Media Nation

It should have been in black and white. There should have been cigar smoke wafting through the hall. The candidates should have been waving their arms in the air, drenched in sweat and gesticulating madly.

There was something weirdly anachronistic about tonight’s gubernatorial debate, from the echo chamber of an auditorium to the cheesy podiums to the howling mob.

Lately it’s become fashionable to say that Kerry Healey is better than her campaign. Well, tonight she was as nasty as her campaign, or close to it.

And Grace Ross finally lost it, whining incessantly that Healey and Deval Patrick were refusing to engage her.

Tonight was the last of the 117 televised debates. And yes, it’s time to bring this show to a close.

It is a failing typical of media critics, or at least of me: I rarely get around to calling attention to good work. So let me just note that today the Boston Globe wraps up as fine an example of narrative journalism as you’ll see all year.

Thomas Farragher’s four-part series on post-traumatic-stress syndrome, told through the stories of three Iraq war buddies, is heartbreaking and important.

Fortunately, we live in an age when work such as this does not disappear with yesterday’s trash. It will continue to be available on the Web, with more photos, audio and other storytelling enhancements.

So if you haven’t read it, bookmark it, and go back when you get the time. It’s well worth it.

Jay Fitzgerald on the Kerry snafu: “The guy’s a first-class dork. We all know it. We all know he didn’t mean what he said. We all also know he didn’t mean what he said what he said when he was defending what he said. We all know his criticism of the Bush adminstration’s criticism of his criticism and his counter criticism of the Bush adminstration’s criticism was total BS. We all know it.”

Jon Keller: “The Republicans apparently believe Sen. John Kerry’s typically obnoxious ‘joke’ about President Bush, bungled in the delivery to sound like a slap at the educational achievements of our troops, is a blunt instrument they can use to beat the Democrats bloody … We’ll see what the next few days bring. If this story has legs, backlash builds, and it winds up demonstrably hurting the Democrats on November 7, Kerry can pretty much kiss his 2008 presidential hopes goodbye. Even if it doesn’t, Kerry’s grating, self-serving gracelessness has once again been exposed to an appalled electorate.”

Interesting. Neither Fitzgerald nor Keller likes Kerry particularly — in fact, I think it’s fair to say that Keller loathes him — yet each immediately understands that Kerry’s ridiculous joke was meant to be aimed at President Bush, not the troops. Yet neither Fitzgerald nor Keller is inclined to cut Kerry any slack, either. Kerry just hasn’t engendered any good will over the years, so there’s nothing he can fall back on now this side of the Daily Kos.

Two anecdotes.

This morning, someone from the heart of Kerry’s political base — a liberal professor who was, yes, wearing a bow tie — told me that he immediately took Kerry’s “joke” as an insult to American troops who weren’t smart enough to go to Yale and live in Louisburg Square. Wow. I disagree, but, on the other hand, Kerry said what he said, didn’t he?

On the other hand, Don Imus (yes, he’s still on the air) slapped Sen. Rick Santorum when Santorum tried to claim that Kerry was insulting the troops, telling him that not only did he not believe it, but he didn’t believe Santorum believed it, either. For what it’s worth.

The subhead on the Boston Herald front page today says it all: “Gaffe may cost Dems … and KO his prez bid.”

Jeff Jacoby reminds us of a column he wrote two years ago on Kerry’s uproarious sense of humor.

Finally, a Media Nation request: If you find the full transcript of Kerry’s remarks from Monday, please pass it along — I’d like to post a link.

I almost forgot. One more reason that print circulation at the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette may be falling more steeply than elsewhere in the country is the credit-card disaster of last winter.

Now, what would make me remember that?

Earlier today we received a message on our answering machine to call a fraud hotline for one of our Visa cards. A half-hour ago, a very helpful woman at Chase told us that $2,700 had been transferred from that card and into someone’s pocket just yesterday. We canceled the account immediately.

I have no one to blame but myself. Shortly after the story broke some months back, I checked to see whether we were among those whose credit-card numbers had been stolen. We were, but I figured that if nothing bad happened immediately, then we would be OK. Inertia is a powerful force.

And how stupid and/or naive am I? I just got finished entering a different credit-card number at the Globe’s customer-service site.

Do I know for a fact that this attempted $2,700 transfer was related to the Globe? No. But I’m willing to bet that it was.

Have a look (sub. req.) at former Boston Globe columnist John Ellis’ latest for the Wall Street Journal, in which he analyzes the Jack Welch/ Jack Connors/ Joe O’Donnell play for the Globe. His take on how Welch managed to prevent an auction that would drive up the price is fascinating, if a little hard to follow.

Still, Ellis’ bottom line strikes me as exactly right: “Mr. Sulzberger would be a fool, of course, to sell the Globe to anyone at this juncture.”

Oh, and in case last week’s ridiculous back-and-forth over the meaning of “in play” isn’t completely dead, here is Ellis’ lede:

Last week in Boston, a group of local businessmen led by Jack Welch let it be known that they were interested in acquiring the Boston Globe from the New York Times Company for $500-$600 million. The offer served to put the Globe “in play” (as the talking heads say) and to galvanize Class B (non-family) shareholders of Times stock, already up in arms about mismanagement and financial performance.

Don’t feel as though you have to respond, Mike.

Thanks to Adam, who also points to a fuller summary of Ellis’ column for those who aren’t Journal subscribers.

Isn’t it obvious that John Kerry was referring to President Bush — and not to American troops — as “stupid”? Well, not to some people, apparently. Kerry, hardly the political world’s most artful speaker, has managed to put his foot in his mouth once again. We’ll be hearing about this right up until Election Day.

Kerry responds here, calling his remarks “a botched joke about the president and the president’s people, not about the troops.”

Then again: I don’t know. Maybe I’m seeing this through the lens of what I know Kerry meant. But if you watch him actually speaking the words — wow: “Education — if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

I mean, I instantly knew what he meant. But that’s not what he said. I guess.

But he’s a funny guy! Let’s not forget this Kerry knee-slapper about Dan Quayle. Guaranteed to win you a home visit from the Secret Service.

I’ve got a profile of citizen-journalism pioneer Dan Gillmor in the new issue of CommonWealth Magazine. Gillmor, author of the much-celebrated “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People,” is the founder of the Center for Citizen Media, which brings him to Harvard for a few days each month.

Gillmor’s a former technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Philosophically, he’s at the midpoint between the New Media triumphalists and the Old Media traditionalists.

“Contrary to some folks in this area, I’m a big fan of traditional media,” Gillmor says. “I want to help them work in ways that they’ve never done before. I want to work with people doing citizen media independently, and in places where that intersects with journalism, I hope I can help.”

Three years ago I profiled Bill Siroty, a New Hampshire physician with an unusual hobby: staying up half the night to compile a daily, 40,000-word e-mail of every political story he could find. Some 500 people, including much of the nation’s political press, were subscribers to his free service.

Well, now the former Howard Dean supporter has taken his New Hampshire Links service to the next level, unveiling a slick-looking, well-organized Web site. The Hotline is linking to him as its premier source for New Hampshire political news.

Who needs The Note when you’ve got Dr. Bill?

The Boston Globe today reports on the latest drop in newspaper circulation, including particularly steep declines at the Globe and the Boston Herald. Why are things worse here? Robert Gavin’s article makes the case that Net-savvy Massachusetts is making the transition to the Internet even faster than the rest of the country.

Gavin could have cited numbers from the Globe’s own Web site, Boston.com. According to figures from last January — already out of date — Boston.com attracts some 4 million unique users every month, and has a million registered users. The unique-user figure is the same as the one I referenced in this post last October, but the number of registered users is up considerably. Surely there are a considerably number of people among those 1 million registered users who’ve canceled home delivery in the past year or two.

The story is similar at the Herald, where Jesse Noyes ends his report with this: “BostonHerald.com averaged over 2 million unique visitors a month, up 33 percent year-over-year, according to the most recently reported figures.”

Again, last year I noted that the Herald claimed 3 million a month for its online network, which includes BostonHerald.com, the massive Town Online site and a few advertising properties. Now Herald Interactive says that number has risen to 4 million, an increase of 33 percent — precisely on track with the 33 percent increase that the Herald claims just for its own Web site.

The Herald Web site has become considerably more attractive in the past year, as publisher Pat Purcell removed the paid-subscription barrier for columnists. Being able to get your fix of Peter Gelzinis, Margery Eagan and Howie Carr for free is a large disincentive to buying the paper. But Purcell, to his credit, knows that he has to figure out a new business model if the Herald is to survive.

By the way, the circulation numbers are pretty stomach-churning.

The Globe is down 7 percent on weekdays, from 414,000 to 386,000, and 10 percent on Sundays, from 652,000 to 587,000. It wasn’t too many years ago that the Globe guaranteed advertisers at least 500,000 on weekdays and at least 800,000 on Sundays.

The Herald is down 12 percent on weekdays, from 230,000 to 203,000, and 13 percent on Sundays, from 132,000 to 115,000.

Not good, especially given industry estimates that it takes somewhere between 10 and 100 online readers to make up for the revenue generated by one print reader. (I can’t remember where I picked that up — perhaps a Media Nation reader can enlighten us.)

The point, though, is that dropping print numbers are just part of a much larger picture.

How early is the North Pole edition of the Boston Globe printed? As you can see from this image — and no doubt from your Sunday Globe, unless you take home delivery in Boston’s northern suburbs — the death of the great Red Auerbach leads the paper today, as of course it should.

Yet there isn’t a mention of Auerbach’s death in the edition of the Globe that was delivered to Media Nation Central this morning, even though it made the front of the New York Times, which was delivered along with it.

Of course, Auerbach’s image dominates the front of the Boston Herald, too.

Now, I realize that certain things in life are constrained by the laws of physics. But tell me, Steve, exactly why is it that I pay for home delivery?

Special Northeastern aside: this Globe sidebar, a talker with Celtics fans who were interviewed at the Garden last night, is by NU student Glenn Yoder.