How Robert Healy helped save the Globe

Tip O'Neill

Mark Feeney has a nice tribute to Robert Healy in today’s Boston Globe. But Healy, the paper’s former executive editor, who died on Saturday at 84, was a lot more important to the Globe than Feeney lets on. In fact, Healy, with considerable help from future House Speaker Tip O’Neill, had much to do with the Globe’s rise as New England’s dominant media institution.

O’Neill’s actions in the 1960s, goaded by Healy, revealed that Robert “Beanie” Choate, owner of the Boston Herald Traveler, had improper dealings with the FCC that allowed him to circumvent the ban against owning a daily newspaper and a television station in the same market. The Herald was stripped of its license to operate Channel 5 in 1972, leading to the death of two separate incarnations of the Herald. (Today’s Herald is essentially a start-up that dates back to the early 1980s.)

The story was revealed in John Aloysius Farrell’s biography of O’Neill, “Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century,” which I had the great pleasure of writing about for the Boston Phoenix in February 2001. The story of how O’Neill and Healy made common cause is a rollicking tale involving the Kennedys, a corrupt deal that resulted in John Kennedy winning an undeserved Pulitzer Prize for “Profiles in Courage” and O’Neill’s fear that if his role in helping the Globe were discovered, the Republican Herald would crucify him.

Farrell has a great quote from Ben Bradlee, retired executive editor of the Washington Post, who said of Healy: “This little angelic-faced Healy. He looked like a choirboy. Nobody would think what he was up to. He and I shared stuff. I loved the fact Choate was in trouble.”

Healy himself said of O’Neill: “He did right by the Globe and all right in the Globe through the years.”

Not exactly a tribute to the journalistic ethics of the era. But a great story nevertheless.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Listening to your audience

Howard Owens, publisher of The Batavian, a community news site in western New York, offers a useful lesson in listening to your audience.

On Friday, Owens posted a story about a couple who were arrested and charged with having sex on a picnic table at a public park. Both the 41-year-old woman and her 29-year-old paramour were charged with public lewdness. Weirdly, the woman, who is married and has children, was also charged with adultery.

Owens customarily publishes the names of every adult who is arrested. In this case, though, he named the man but not the woman, writing, “Because the woman is married with children, The Batavian has chosen to withhold her name.”

That led to a flood of comments, most of them from readers arguing that what was good for the man ought to be good enough for the woman as well. Owens, in turn, changed his mind and named the woman, writing:

After giving it much thought — listening to our critics, talking with Billie [his wife and business partner], considering previous cases — I’ve come to the conclusion that our decision Friday night not to publish the name was a mistake.

Never one to let an opportunity go to waste, Owens posted a poll question an hour and a half ago, asking, “When couples are caught in public having sex, should their names be released?” The results, as I write this: 68 percent “yes,” 15 percent “no,” 14 percent “maybe” and 3 percent “no opinion.” [Note: Results corrected as of 11:07 a.m.]

Given Owens’ policy of naming every person over 17 who is “arrested, detained or cited by local law enforcement when the name is released to the local media,” I think he made the right call.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Big news about “Little People”

I am very excited to announce that my hometown of Middleborough has adopted my book on dwarfism, “Little People,” as its high-school summer-reading book. Students and teachers at Middleborough High School (from which I graduated in 1974) will be asked to read “Little People” and be prepared to discuss topics such as genetics, history and disability throughout the school year. I’ll be visiting a few times.

When Doug Haskell, who chairs the MHS English department, told me about the selection a couple of months ago, I had to scramble. The book has been out of print for several years. There was also no reliable way of estimating how great demand would be  — the full text of the book is already available online for free, and no doubt a lot of students will try to read it that way.

So, working with Bronwen Blaney at the Harvard Book Store of Cambridge, I put together a print-on-demand paperback edition, thus eliminating the need to print a bunch of copies that may or may not sell. Not to go too heavy on the marketing, but I was pleased with how well it came out — it really looks and feels like a trade paperback. The price, $16, is pretty reasonable, given that the list price of the hardcover edition was $25.

I have completely retooled the website using WordPress.com. I’ve also created a Facebook group, where I hope students, teachers and anyone else who is interested will feel free to discuss “Little People” and issues related to dwarfism.

In Vermont, a journalistic conflict too far

Now here’s a bad idea. The Commons, a monthly, non-profit newspaper that covers the Brattleboro, Vt., area, recently applied for — and received — a $25,000 loan from the town government in order to relaunch as a weekly and refurbish its website.

As Bill Densmore observes at the New England News Forum, Brattleboro is something of a hotbed for citizen journalism, as it is the home of the pioneering DIY news site iBrattleboro. The town is also covered by the Brattleboro Reformer, owned by Dean Singleton’s financially ailing MediaNews Group.

According to this story by Susan Keese of Vermont Public Radio, Jeff Potter, The Commons’ executive editor, says his paper is an example of a news organization that is “more of a public utility and less of a commercial enterprise.” Select Board chairman Dick DeGray sees no problem with the town’s funding a newspaper, saying:

We viewed it as a small business loan. It didn’t have any bearing that it was a newspaper. Since I’ve been on the board we’ve given money to a local brewery we’ve given money to a bagel start up. So as long as they meet the criteria, which they did.

DeGray adds that the loan does not come with any strings attached with respect to how The Commons covers Brattleboro.

Well, then. First, let’s acknowledge that this isn’t a simple question. In an e-mail exchange yesterday, Densmore reminded me that many for-profit community newspapers are heavily dependent on legal ads placed by the local government. And as we struggle toward new models for sustaining journalism, conflicts will inevitably arise.

For instance, the New Haven Independent, a non-profit news site that I follow closely, has come under criticism for allegedly favoring a Latino parents group that receives funding from the same foundation that also pays the Independent to cover education reform.

Last year, you may recall, the Bay State Banner, a for-profit paper that covers Boston’s African-American community, staved off a crisis with the help of a $200,000 loan arranged by Mayor Tom Menino. As Adam Reilly reported in the Boston Phoenix, the Banner quickly morphed from a harsh Menino critic into Sergeant Schultz.

Journalism is rife with conflicts, starting with the daily conflict of not wanting to offend advertisers. And I’m sure the folks in Brattleboro are earnest and well-intentioned — we are talking about Vermont, after all. But it still seems to me that rule number one is you can’t take money directly from the very government you are supposed to be keeping an eye on.

Gradations of stupid

See if you can follow the logic here. Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr whacks U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s “breathtaking smugness” for saying that voters are too stupid to understand what President Obama and the Democratic Congress have accomplished. Carr then turns around and criticizes Massachusetts voters for being too stupid to understand they shouldn’t have sent Kerry to the Senate five times.

Is Howie even trying to make sense anymore?