Media Nation

Albert H. Shaw, 1913-2010

My uncle Albert Shaw lived long enough to be able to look me in the eye and tell me in all seriousness, “I wish I was 92 again.” He was 96 when he said that. He died on Dec. 23, just a few weeks after his 97th birthday, and a small group of family members and friends said goodbye at the Massachusetts Military Reservation in Buzzards Bay last Thursday.

I had several uncles, but Al — one of five siblings on my mother’s side — was the only one who lived nearby when I was growing up. He was someone I saw a lot of when I was a kid. He took me golfing. He also was a frequent presence at the family cottage in Onset, where, in 1977, I took the picture of him that you see here. Along with my grandmothers, he was the one member of my extended family who was actually a part of my life.

Al grew up in Middleborough, in the same house in which I was raised two generations later. He was born on Dec. 7, 1913, and was in the Army when, on his 28th birthday, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He served as a communications officer in Burma, walking miles down the road to the hospital after he contracted malaria. Following treatment, he returned to his post.

Like many people from his generation, intelligence and ability did not necessarily lead to a good job. In mid-life he trained as a draftsman, and worked for a while at a high-tech company in the Merrimack Valley. But one of the periodic tech washouts claimed his job, and he ended up spending the latter part of his working life as a custodian at the Brockton VA Hospital. Yet he was smart enough to have done just about anything he put his mind to, and his reading was deep and eclectic. As recently as this fall, he was telling me in great detail about an article he’d read in the Wilson Quarterly about the Chinese economy.

Following a divorce, Al spent many years living with a couple with whom he was friendly — a friendship that was tested after the husband became totally disabled in a workplace accident. Al stayed on for many years, providing them with invaluable assistance.

In recent years, Al lived on his own in an apartment in Lakeville. He was in remarkably good health until very late in his life, golfing well into his 80s and taking part in a bowling league as recently as this past spring. (And kicking butt.) He only gave up driving around Labor Day. My wife, kids and I spent Thanksgiving with him at his home. He was feeling well and was in good spirits that day.

Yet his congestive heart failure was becoming increasingly difficult to manage. When he landed in the hospital in early December, he decided it was finally time to move to a nursing home. Unfortunately, he had barely begun to settle in when he fell and broke his hip. He died in surgery, his heart unable to withstand the effects of anesthesia.

Al lived a long, healthy life, and he had been making it clear for some time that he was ready to go. He wasn’t a Woody Allen fan (nor am I), but to paraphrase Allen, Al wasn’t afraid of dying; he just didn’t want to be there when it happened. He got his wish. I will miss him, but I’m glad my kids got to know him.

Tragedy and heroism in Tucson

If you read nothing else today, be sure to read this New York Times story on the medical response to the Tucson shootings. It is a tremendous piece of on-the-ground journalism, informative, exhilarating and heart-breaking.

At WRKO, McPhee replaces Manning

I don’t see how this move makes sense, but WRKO Radio (AM 680) has ousted longtime Republican political consultant Charley Manning from its 1-to-3 p.m. slot and replaced him with Boston Herald columnist Michele McPhee — who, in turn, had been dropped recently by ‘RKO’s rival, WTKK (96.9 FM).

Like many folks in the media and political community here, I consider Manning to be a friend, so it’s hard for me to be entirely unbiased. I was also a guest on his show recently. But it strikes me that Manning got little in the way of marketing or production assistance. Given that, it’s no surprise that his ratings lagged.

Boston.com boosts its political coverage

Later this year, the Boston Globe will move most Globe content off its free Boston.com site and onto a paid, redesigned BostonGlobe.com. Which raises a question: Will the still-free Boston.com include enough high-quality, original material to stand on its own?

We got an encouraging answer to that this week in the form of an announcement that veteran political reporter Glen Johnson will be returning to the Globe as Boston.com’s political editor. According to a staff-wide e-mail from deputy managing editors Jen Peter and Bennie DiNardo, Johnson —

— will oversee the expansion and redesign of the site’s political coverage leading into the 2012 presidential race and beyond, with a blog, videos, aggregated content, the smart display of original Globe stories, and any other creative ideas we can come up with.

You can be sure that Eric Fehrnstrom is thrilled.

Peter and DiNardo’s full statement follows:

We are thrilled to announce that Glen Johnson, most recently of the AP’s State House bureau in Boston, will be returning to Morrissey Boulevard to become boston.com’s political editor. In this role, Glen — who has covered Massachusetts politics for nearly two decades — will oversee the expansion and redesign of the site’s political coverage leading into the 2012 presidential race and beyond, with a blog, videos, aggregated content, the smart display of original Globe stories, and any other creative ideas we can come up with. He will draw on the expertise of our political staff, both locally and in D.C., to make the page a must-read for anyone interested in Massachusetts and New England politics. We will also look for opportunities to republish some of Glen’s politics blogs in the Globe, and we contemplate a regular presence for Glen in the Globe in the form of a regular political column that would be based on his reporting and analysis. With his deep knowledge of the local political scene, his agility as a writer, and his embrace of new media, Glen is the ideal candidate to fill this position. And it couldn’t come at a better time for us, as we prepare to strengthen our web presence with a two-brand strategy and gear up for a presidential primary in our backyard.

This is a homecoming for Glen, who worked for the Globe for more than five years, from 2000 to 2005, in between two stints at the Associated Press. He has covered four presidential races — including Paul Tsongas’ 1992 bid, when Glen worked for the Lowell Sun — and four administrations on Beacon Hill, stemming back to the Weld years. Most recently, he served as the AP’s lead Romney reporter in 2008. He lives with his wife in North Andover and has two college-age sons. He is an avid cook and observer of professional cooks (ask him about his stint in the kitchen at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon). Glen will join us on Jan. 31, and we couldn’t be happier to have him back on board. All cooking tips welcome.

Jen and Bennie

Glen is a good guy and a dogged reporter. A very smart move by the Globe.

R.I. governor bans state employees from talk radio

In case you missed it, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has banned state employees from appearing on commercial talk radio (public radio is OK). He’s already had to modify his stance: the ban is apparently inoperative if there’s an emergency.

In a puckish response, a Republican politico, John Loughlin, has decided to boycott Rhode Island’s public radio station, WRNI, although Loughlin hastens to add it’s “nothing personal.”

Back when he was a U.S. senator, Chafee always struck me as clueless but harmless. He’s still clueless.

Trampling on the rights of parents

Swampscott school officials are a disgrace. Check out this Salem News story about a meeting on drug and alcohol abuse that parents of high-school students were forced to attend — the penalty for non-compliance being that their kids would be banned from sports and after-school clubs.

Once the parents got there, they were told they could not speak. According to the News, one parent was informed he could keep his mouth shut or face arrest. The media were barred as well, though school officials were unable to stop News reporter Ethan Forman from attending, since he’s the father of a Swampscott High School student. Yet even that didn’t stop a police officer from reportedly trying to kick him out.

According to today’s News, principal Layne Millington “is hoping to hold a second gathering with parents.” No word on whether Millington plans to organize a posse in order to round up parents to make sure they attend. In an editorial, the News rightly calls the meeting “an exercise in authoritarianism and censorship.”

The Swampscott Reporter, which was unable to get a reporter inside, editorializes that school officials’ thuggish tactics (my phrase, I should be careful to point out) “have given Swampscott a black eye.” (Here’s the story the Reporter posted in advance of the meeting.)

And why did Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett address the parents? Back when district attorneys, rather than the attorney general, enforced the state’s open-meeting law, Blodgett’s office was always responsive about complaints and tough on public officials who violated the law. Once Blodgett saw what was up in Swampscott, he should have refused to participate. Maybe he didn’t realize the media had been banned.

This was an enormous mistake. Swampscott school officials should apologize for their shameful actions.

The stunningly appropriate photo is taken from the Swampscott High School website.

Checking in from the North Shore

The view from our back porch, minutes ago.

Talking about the Tucson shootings

I’ll be on “The Emily Rooney Show” today from noon to 1 p.m. (WGBH Radio, 89.7 FM) with Emily and Wendy Kaminer to talk about the Tucson shootings.

Times lets Palin aide lie about gunsight map

The New York Times today fails to call a Sarah Palin spokeswoman on what has all the appearances of a flat-out lie.

In a story on the political fallout of the weekend carnage in Tucson that claimed the lives of six people and left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gravely injured, Times reporters Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg tell us that Palin adviser Rebecca Mansour denied that those were gunsights on Palin’s infamous map identifying House Democrats she had targeted for defeat. Zeleny and Rutenberg write of Mansour’s appearance on a conservative radio talk show:

Ms. Mansour said that the cross hairs, in fact, were not meant to be an allusion to guns, and agreed with her interviewer’s reference to them as “surveyors symbols.” Aides to Ms. Palin did not respond to interview requests on Sunday.

Yet we already knew otherwise on Sunday, as a Talking Points Memo reader dug up a tweet purportedly written by Palin herself referring to the map symbols in explicitly gun-oriented terms. Palin or her designated tweeter wrote:

Remember months ago “bullseye” icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin’ incumbent seats? We won 18 of 20 (90% success rate;T’aint bad)

And let’s not forget that those symbols turned red whenever one of the targeted Democrats went down — just like surveyors symbols, eh?

Few people are blaming Palin for the actions of Jared Lee Loughner, who has been charged with the Saturday shootings. Loughner appears to have been motivated by mental illness rather than politics. Still, Palin’s map was mind-blowingly irresponsible, as Giffords herself said some months ago. This should mark the end of Palin’s public career as anything other than a sideshow freak, much as Ann Coulter all but disappeared after she mocked 9/11 widows. Are the media really going to let Palin and her minions get away with this?

Traditional journalism is incredibly uncomfortable when given proof that someone is flat-out lying. But that’s no excuse for the Times’ ignoring the fact that there was already proof Mansour was lying — or, at best, was incredibly uninformed about her boss’ intentions.