Media Nation

Did Ed Ansin’s dog eat the FCC study?

At the same time that Ansin, the Miami-based owner of WHDH-TV (Channel 7), was adding WLVI-TV (Channel 56) to his portfolio (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here), we were learning that former FCC chairman Michael Powell had ordered a draft report on the negative effects of media concentration destroyed.

Well, here’s one negative effect: About 120 people are expected to lose their jobs as a result of Channel 56 becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Channel 7.

News accounts of the FCC study suggest that there is an apples-and-oranges quality in attempting to apply the study’s findings to the looming 7/56 duopoly. Take, for instance, this paragraph from the Associated Press story:

The analysis showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of “on-location” news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. It was part of a broader decision liberalizing ownership rules.

The problem is that local ownership and media concentration are not exactly the same thing. Ansin’s Sunbeam Broadcasting is a far smaller operation than Tribune Co., the current owner of Channel 56. In that sense, Sunbeam is closer to being a “local” (in the sense of being close to the ground and engaged) owner than Tribune. Moreover, Ansin, since taking over Channel 7 some years back, has made a huge commitment to news, although you can certainly question (as I do) his commitment to quality.

In terms of media concentration, though, Channels 7 and 56 will soon have one owner instead of two. CBS already owns Channels 4 and 38. How long before Hearst-Argyle finds a UHF playmate for WCVB-TV (Channel 5)?

It’s true that the local television news market isn’t what it used to be. In a larger economic sense, I suppose it makes sense for Channel 7 to spread its newsgathering resources over two channels. But 56’s “The Ten O’Clock News” has a flavor of its own, less frantic than its 10 p.m. competition on Fox’s WFXT-TV (Channel 25). Soon, 25 and 56 will presumably compete to see who can most effectively keep viewers in a frenzy.

Timothy Karr of Free Press has posted a copy of the draft study on the Stop Big Media blog, and writes:

The report was an inconvenience to Michael Powell, who, throughout his tenure at the FCC, aided efforts by large media companies to further consolidate their power over local news outlets.

Had it seen the light of day, the FCC and their Big Media allies could no longer deny that locally owned media do a better job of covering local news.

The Boston TV market isn’t going to become any less local — but it is about to get more concentrated and less diverse. That’s bad news you’re not likely to see on 7 or 56.

Curt Schilling aligns himself with Media Nation, according to the Boston Globe’s Gordon Edes:

Schilling … all but called the spring training trade of Bronson Arroyo a mistake, and identified starting pitching as the foremost concern heading into the 2007 season.

“We came out of spring training, everybody said, ‘Well, you have extra starting pitching,’ ” Schilling said. “Nobody ever has extra starting pitching. If you have it on Monday, you don’t have it on Sunday. It never fails.”

The Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman has the same Schilling quotes, but leaves Arroyo out of it. Maybe Silverman wasn’t sure whether Schilling was referring to Arroyo or this guy.

And look at this. Despite a mid-season slump that had Media Nation’s critics very excited, Arroyo today is 13-9, with an ERA of 3.29. He’s given up just four earned runs in his last 24 innings. You want to add a run to his ERA to adjust for the difference between the National League and the American League? Go ahead. He’d still be the Sox’ second-best starter. And he’s pitched 213 innings; no Sox starter even has 200.

If Jason Varitek, David Ortiz, Jon Lester, Manny Ramirez, Tim Wakefield, David Wells, Trot Nixon and Jonathan Papelbon (have I missed anyone?) hadn’t gotten hurt or sick, Arroyo’s departure would have mattered big-time. And it still might next year.

I have an interview with veteran media activist Jeff Cohen in the new issue of the Boston Phoenix. Cohen has just written a book on his years with CNN, Fox News and MSNBC called “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.” He’s also the founder of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), a left-liberal group that monitors media bias.

The bulk of the book is about Cohen’s stint as senior producer for his friend and fellow progressive Phil Donahue, who landed a show on MSNBC only to be muzzled by executives terrified that they would be accused of liberal bias. Cohen tells me:

We could have had a show with aggressive, articulate, passionate people saying things on national TV seen nowhere else. And it would have happened night after night. This was the time that independent, smart, active news consumers were turning away from the mainstream and looking for alternatives. MoveOn was doubling its size during this time, and we were being muzzled. We could have been an alternative in the mainstream. The best of both worlds. And our ratings would have climbed.

Instead, “Donahue” was canceled in early 2003, just before the war in Iraq got under way.

The MetroWest Daily News endorses Deval Patrick today — and mentions both of his opponents. See how easy it is?

Patrick is really racking up the endorsements, isn’t he?

The Boston Phoenix has endorsed Deval Patrick in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, while also throwing a kiss to Chris Gabrieli. But — in keeping with my theme of the week — why no mention of the third candidate, Tom Reilly, whom the paper ripped in an editorial just a week ago?

Similarly, the Phoenix chooses Deb Goldberg over Tim Murray in the governor’s race — and disappears Andrea Silbert. The paper also weighs in on the secretary of state’s race, Congress, and the state Senate.

Now that the semester has begun, blogging is probably going to be somewhat lighter than it was over the summer. I’ll try to concentrate on quality, not quantity.

I’ve been spending some time yesterday and today setting up a blog for a class I’m teaching called “Beat Reporting: The Journalism of the Web.” It’s a portal for blogs by my students. I’ll also post certain types of new-media items that might not be quite right for Media Nation. Please have a look.

On Sunday the Boston Globe endorsed Deval Patrick in the Democratic primary for governor without mentioning either of his opponents, Chris Gabrieli or Tom Reilly, in what polls show is a tight race.

Yesterday the Globe endorsed Tim Murray for lieutenant governor, again invoking the silence-is-golden rule by not whispering the names of Andrea Silbert or Deb Goldberg, who are also running for the Democratic nomination. Murray is thought to be ahead, but I don’t believe anyone has ruled out Silbert or Goldberg given the low name recognition of all three candidates.

So today the Globe endorses incumbent Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who’s running against the longest of longshots — voting-rights activist John Bonifaz — and the editorial goes out of its way to throw a kiss to Bonifaz, who’s virtually unknown and has no money.

Don’t get me wrong — I’ll take today’s endorsement of Galvin over the Patrick and Murray efforts. As I said the other day, endorsements should be about making comparisons, and you can’t do that when you only mention the candidate you’re endorsing. I just find it a little weird that the Globe would deviate from its custom in the one race where the challenger has almost no chance.

Update: The Boston Herald manages to work in references to Bill Bulger and Joe Moakley in its endorsement of Tom Reilly. But Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli end up on the cutting-room floor. Same with the Herald’s embrace of Deb Goldberg.

I’ve written plenty of candidate endorsements over the years. And I think it’s safe to say that the heart of any editorial that urges voters to support a particular candidate is the notion of comparison. You should vote for Candidate X because of her own fine qualities and because Candidate Y would take us in the wrong direction. Or, We think Candidates A and B are both well-qualified, but Candidate A has more experience. You get the idea.

But today the Boston Globe endorses Deval Patrick in the Democratic gubernatorial primary without ever mentioning his opponents, Chris Gabrieli and Tom Reilly. This is longstanding practice at the Globe, but it isn’t a good one. At its most absurd, the editorial page once endorsed a challenger over an incumbent for a congressional seat without once mentioning the incumbent. That’s sticking to an arbitrary formula at the expense of informing the public.

This Globe editorial, published on Friday, is actually much more informative than today’s endorsement. Headlined “It’s all becoming clear,” the piece did, indeed, make it clear — that the Globe was on the verge of endorsing Patrick — and it drew comparisons about the three candidates following their Thursday debate.

The local commentariat on Tom Reilly’s performance in last night’s debate. First, the Globe:

• Jeff Jacoby: “Reilly came across as the colorless party hack from central casting. Tired, uninspired, quick to prattle about ‘leadership’ but unable to demonstrate any — if ever a politician embodied the Peter Principle, dwindling in stature as he rises to his level of incompetence, Reilly is that politician.”
• Scot Lehigh: “Grim and angry, Reilly was in full prosecutorial mode from moment one … This went well beyond scrappy and into off-putting. Reilly looked desperate.”
• Joan Vennochi: “Reilly … wasted much too time on attacks …”
• Derrick Jackson: “Reilly will undoubtedly physically stay in the race until it is over. But his only value at this point is whether he takes more votes from Patrick or Gabrieli.”
• Brian McGrory: “Reilly … [was] loaded for bear. Whether he hit anything remains to be seen, but the early impressions are that the puddles of blood on the floor might well be his own.”

Next, the bloggers:

• Adam Reilly: “Tom Reilly is f’ing up, big time…. Last night on NECN, I predicted that Reilly would eke out a win in the Democratic primary. I hereby change my mind.”
• Jon Keller: “Memo to the Reilly campaign: Patrick’s corporate entanglements? Fair game. Gabrieli’s business background and wealth? If it was OK to rake Romney on those subjects, it’s OK to toss a few elbows at Gabrieli. But I really don’t think too many voters care about a tax lien Patrick once had to deal with, or who leaked the report on Marie St. Fleur. Why would you want to ever bring up the St. Fleur episode at all?”
• Charley on the MTA: “Last night, Tom Reilly did everything but sling his own feces at Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli, and succeeded mostly in getting it all over himself.”
• John Daley: “Tom Reilly came out swinging, accusing Gabrieli of leaking a report to The Globe. Bad idea. The fact that Reilly and his staff really goofed in not reading the St. Fleur report was a one day story until he brought it up again last night. And it’s about basic competence, or the lack thereof.”
• Andy at Mass Revolution Now! “I thought that Reilly’s debate prep was most likely done in a locker room just before the debate where he put on a helmet and had his campaign staff slap him on the head while shouting things like ‘who’s got a big house in Milton while you are still renting in Watertown!’ ‘Who took advantage of you dropping the ball on your LG pick so that it came back to haunt you!?’ He was WAY too aggressive.”
• Mass Marrier: “Tom was somewhere between Perry Mason and Vlad the Impaler. His out-of-his-back-pocket insults and accusations were apparently intended as some melodramatic breakthrough to prove something to someone. Instead, his ‘So there!’ became ‘So what?'”
• Aaron Margolis: “Rumor has it that when it came to Final Jeopardy, it was not the snoozefest many expected it to be, mostly at the hands of an eccentric Tom Reilly. There may not have been a clear winner, but we know who’s not coming back for the next episode.” (Aaron didn’t actually watch, but that’s OK.)

Finally, the Herald, where people see things differently:

• Howie Carr: “For Tom Reilly, freedom is apparently just another word for nothing left to lose. Where has this guy been all year? By 7:03 last night, he’d ripped Chris Gabrieli’s throat out. He was standing in the middle, between Gabrieli and Deval Patrick, and by 7:10, both of them had broken out in flop sweat. They were worried he was coming after them next … and he was.”
• Virginia Buckingham: “Sure, Reilly was way too hot for TV. And the ‘I was the only one’ refrain was grating rather than inspiring. But he sent a message that he’s not going down without a fight. And despite Gabrieli’s height advantage, I wouldn’t bet on the winner between those two in an alley.”

Reilly’s best hope today is that the Democratic primary is dominated by Herald readers.

Did I miss anyone? If so, please add links to the comments section.

I was listening to WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) this morning when Democratic political consultant Dan Payne popped up to talk about last night’s gubernatorial debate. I had not yet seen it, so I took Payne at face value when he said Deval Patrick had spent the hour sweating like Richard Nixon. Among other things, Payne (a former Patrick adviser) said the oceans of perspiration made Patrick seem “nervous,” and that he ought to fire his makeup artist.

Well, now. I’ve just finished watching a tape of the debate, and I can tell you that Patrick didn’t sweat, period. No gusher. No rivulet. Not even a drop. Patrick was shiny, but it looked to me as though there was a stray light blasting him on the right side of his face. But he was dry, and appeared calm, cool and collected for the entire hour.

This is kind of a big deal. I would imagine that far more people heard Payne this morning than actually watched the debate last night. Indeed, other than the candidates’ mothers, I may be the only person on the planet who taped it. So Payne’s mistaken observation that Patrick sweat nervously is going to stick with a lot of people. WBUR ought to broadcast a correction. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact, and Payne got it wrong.

Interestingly enough, anchor Bob Oakes didn’t disagree with Payne. Now, I don’t know whether Payne was present at the Kennedy School last night, but I’ll bet he was. And that might be the problem. To Oakes (who was on the panel of questioners) and Payne, it may well have looked like Patrick was sweating. Viewers at home know better.

I’ll agree with Payne on this: Last night we witnessed the political suicide of Tom Reilly. Good grief. More later.

Update: Some folks are telling me I’m wrong — that Patrick really was sweating. One yes-he-was-sweating observer was sitting several feet from the candidates. Sorry, but I’m going to stick with my lying eyes on this. After all, I was several inches from the candidates. I was primed to look for sweat. I walked up to the TV, inspecting Patrick’s face as carefully as I could. He wasn’t sweating.

Update II: Dan Payne writes, “I watched debate at home on TV, not at K School. Maybe it was bad lighting but Deval Patrick looked like he was sweating the whole night. But why sweat the small stuff?” OK, OK. Time for my modified limited hangout. I’ll give WBUR a pass on running a correction — too many people agree with Payne that Patrick was sweating. But they’re all wrong!