Bill Galvin’s other foot

This is pretty amusing. It turns out that Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who blew the whistle on the privacy-violating aspects of Gov. Deval Patrick’s Web site, DevalPatrick.com, is engaging in some dubious practices of his own.

According to a story by Ken Maguire of the Associated Press, the Corporations Division of Galvin’s office contains all sorts of personal information about people, including, in some cases, Social Security numbers, purchase records and even images of personal checks. The purpose, Galvin says, is to make it easier for lenders to vet would-be borrowers. But anyone can log on.

Galvin offers Maguire two responses:

1. Everyone’s doing it. “We’re not taking down the site. This is standard practice in the business world. It’s necessary for commerce. There are people who are reliant upon this system.”

2. This is an official government function, unlike Patrick’s campaign site. “The governor’s site is a political committee. Our site is a governmental function. This is an essential part of commerce.”

Naturally, David Kravitz, co-editor of the pro-Patrick site Blue Mass Group, calls Galvin’s excuses “lame” and “crap.”

Well, no. In fact, there are all kinds of government functions that invade our privacy. I do think the fact that it was Patrick’s political committee (complete with a “Contribute” button) that was violating our privacy made it uniquely offensive. There may be no practical difference, but there’s a huge difference symbolically and philosophically. (On the other hand, the Patrick folks fixed their mistake almost immediately; Galvin says he ain’t doin’ nuthin’, at least not right away.)

Besides, virtually every resident in the state is in Patrick’s database. By contrast, when I tried searching the Galvintron this morning, entering the names of random people I know, I couldn’t come up with much of anyone. (Kravitz is right about this: You will find information about the governor and his wife.)

Privacy and the government is an enormous issue, and Galvin should commit himself to taking a lot of this stuff offline. There are many records that ought to be public for anyone who needs them, but not simply thrown up onto the Internet for everyone to see.

Galvin is right that what he’s doing isn’t as egregious as what the Patrick campaign did. But he’s wrong in taking such a dismissive attitude toward the whole thing.

Josh Wolf’s costly victory

Judith Miller testified. So did Tim Russert. But Josh Wolf, a blogger and freelance videographer, won a partial victory yesterday by walking out of jail without having to appear before a grand jury. The San Francisco Chronicle has the details.

Wolf spent seven and a half months behind bars rather than turn over unused footage of an anarchists’ protest he had covered in July 2005 and answer prosecutors’ questions about violent incidents he had witnessed. In the end, he agreed to give up the footage in return for not having to testify. He also posted it on his Web site.

In a statement given in front of San Francisco City Hall and reposted on his blog, Wolf, 24, said in part that he considered not having to testify more important than turning over the video:

Contrary to popular opinion, this legal entanglement which has held me in Federal Prision for the past eight months, has never been about a videotape nor is the investigation about the alleged attempted arson of a San Francisco police vehicle as the government claims. While it is true that I was held in custody for refusing to surrender the tape and that the justification for making a federal case out of this was the police car, things are not always as they appear. The reality is that this investigation is far more pervasive and perverse than a superficial examination will reveal.

When I was subpoenaed in February of last year, I was not only ordered to provide my unedited footage, but to also submit to testimony and examination before the secretive grand jury. Although I feel that my unpublished material should be shielded from government demands, it was the testimony which I found to be the more egregious assault on my right and ethics as both a journalist and a citizen.

Wolf’s case is about the right of journalists — never fully recognized, and under increasing assault in recent years — to protect their confidential sources and unused notes, video footage and other materials from the prying eyes of prosecutors.

Wolf’s case was especially egregious, as this Online Journalism Review story explains, because the investigation was shifted from state court, where Wolf might have enjoyed the protection of California’s shield law, to federal court, where there is no shield law. The argument — that a San Francisco police cruiser damaged by protesters was paid for in part with federal anti-terrorism funds — is so weak as to be laughable.

With his partial victory yesterday, Wolf did not succeed in changing the law. But he showed that a journalist — even an independent blogger whose journalistic credentials are not clearly established — can generate enough publicity that the authorities will eventually back down.

The Committee to Protect Journalists hails Wolf’s release; so does the Society of Professional Journalists.

In February, Amy Goodman interviewed Wolf for “Democracy Now!”

D’oh! It’s McGrory on Sundays

Rob points out that Dave Guarino and I both missed this, at the end of Brian McGrory’s column on Sunday: “Brian McGrory’s column will appear on Wednesday and Sunday.”

In my very slight defense, I will note that I went here before I posted this morning and saw this: “Brian McGrory’s column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays in the City & Region section.”

Protection racket

Here’s something most of you already know, but which news reports like this one consistently miss: The digital-rights-management scheme on music sold by Apple’s iTunes Store is so weak that it’s scarcely worth mentioning.

It’s pretty simple: (1) Download a copy-protected song or an album from iTunes; (2) burn it onto a CD, which you are allowed to do. That’s it. The CD is as free of copy protection as one you would buy in a store. Thus you can re-rip it to any format you like.

Which means that I can’t see why people are so excited about the deal announced yesterday by Apple and EMI.

Musical columnists

Former Boston Herald political reporter and Tom Reilly operative Dave Guarino has been engaging in some interesting speculation on his blog about the future of the Globe’s metro columnists now that Pulitzer Prize winner Eileen McNamara has taken early retirement.

Guarino, an unabashed fan of Brian McGrory, thinks McGrory’s rare Sunday column was a sign that he’ll be getting McNamara’s marquee Sunday slot. As for McNamara’s replacement, Guarino says it has to be a woman, and mentions metro editor Carolyn Ryan and staff reporters Yvonne Abraham and Beth Healy as leading possibilities.

Those sound about right to me. Let me toss Living/Arts writer Joanna Weiss into the mix as well. And would it be possible to pry Joan Vennochi out of her op-ed slot? She’s influential already, but she’d have more visibility if her mugshot were on page B1 twice a week.

An online triumph

Among the best examples of Web journalism I’ve seen recently is this special report produced by The Enterprise of Brockton. Titled “Wasted Youth,” the package offers an in-depth look at kids who are battling OxyContin and heroin addiction — a battle some of them end up losing.

The online version encompasses long-form narrative storytelling (don’t let anyone tell you that everything on the Web must be broken into bite-size chunks), narrated slide shows, discussion boards and resources for further information and for help. The paper is running follow-ups as well. A triumph.

Score three for Patrick

Media Nation has been rough on Gov. Deval Patrick — though no rougher than he deserves. Still, I find myself agreeing with Charley Blandy of Blue Mass Group, who says that one positive aspect of Patrick’s victory is that we no longer have a governor standing in the way of progress, such as stem-cell research and Cape Wind.

Today, a third example: Andrea Estes and Lisa Wangsness report in the Boston Globe that Patrick has ordered the state Department of Public Health to record the marriages of 26 out-of-state gay and lesbian couples, reversing an action taken by his Republican predecessor, Mitt Romney. Good for Patrick.

And don’t miss today’s “Doonesbury,” which neatly skewers Romney for his flip-flop on gay and lesbian rights.

What about the Tommy Times?

The Boston Herald today pokes fun at Mayor Tom Menino, who criticized the media yesterday for what he calls their overemphasis on violent crime. The Herald’s Laurel Sweet reports on Menino’s church appearance in Dorchester:

“A lot of people want to believe it’s out of control. It’s not out of control,” Menino assured a packed house at Greater Love Tabernacle in the heart of Dorchester’s shooting gallery, where he was welcomed by thunderous applause.

“This city works. The problem is you’re always seeing headlines about the bad news. I wish we had a good news newspaper. The Good News of Boston. The bad guys don’t control this city, they only control the headlines.”

But I thought there already was a Good News of Boston — the Boston City Communicator, forthrightly labeled “Mayor Menino’s ‘Communicator'” in this press release marking its January launch and immediately dubbed the Tommy Times by the Herald. The announcement sparked a wave of derision on Universal Hub, with local blogger Carpundit calling it “a cynical and horrible idea.”

I know the Tommy Times is only a quarterly — but that means it should be just about time for another edition. Suggested lead headline: “City Peaceful, Prosperous Thanks to Mayor.”

The Boston Globe also covered Menino’s remarks, but Maria Cramer’s story doesn’t mention His Honor’s media critique. Adam Reilly points out that Cramer caught up with the mayor at a different church.

Spotlight on Newton North

It’s just one high school, so what were the odds that both the New York Times and the Boston Globe would publish two entirely different big stories on Newton North High School today? (Yeah, yeah, I know, both papers are owned by the New York Times Co. But I can’t see this as anything but a coincidence.)

The Times gives front-page, above-the-fold display to Sara Rimer’s feature on “Amazing Girls,” high-achieving young women competing for slots at the nation’s leading colleges and universities. It’s a terrific read, and I think my friend Adam Reilly misses the point — it’s less a paean to these kids’ amazingness than it is a look at the insane pressure they’re under.

I can’t believe folks at the Globe were happy to see the Times steal their lunch money with Rimer’s story. (Although Tracy Jan’s front-page piece on Sylvester Cooper, in danger of dropping out of the Boston schools with an eighth-grade education, certainly fills the paper’s daily quota of socially significant education stories.) Still, the Globe has its own Newton North piece, leading the City & Region section with an interesting look — reported by Ralph Ranalli — at how the new Newton North has managed to run up a price tag of $154.6 million.

Be sure to check out the accompanying graphic, which may be emblematic of how editors at the newly downsized Globe plan to move forward. This is the epitome of local coverage — a long story on cost overruns at one high school, along with a floor-by-floor, interactive chart. No doubt we’re going to see a lot more of this, as major metros like the Globe become more and more local in their focus. Indeed, the Globe even leads the paper today with a story on Proposition 2 1/2 overrides in the suburbs.

Nostalgia note: Nice Globe story by Geoff Edgers on the refurbished Children’s Museum. I was glad to see, in yet another interactive graphic, that the Japanese house survived. The Media Nation family spent many happy afternoons there when the kids were little.

First trooper singular

Linguist John McWhorter, in a commentary for NPR’s “All Things Considered,” March 27:

One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop. This means that calling 20,000 soldiers “20,000 troops” depersonalizes the soldiers as individuals, and makes a massive number of living, breathing individuals sound like some kind of mass or substance, like water or Jell-O, or some kind of freight.

President Bush, March 29:

We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we’ve got a troop in harm’s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded.