.)

Every year I get something new out of it. I’m almost done with the audio version of Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Bunker Hill,” which — among many other things — documents the extent to which Boston’s Patriots put their faith in King George III while directing their wrath at his ministers.

Much changed between the Battle of Bunker Hill and the gathering in Philadelphia a year later. The Declaration includes a long bill of particulars against the king, preceded by this:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

My reading of Philbrick is that the political bonds between Britain and the Colonies had essentially been severed long before Samuel Adams began agitating — but the emotional bonds, as embodied by the king, took a lot longer to break.

Happy Fourth!

Globe seeks to force Patrick to turn over records

This is why large, well-funded news organizations still matter.

The Boston Globe reports that it has won a favorable court ruling in its three-year quest to obtain the names of people who have received large financial settlements from the state.

The administration of Gov. Deval Patrick, no friend of the state’s public-records law, had fought the request from the beginning — its defiance of a ruling by Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office led the Globe to sue — and the governor may yet file an appeal.

At issue: “the names of 89 individuals who received settlements of $10,000 or more between January 2005 and March 2010.”

That’s our money. Good for the Globe for pushing to find out who got it and why.

Local public radio rivalry heats up

Best wishes to my old friend Robin Young and to Jeremy Hobson, whose revamped, two-hour “Here & Now” program debuted on Monday. Based at public radio station WBUR (90.9 FM), the program is national in scope, and is intended as a partial replacement for “Talk of the Nation,” which departed the airwaves last week.

Both “Here & Now” and “Boston Public Radio,” on rival WGBH (89.7 FM), are broadcast from noon to 2 p.m., setting up an intriguing dynamic: a nationally focused news magazine on ’BUR alongside local news and talk, hosted by Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, on ’GBH.

I hope and expect that both programs will succeed. (Disclosure: I’m a paid contributor to WGBH.)

CJR reviews “The Wired City”

The new issue of the Columbia Journalism Review includes a favorable review of “The Wired City” by Michael Meyer. Here is my favorite section:

“The Wired City” doesn’t have anything resembling a central thesis. (This isn’t a flaw. Way too many “future of journalism” books and reports waste their time trying to argue grand, overarching theses that almost always fall apart on closer analysis.)

One of my goals in writing the book was to return to the sort of in-depth, close-up reporting that drew me to journalism in the first place. Yes, I do some opinionating in the book, but mainly I try to let the story tell itself. I appreciate Meyer’s recognizing that and seeing it as a virtue rather than a shortcoming.

Meyer is critical of my argument that nonprofit news sites like the New Haven Independent tend to be better funded and capable of more ambitious journalism than for-profit sites — at least in these early years of the post-newspaper era.

Though I agree with Meyer that I could have done a better job of quantifying that observation, I nevertheless believe I was describing a situation that’s real. For-profits like The Batavian and CT News Junkie are doing better all the time — better than they were when I was researching the book.

But it’s still a hard slog. Given the low value the marketplace has assigned to online advertising, that’s likely to continue.

What “special protections” is Carr talking about?

There are a couple of problems with David Carr’s column in The New York Times on Glenn Greenwald and the line between journalism and activism.

First, Greenwald isn’t really a close call. He is an opinionated liberal columnist and blogger who works for a large, well-regarded news organization, The Guardian. The key: he’s independent. No advocacy group is paying his salary. If we must draw lines, Greenwald is well on the journalistic side of the divide.

What I really want to see more discussion of, though, is Carr’s assertion that “when it comes to divulging national secrets, the law grants journalists special protections that are afforded to no one else.” What is Carr talking about?

As I explained recently, the Espionage Act, under which Edward Snowden has been charged in the National Security Agency leaks, makes no distinction between leaking classified information and publishing classified information.

The question of whether to prosecute news organizations came up after the Pentagon Papers and again after the revelation of the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping program. U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has called for journalists to be prosecuted over the Snowden leaks.

Yes, there are limited protections for journalists trying to shield their sources in 49 states. But I don’t think that’s what Carr was referring to. In any case, there are no shield protections at the federal level.

So help me out here. What do you think Carr has in mind?

An innuendo-laden attack on Greenwald

Edward Jay Epstein has written an innuendo-laden column for The Wall Street Journal in which he strongly insinuates that filmmaker Laura Poitras and/or journalist/blogger/lawyer Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian criminally assisted Edward Snowden in leaking National Security Agency documents.

Epstein’s toxic brew of archly worded questions leads to the inescapable conclusion that he believes the two journalists ought to be investigated and possibly charged under the World War I-era Espionage Act.

Josh Stearns, who serves with Greenwald on the Freedom of the Press Foundation board, has some thoughts about journalism and the Espionage Act. He writes:

The First Amendment and press freedom questions that haunt the Espionage Act are particularly important right now. Changes in media and technology have put the tools of journalism and media making in the hands of more and more people, challenging old assumptions about who is a journalist and how journalism is done. Increasingly, independent journalists, nonprofit news outlets and citizens are playing critical roles in newsgathering and reporting on the most important issues of our time.

I don’t think Stearns gives sufficient weight to the idea that merely publishing leaked documents is, in fact, a violation of the law, and that investigative journalism depends on the hopeful notion that the government won’t use its authority. Otherwise, though, it’s a useful guide to the issues at stake.

More: Greenwald responds to the Epstein column in this Storify involving (mainly) Jeff Jarvis and Michael Wolff.

Please help support “Stop Invisible Hate”

My Northeastern colleagues Jack Levin and Bill Lancaster are hoping to make a documentary about hate crimes against people with disabilities. Called “Stop Invisible Hate,” the film is about “the troubling social abuse and violence inflicted on millions of people with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities.”

Jack and Bill are using Indiegogo, a Kickstarter-like crowdfunding platform, to raise money in order to fund “Stop Invisible Hate.” I hope you’ll look at the video above and then click here to make a donation.

GateHouse papers ban anonymous comments

Anonymous commenter reacts to new GateHouse policy

Friday update: MetroWest Daily News columnist Julia Spitz offers her take.

Yet another major news organization is fighting back against the scourge of anonymous, hateful comments. GateHouse Media, a national chain that owns about 100 newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts, is now requiring readers to use their real names and log in via Facebook or LinkedIn. The new rules kick in today.

Here’s how the reason for the new policy was explained in the GateHouse-owned Patriot Ledger of Quincy earlier this week:

For some time, we’ve received complaints that the anonymous commenting system we’ve hosted on our online stories does little to enhance the conversation within our community. The criticism has been that some of the comments are hateful and sometimes, downright objectionable. We heard you and we agree.

Most of GateHouse’s Massachusetts papers are community weeklies, but there are also a few medium-size dailies — most prominently The Patriot Ledger, The Enterprise of Brockton, The MetroWest Daily News of Framingham and The Milford Daily News.

The new policy pertains to all of GateHouse’s properties, which include more than 300 daily and weekly papers, according to a tweet from Nicole Simmons, regional digital editor for GateHouse Media New England.

In discussing the new policy on Facebook this week, I’ve seen praise for the decision to banish anonymity and criticism for relying on third-party services such as Facebook and LinkedIn. My sense is that the new policy is a step in the right direction, and how well it works will depend on the willingness of local editors to engage with their audience.

In other words: better some places than others.

Right, wrongs and the Supreme Court

Wednesday was a very good (if not quite great) day for gay and lesbian couples. Unfortunately, the stench of Tuesday’s voting-rights decision remains. Here is some needed perspective on the Supreme Court’s week by Linda Greenhouse of Yale Law School, who used to cover the court for The New York Times.

As a country, we are moving left on individual rights (though not individual liberties) and right on everything else. You will be free to do as you’re told.

The Arts Fuse reviews “The Wired City”

Bill Marx has written a favorable review of “The Wired City” for The Arts Fuse, a Boston-based online arts magazine that he founded in 2007. Our paths crossed at The Boston Phoenix in the 1990s, and I know that Bill is a tough audience.

Bill also offers a worthwhile criticism — that the hyperlocal sites I write about should do more arts coverage, and that I should have held them to task. He’s right. At one time the New Haven Independent’s lack of in-depth arts coverage was on my radar, but I failed to follow up. But let me offer two points.

First, the Independent’s arts coverage is quite a bit more extensive today than it was when I was doing my research, with much of it funded by beat-specific grant money.

Second, though this doesn’t quite get at Marx’s critique, both the Independent and The Batavian, the two sites I cover in the most detail, emphasize excellent photography. That visual appeal is part of what has made them a success.