President Obama’s emerging strategy to prosecute WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, over the leaked State Department cables amounts to a potentially dangerous assault on freedom of the press. Or so I argue in the Guardian.
An alternative metaphor for reading the news
I don’t remember when Times Skimmer was first unveiled by the New York Times, but I do remember being unimpressed. Recently, though, I took another look, and it struck me as new and improved. It’s a different way of experiencing the newspaper, and I think it’s got some real promise.
As with Times Reader, a subscription-only e-reader product, the free (for now) Times Skimmer is laid out in horizontal pages that you can flip through quite efficiently. Skimmer, which compiles the Times’ RSS feeds, is more up-to-date than Reader (though the latter does have a “Latest News” section) and gives you a more-complete snippet of each story, making it unnecessary to page through every story to see what the sometimes-cryptic headlines are all about.
Reader’s advantages over Skimmer are three-fold: (1) you can download the entire paper and take it with you, so you don’t have to be connected to the Internet in order to read it; (2) Reader is typographically more pleasing, as Skimmer simply taps in to NYTimes.com when you click on a story; and (3) with Reader you’ve got that day’s Times as opposed to a collection of RSS feeds — a distinction that matters to some of us elderly news junkies.
So what do you get from Skimmer? A different way of looking at NYTimes.com that rationalizes the overstuffed, jumbled website. I’ve found several stories using Skimmer that I would have missed if I’d been reading the website or Reader. Among them: this excellent feature from the Lens blog on the last photographs taken by Times photographer Joao Silva, gravely injured in Afghanistan.
One annoying omission from Skimmer is the Times’ book news, including the all-important Sunday Book Review. There are RSS feeds both for books in general and the Book Review in particular, so it wouldn’t be hard to add — which makes me think the omission was deliberate. Based on my incomplete reading, it seems that some book news pops up in the arts feed, but only a few highlights. Unfortunately, there’s no way for us mere users to add feeds to Skimmer.
Skimmer and Reader are the inspiration behind the Times’ Chrome app, which became available last week. As with Reader, you can download it and take it with you; as with Skimmer, it’s a compilation of RSS feeds. I’ve played with it a bit, and though it’s promising, it’s not quite ready for prime time.
Reader, Skimmer and the Chrome app, with their simple, horizontal layouts, all seem to have been devised with tablet computers in mind, although Reader won’t run on an iPad and never will unless the Times moves away from its reliance on Adobe Flash. (There’s also a separate Times app for the iPad, which I have not had a chance to test-drive.)
As such, they represent an interesting alternative to the website metaphor we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past 15 years.
The Globe goes deep on “The Other Welfare”
In case you haven’t seen it, the Boston Globe is publishing a three-part series on poor families that medicate their kids — sometimes for flimsy reasons — so that they can be classified as disabled and thus qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments.
The reporting, by Patricia Wen, is first-rate. And to point out the obvious, the series, titled “The Other Welfare,” is the sort of accountability journalism that is rarely done by any news organizations other than major newspapers.
What I especially like about the series is that, rather than blaming the families, Wen takes pains to point out the difficult circumstances under which they live. As one single mother, Geneva Fielding, puts it, referring to the medication her 10-year-old son is taking for impulsiveness:
Sometimes I don’t know why we get a check for this. But if someone says you have ADHD and you’re depressed and you can get a check, they’re going to try to get a check. The poor people will take that every time. It’s all about surviving.
A chilling example of unintended consequences.
Some semi-contrary thoughts about the Red Sox
In case you’re wondering why I’m not ripping Scott Brown for his unconscionable stand on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — no equality for gays and lesbians until the millionaires have their tax cut — well, I’ve been doing it on Twitter. What I’ve got to say about him can definitely be accomplished in 140-character bursts.
Which brings me to this unbelievable week for the Red Sox. The Adrian Gonzalez trade and the Carl Crawford signing are Manny-Schilling-Beckett-level moves, and it looks like the Sox are in a great position to move past the Yankees once again. So may I express a few contrary thoughts? OK, thank you. I will.
- Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez had stellar seasons in 2010. Gonzalez and Crawford will be better, but how much better?
- Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz more or less have to repeat what they did last year, and either Josh Beckett or John Lackey have to return to form. Can it happen? Sure. But it’s by no means certain.
- Everyone acts as though Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia will pick up right where they left off before they got hurt. It’s not that easy. They both had surgery, and Youkilis’ injury, in particular, sounds exotic and worrisome.
I’m not even mentioning Jacoby Ellsbury (he’ll be fine, and if he isn’t, Mike Cameron and Ryan Kalish can take over), Jonathan Papelbon (he’ll probably have a monster year) and our tendency to overrate local talent (Nick Cafardo would have you believe that the post-surgery Pedroia will be better than Robinson Cano).
Finally, is the money race between the Red Sox and the Yankees bad for baseball? You bet. I would love to see strict revenue-sharing. It’s lousy that teams like the Royals and the Pirates never have a chance, and that the Padres and the Rays have to give up their best talent.
I’m glad John Henry and company have decided to compete under the system as it is, but things really need to change.
Photo (cc) by Bullion Vault and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.
No rush to listen to Rush on new station
The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam reports that WXKS (AM 1200) — the home of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — is tanking, and that it shows Boston may be a lousy market for right-wing radio.
She’s right, but the Clear Channel-owned ‘XKS is hardly proof, given its less-than-clear signal. The real story is farther down in her piece, where we learn that the city’s two major talk-radio stations, WTKK (96.9 FM) and WRKO (AM 680), are performing poorly as well. Both ‘TKK and ‘RKO are mostly right-wing.
Heslam makes no mention of it, but I’m sure the ratings for Boston’s one liberal talk station, WWZN (AM 1510), are minuscule, given its poor signal.
Fact is, talk radio was once a phenomenon, but now it’s grown stale. The only show on the commercial dial that sounds even remotely like talk radio in its Boston heyday is Dan Rea’s, on WBZ (AM 1030). Rea’s a journalist who knows how to ask questions, and he hosts a guest-heavy, non-shouting program that doesn’t grate.
That’s not to say there aren’t talk-show hosts in Boston who are doing a pretty good job. I’d cite Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on ‘TKK and Charley Manning on ‘RKO. But the glory days of Boston talk radio are over.
Veteran journalist Charles Kravetz to run WBUR
Public radio station WBUR (90.9 FM) has chosen veteran television journalist Charles Kravetz as its new general manager, replacing Paul La Camera, who recently announced his retirement. La Camera will be sticking around for two years in the newly created position of administrator of public radio.
In turning to Charlie Kravetz, 58, the station has embraced yet another old Channel 5 hand. La Camera had retired as president and general manager of WCVB-TV (Channel 5) several years before coming to WBUR. Kravetz also worked at WCVB, helping to create the newsmagazine “Chronicle,” before embarking on a long stint at New England Cable News, which he helped launch and from which he was ousted as president and general manager when Comcast took it over in 2009.
Kravetz has been deeply involved in efforts to create a shield law that would offer some protection to people doing journalism — including independent bloggers who meet certain criteria — from having to disclose their confidential sources.
Kravetz, like La Camera, is a smart guy and a class act, and ‘BUR is lucky to be getting him. The station’s license is held by Boston University, and Rich Barlow has much more at BU Today.
Looking for some Google calendar help
Pardon the interruption. I’m hoping to get some expert help quickly.
A little while ago I got an e-mail from a member of our church, telling me that the dates of a couple of services on our Google calendar — embedded in the church website — were wrong. I checked my personal Google calendar, which I use to post church events, and saw that they were correct.
But then I accessed the embedded calendar through the church website and saw that they were, indeed, incorrect. There was no rhyme or reason to what I saw. For instance:
- Our Christmas Eve service, scheduled to be held on, you know, Christmas Eve, was listed as taking place on Dec. 21 — a three-day difference. Click on the item, though, and it says Dec. 24.
- Our Winter Solstice service, scheduled to be held on Dec. 21, was listed as taking place on Dec. 20. Again, though, click on it and it says Dec. 21.
- Most other dates were correct, including Sunday services.
I’m going to delete and re-enter and see what happens. In two and a half years of doing this, I’ve never encountered this problem. Any thoughts?
How’s that trade working out? (XVI)
The Cincinnati Reds have signed Bronson Arroyo to a two-year extension. He’ll make $35 million over the next three years after a 2010 season in which he went 17-10 with a 3.88 ERA.
There have been no recent Wily Mo Peña sightings.
Just having some fun, Mike. Today should be a great day for the Red Sox.
Correcting something I said on “Beat the Press”
If you watched “Beat the Press” on WGBH-TV (Channel 2) this evening, you may recall that I criticized media and court representatives who’ve drafted new guidelines for digital coverage of judicial proceedings.
I said a blogger should have been included in the discussions. And I even had a suggestion: Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub, who’s probably the most respected independent blogger in Greater Boston.
As it turns out, Gaffin was, in fact, a part of those discussions, according to Robert Ambrogi, a media lawyer who is executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.
Obviously I wish I’d known that before I opened my mouth.
Stopping the presses in Nashua
Forty people will lose their jobs when the Nashua Telegraph’s printing presses stop rolling on Jan. 2. The 20,000-circulation daily (27,000 on Sunday) will be printed at the Portsmouth Herald, according to publisher Terry Williams, who described the move as “a very difficult call.”