Budget cuts for the blind

Best wishes to Diane Patrick. Depression is a serious illness, and the fact that Gov. Patrick felt the need to make such a public announcement suggests that he and his family have been struggling with this for some time.

But while the governor helps his wife recover, let’s not ignore the public’s business. Today, Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis reports that Patrick’s proposed budget would cut $118,000 for Braille and audio books for the blind.

If Patrick promised to do that last fall, I missed it.

Update: Here is Jessica Fargen’s news story on the cuts.

Two for the Globe

Media Nation joins Jon Keller and Adam Reilly in congratulating the Boston Globe for its two (according to Editor & Publisher) Pulitzer Prize nominations. The Globe has reportedly been nominated in Local Reporting for its “Debtor’s Hell” series, on unscrupulous bill collectors, and in National Reporting, for its stories on President Bush’s promiscuous use of presidential signing statements to negate the will of Congress.

Each is an example of public-service journalism at its best, and it’s a demonstration that — for all the angst that has enveloped the newspaper business over rapacious ownership and declining circulation and advertising revenues — large metropolitan dailies like the Globe, as well as national papers like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, remain the places where most important journalism gets done.

The “Debtor’s Hell” series was headed up by Walter Robinson, who is now a colleague at Northeastern. The signing-statement story was reported by Charlie Savage.

“Debtor’s Hell” is also a fine example of how the smart use of technology can enhance a story that, no matter how good, would have ended up as day-old fish wrap just a few years ago. The electronic version goes way beyond “shovelware” — that is, print content thrown online with little regard for the Web’s strengths and weaknesses.

The main page offers podcasts, offsite resources and the all-important tip line for follow-ups. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find a message board, audio Q&As, interactive graphics like this, the transcript of an online chat with Robinson and source documents, such as this, filed by Peter Damon, in which he informed bill collectors that he was in the hospital being treated for the loss of both arms in Iraq.

My guess is that the Pulitzer judges will only be looking at the clips. Someday, though, when the winning team is honored, it ought to include the Web producers alongside the reporters, photographers and editors.

The Pulitzer winners will be announced on April 16.

Goldman returns

Back when he was a prominent Democratic political consultant, Michael Goldman had one trait that endeared him to those of us who were young, unknown reporters working for small papers: He was every bit as willing to talk with you as he was a reporter for the Globe or the Herald. (Republican consultant Charley Manning, who does more corporate than political work these days, shares that admirable quality.)

Now Goldman, after working for the past few years as a talk-show host for Bloomberg Radio, is returning to the consulting wars. Check out the item at the end of Joan Vennochi’s column today.

I talked with Goldman this morning, and he was as frenetic as ever. And he had some excellent advice for those who are ready to write off Gov. Deval Patrick, recalling that Michael Dukakis, for whom he once worked, got off to an exceedingly rocky start in his first term (1975-’78), and that even Bill Weld — known for his smooth relations with the media — had to negotiate a pretty steep learning curve.

Welcome back, Michael.

Obama and Selma revisited

Several Media Nation readers (see this, this and this) believe I misread the New York Times account of Barack Obama’s speech in Selma, Ala. In my original item, I somehow got it in my head that the Times had reported Obama was claiming his parents had actually met at the famed Selma civil-rights protest in 1965 — something he quite clearly did not do.

But after rereading the story, I now see that’s not what the Times was reporting, and I’m not sure how to explain my muddleheadedness other than to cite misfiring synapses and the phases of the moon.

In fact, Obama was born in 1961. So when he suggested that Selma inspired his mother, a white woman from Kansas, and his father, a black man from Kenya, to marry, he was asserting an impossibility.

I stand by what I said about the Times’ coverage of Hillary Clinton’s speech.

Liar, liar?

Yesterday’s New York Times coverage of Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s joint appearance in Selma, Ala., includes a couple of snarky references suggesting that each of them lied in appealing to African-American voters. Those references are, unfortunately for the Times (and for the candidates), based on not one whiff of evidence. In fact, the evidence cuts the other way.

First Obama. Times reporters Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny write:

Mr. Obama relayed a story of how his Kenyan father and his Kansan mother fell in love because of the tumult of Selma, but he was born in 1961, four years before the confrontation at Selma took place. When asked later, Mr. Obama clarified himself, saying: “I meant the whole civil rights movement.”

Did Obama try to suggest that his parents met during the famed civil-rights protest in Selma? I can’t find the exact text of Obama’s speech, but Healy and Zeleny’s use of “because of” (as opposed to, for example, “at”) indicates that Obama was saying no such thing. And in the Washington Post, Anne E. Kornblut and Peter Whoriskey report Obama’s words thusly:

Referring to his heritage, Obama said that although his ancestors were not slaves, the civil rights movement inspired his African father to move from Kenya to seek an American education and eventually marry his white mother — “whose great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves.” “But she had a different idea,” Obama said.

“Something stirred across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks were willing to march across a bridge,” Obama said, explaining that, as a result, his parents “got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.” Earlier in the day at a prayer breakfast, the Illinois Democrat said: “If it hadn’t been for Selma, I wouldn’t be here.”

That doesn’t even remotely sound as though Obama was trying to claim that his parents met in Selma. So why did the Times report that Obama “clarified himself,” as though he were backing down from an extraordinary inference? Sorry, but that kind of interpretative snark just isn’t fair.

As for Clinton, the Times’ Healy and Zeleny offer us this:

Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, recalled going with her church youth minister as a teenager in 1963 to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in Chicago. Yet, in her autobiography and elsewhere, Mrs. Clinton has described growing up Republican and being a “Goldwater Girl” in 1964 — in other words, a supporter of the presidential candidacy of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Got that? The young Hillary Rodham was a Goldwater supporter. Therefore she must have opposed civil rights for African-Americans. Therefore, she must be lying when she claims that she saw King speak.

Did Clinton hear King speak in Chicago in 1963? As Bob Somerby would say (today being a day for extra-careful attribution), we have no idea. But the fact that she was a Goldwater supporter in 1964 sheds no light whatsoever on the question. And there’s circumstantial evidence to suggest that she’s telling the truth. Take, for instance, this, from an online review of Clinton’s autobiography, “Living History”:

In the interlude, she tells of hearing Martin Luther King speak in Chicago, of being in the middle (as an observer) of the Chicago riots at the Democratic Convention in 1968, and her beginnings of questioning the system of limited women’s opportunities in America. Rodham was determined to achieve, and she made her move while in high school, serving in student government and becoming a political activist.

And here’s something from a 2003 BusinessWeek review of “Living History” and Sidney Blumenthal’s “The Clinton Wars”: “Dozens of stories provide bits of insights into Hillary Clinton’s complex psyche…. You see how a lecture by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. opened her eyes to civil rights …”

In other words, Clinton’s claim that she heard Martin Luther King speak in Chicago isn’t something she made up to feed the poor saps in Selma on Sunday — rather, it’s something she’s been saying for years. But you wouldn’t know that if you read only the Times.

Update: I was wrong about the Times and Obama. Read this.

Borges suspended

Globe football writer Ron Borges has been suspended for two months without pay for lifting material without attribution. This, from the Globe’s story, gets to the heart of the matter:

Borges’s column, like other sports ‘notes’ columns in the Globe, contain[s] a line at the bottom, reading, ‘material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.’ But [sports editor Joe] Sullivan said reporters are expected to use the shared notes for background material and not to lift the language directly from one another.

As a condition of his suspension, Borges has to refrain from broadcast appearances, the paper’s editor, Marty Baron, is quoted as saying. Baron also labels Borges’ transgression as “plagiarism.”

The Herald’s Messenger Blog goes with a fuller statement from Baron that also invokes the “P”-word.

I guess the biggest question is whether Borges will accept his punishment or quit the Globe. Borges, like many prominent sportswriters, has several broadcast and writing gigs. But his spot at the Globe is his meal ticket; without that, he wouldn’t be nearly as much in demand. My guess is that he’ll do his time and stick around.

The next step the Globe should take is to reword and clarify that disclaimer. It’s a landmine. I’d be willing to bet that Borges still doesn’t think he did anything wrong. (Don’t misunderstand me: I think he definitely crossed the line.) Here’s a suggestion: Write the “notes” columns like blogs, quoting from other papers directly when appropriate, and linking in the online versions. No disclaimer necessary.

Ron Borges and that disclaimer

After the Boston Globe emerged in the late 1990s from its travails over ethically challenged columnists Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith, the editors began taking a number of steps to restore the paper’s credibility. One was the disclaimer placed at the bottom of the Sunday sports “notes” columns: “[M]aterial from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.”

Now it looks like that disclaimer is going to be put to the test. A Web site called Cold, Hard Football Facts charges that Globe football writer Ron Borges “apparently stole great stretches of his column from a previously published report” in the Tacoma News Tribune. Well, it depends on the meaning of “stole,” doesn’t it? The site acknowledges the disclaimer, but then adds that “even a 90-pound weakling of a newspaper copy boy has enough sense to change some of the words.”

The Phoenix’s Adam Reilly has all the details and promises to post responses from Borges and Globe editor Marty Baron as soon as he gets them.

Chris Lydon and talk radio

When UMass Lowell announced last fall that it would stop funding Christopher Lydon’s radio show, “Open Source,” you had to wonder if its days were numbered. Fortunately, it stayed on the air — and now appears to have some guaranteed longevity.

Last week, the program announced that it’s received a $250,000 MacArthur grant “in support of the innovative use of internet-based tools in the production of a daily public radio program.”

Lydon and company have made a big deal out of using the Web to generate program ideas and discussion. Frankly, I’m somewhat skeptical of how crucial that’s been. The main thing is that “Open Source” is a good program, bringing back to the air one of Boston’s most distinctive voices.

I’ve been complaining a lot about the state of talk radio in Boston recently. Today I want to point out that you can fill up a pretty good part of your weekday with high-quality, locally based talk shows. Consider:

I’m not deliberately leaving out conservatives. Sullivan is pretty conservative, and I’d be the first to admit that many of the great talk-show hosts of the past were conservative — David Brudnoy, Jerry Williams and Gene Burns foremost among them. (I’d round out that trio with Peter Meade, who’s a liberal.)

The problem now is that the morning and afternoon drives are a talk-radio wasteland. On WRKO (AM 680), Tom Finneran shows some promise, so maybe the 6 to 10 a.m. slot won’t be a total vacuum.

In the afternoon, though, when NPR starts to drag, you’re stuck with Howie Carr on WRKO and Jay Severin on WTKK. Both can be entertaining at times. But you won’t respect yourself in the morning.