Media Nation

The Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald (uh, not the Jay of “Jay who?”) reports that WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) has replaced trash-talking, Muslim-bashing afternoon-drive-time host Jay Severin with trash-talking, Muslim-bashing afternoon-drive-time host Michael Graham. (The Globe runs a squib in its “Names” column.)

Severin disappeared from the airwaves several months ago after signing a national-syndication deal with Infinity Broadcasting that kicks in next year. Coincidentally, the Long Island-based “live and local” host left the Boston mediascape at the same time that Globe columnist Scot Lehigh revealed Severin had falsely claimed to have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Among Severin’s numerous notorious moments in Boston was an incident that took place in the spring of 2004, when he referred to Muslims in the United States as “a fifth column” and told a caller, “I have an alternative viewpoint. It’s slightly different than yours. You think we should befriend them, I think we should kill them.” Severin later apologized for not making it clear that he was referring specifically to Muslim terrorists, not to all Muslims. But he also enjoyed an undeserved field day because the Globe inaccurately reported that Severin had actually said, “I’ve got an idea, let’s kill all Muslims” — wrong, but also a fair approximation of his actual words.

Trouble is, Graham has had his own widely publicized problems with making grotesque remarks about Muslims — and it is, in fact, the reason he was a free agent in the first place. Graham could go toe-to-toe with Severin in an offensive-speech contest, given that he was fired from a station in Washington this past August after referring to Islam as “a terrorist organization” following the London subway bombings. (No, it wasn’t just one off-handed remark. Read Fitzgerald’s whole story.)

Graham has posted a maudlin, self-pitying take on his ordeal here. Graham writes:

It is a new day, not just for my family and my career, but I believe it is an important day for talk radio and free speech, too.

It’s been three months since the Council of American-Islamic Relations demanded my removal from the airwaves and ABC Radio capitulated to their demands. In those three months, many things could have happened: If ABC had had their way, I would have been falsely labeled a bigot. Even worse, I could have given into their pressure and issued a false apology, abandoning my principles for the sake of a job (a very tempting idea whenever the rent payment came due). I could have been banished from the talk radio industry, deemed “unhireable” by the industry — which is what several radio muckity-mucks assured me would happen.

Instead, the talk radio industry rallied. KFI in Los Angeles led the way, putting me on the air the very week I was fired, a statement more about their values than my broadcasting abilities. I have had more than half a dozen job offers from excellent radio stations across the nation. Not one station — NOT ONE — demonstrated any reluctance at all to work with me due to fear of pressure from CAIR or because of ABC’s decision to fire me.

So I’m off to Boston to a better job at one of the most successful FM talkers in the country and I’m returning to afternoon drive, my favorite time slot. My family is excited about the move, Boston is a great city and I can’t wait to get started.

Well, isn’t that special? It’s nice to know that Graham’s First Amendment right to earn a six-figure salary at a government-licensed, cartel-owned radio station has been upheld.

As for Severin, maybe he’ll prove me wrong when his Infinity deal kicks in. Maybe he’ll even pop up locally — possibly on WBZ Radio (AM 1030), which is an Infinity-owned station. But I have the feeling that he might have blown the best media gig he’s ever had.

Perhaps I travel in the wrong circles (I’m reminded of the famous if apocryphal Pauline Kael statement that she couldn’t believe Richard Nixon had beaten George McGovern, since no one she knew had voted for Nixon). But I have heard absolutely no one say, “Gee, I really miss Jay Severin.”

Lisa Williams, who’s the force behind the excellent Watertown citizen-journalism blog H2Otown, has posted an essay on Jay Rosen’s blog. Williams writes:

Like most functional small cities and large towns, Watertown is a comic opera with real estate taxes. But a newspaper isn’t allowed to say so. In a small town, The Newspaper is an authority figure, and there’s a word for someone in a position of power who makes wisecracks about others: bully. Being “just a blogger” — and emphasizing my total lack of credentials or authority other than being a Watertown resident with a blog — meant that I could convey the fun and joy of where I lived without being mean.

Aside from a bad attitude, one of my other journalistic sins is my lack of objectivity. I live in Watertown. I love it, and I’m an unapologetic booster. I’m not in bed with the subject, but as it happens, my bed is in the subject. I’m not shy about my agenda, which is to make Watertown a better place to live (and I’m also not shy about what I think “better” means).

H2Otown is just one example of what is becoming a citizen-journalist movement. I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the not-too-distant future, but, meanwhile, check out Adam Gaffin’s Univeral Hub for dozens of local links.

The first and only time I ever saw one of the celebrated Rice brothers was at Little People of America‘s 2004 national conference, in the suburbs of San Francisco. One of the brothers — I have no idea which one — was cruising about the hotel lobby on a Segway.

At any LPA gathering, you’ll find a sea of electric scooters, which take up a lot of space and don’t always fit into the nooks and crannies of buildings designed for people who are more mobile. Thus the Segway seemed like a brilliant solution — and the panache with which Mr. Rice carried it off only added to its allure.

I bring this up because John Rice died recently. Abby Goodnough of the New York Times has a wonderful story today about Mr. Rice and his brother, Greg. At 2 feet 11 inches tall, they were believed to be the shortest twins in the world, as well as a major force for good in their hometown of West Palm Beach, Fla.

Technologically, that is. Last night I sat down to check out the just-published New Republic. After reading Michael Crowley’s characteristically insightful piece on Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold, I tried to open Jeffrey Rosen’s essay on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Unlike Crowley’s article, Rosen’s was restricted to subscribers only — and I got a message saying that my print subscription had expired. No problem, or so I thought. I’d already decided that when my print subscription ran out, I would switch to the digital-only edition. (After all, if I had to wait for my mail carrier, Friday night would have turned into next Tuesday or Wednesday.)

But — incredibly — there was no provision to switch from print to digital online. When I tried to access a subscriber-only feature, I got a message that said:

Your subscription to The New Republic has expired…. If you feel this is inaccurate, or would like to switch to TNR Digital, please contact us at tnrdigital@tnr.com.

Unwilling to take “later” for an answer, I tried signing up for a digital subscription anyway. Naturally I got a message saying that my user name and password were already taken (by me, of course).

So, finally, I did as I was told and sent an e-mail to tnrdigital@tnr.com explaining what had happened and asking to switch my expired print subscription to online-only — something that should cut my renewal fee of about $70 to just $30. And now I have to wait for someone to read my e-mail, and to hope that he or she understands what I’m trying to do. This is 2005?

By the way, I’m not sure how he did it, but Andrew Sullivan found a free link to Rosen’s article. So there.

The Rev. Pat Robertson has some advice for the voters of Dover, Pa., who threw the intelligent-design theocrats off their school board earlier this week. (Via Raw Story.)

I’m Miller’d out and Theo’d out today. Enough is enough. So let me return briefly to an item I posted recently on problems I was having with the iTunes Music Store.

Bottom line: The distortion I was experiencing disappeared after I turned on Sound Enhancer in iTunes (set half-way) and Sound Check both in iTunes and on my iPod. Suddenly John Prine’s “Fair & Square” sounded as clear as if he were sitting in my living room.

Nice album, too, by the way — not quite as creative as “The Missing Years” (1991), but a big improvement over his last album of originals, “Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings” (1995). “Fair & Square” sounds very familiar, but in a good way. Unobtrusive production, too, unlike “Lost Dogs.”

She couldn’t go back. And now she won’t. The New York Times reports:

Lawyers for Ms. Miller and the paper negotiated a severance package, the details of which they would not disclose. Under the agreement, Ms. Miller will retire from the newspaper, and The Times will print a letter she wrote to the editor explaining her position. Ms. Miller originally demanded that she be able to write an essay for the paper’s Op-Ed page challenging the allegations against her. The Times refused that demand – Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page, said, “We don’t use the Op-Ed page for back and forth between one part of the paper and another” – but agreed to let her write the letter.

In that letter, to be published in The New York Times on Thursday under the heading, “Judith Miller’s Farewell,” Ms. Miller said she was leaving partly because some of her colleagues disagreed with her decision to testify in the C.I.A. leak case.

“But mainly,” she wrote, “I have chosen to resign because over the last few months, I have become the news, something a New York Times reporter never wants to be.”

Romenesko is compiling links, and already has Times executive editor Bill Keller’s memo.

The Phoenix’s Mark Jurkowitz defends the integrity of his fellow “Beat the Press” panelist Bob Zelnick, but says Zelnick probably should disclose the fact that he received a $4,000 fee to testify against the Boston Herald in a libel case whenever the Herald comes up as a topic. (Zelnick never actually testified.)

I’m with Mark. And, yes, I’m a semi-regular on “Beat the Press” as well, so make of that what you will. But I have not changed my belief that Zelnick’s ethics are above reproach.

If the folks at CNN were smart and/or still cared about news, they would have tried to destroy every copy of this in existence. Instead, they’re recycling it for those of us who were fortunate enough to miss it the first time.

“It” is an essay written by Anderson Cooper — successor to Edward R. Murrow, smiter of Aaron Brown, certified as the Next Big Thing — that ran more than two years ago in Details magazine. You can follow the link if you wish, but here’s all you need to know:

Going gray is like ejaculation. You know it can happen prematurely, but when it actually does, it’s a total shock.

Mind you, I don’t actually hate Cooper. He comes across as bright and hard-working. He’s no Aaron Brown, but neither is he Sean Hannity.

But what Cooper needs more than anything — a gravitas implant — is going to take time. And the fact that he would willingly make such a fool of himself in the not-too-distant past is not going to help, especially with CNN’s bonehead promotion clowns putting it front and center. (Via Drudge.)

The Boston Globe today hits the Boston Herald where it hurts — reporting not just that the Herald’s circulation, like the Globe’s (and like most newspapers), is plummeting, but that its numbers are squishy-soft.

According to figures compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and reported by the Globe, the Herald’s weekday circulation fell by 4 percent, from 240,759 to 230,543, compared to the same six-month period a year earlier. On Sunday, the situation at One Herald Square is much worse: circulation is down nearly 14 percent, from 152,813 to 131,833.

But that’s not the heart of Robert Gavin’s Globe article. Here’s the real shot across Herald publisher Pat Purcell’s bow:

[T]he Herald has been relying increasingly on so-called bulk sales to bolster circulation. In those sales, single parties, such as a hotel, school, airline, or other business, buy many papers, typically at a discount, and distribute them, often for free. Bulk sales accounted for 19 percent of the Herald’s daily circulation, or almost one in five papers.

Traditionally, advertisers have looked less favorably on bulk sales, because it’s difficult to track how many papers end up in the hands of readers, and who those readers are, industry specialists said. Bulk buyers must pay at least 25 percent of the papers’ basic price in order to be counted as paid circulation….

The 19 percent of the Herald’s daily circulation accounted for by bulk sales was up from 11 percent a year ago. In contrast, the Globe cut its daily bulk sales by 37 percent, and they accounted for only about 7 percent of daily circulation, compared to 10 percent a year ago.

The Herald has been slamming the Globe’s circulation woes since Oct. 20, when the Globe’s corporate parent, the New York Times Co., released ABC figures showing that the Globe’s circulation was down by about 8 percent on weekdays and on Sunday. Just this past Saturday, the Herald’s Jesse Noyes poked fun at a New York-area circulation drive apparently aimed at selling Globes to Yankees fans.

The Globe, meanwhile, has not exactly been shy about flogging the latest rumors that the Herald and its suburban community-newspaper chain may be for sale.

Coming tomorrow: The Herald fights back?