Tag: Boston Globe

A non-disclosure disclosure

The Boston Globe today runs an op-ed piece urging passage of a free-trade agreement with Colombia. The piece, by Marc Grossman, is reasoned and nuanced, celebrating Colombia’s rescue of 15 hostages last week while acknowledging that the government of President Álvaro Uribe must continue to improve its human-rights record.

But there’s a hidden agenda. The tagline states that Grossman is a vice chairman of the Cohen Group, and is a former undersecretary of state. That’s a pretty weak disclosure. In fact, a little Googling reveals that the Cohen Group, founded by former secretary of defense William Cohen, helps private clients do business internationally. Here’s the lowdown, taken directly from the Cohen Group’s Web site:

The Cohen Group (TCG) assists clients to navigate the political and business landscape in Latin America.

Secretary Cohen and TCG principals have developed and maintain strong ties with political, business, military, and media officials throughout Latin America that can help to accomplish client business objectives in the region. Our understanding of and relationships in the region have enabled TCG to assist numerous firms in the U.S., Spain and elsewhere in Europe that have business interests in Latin America….

Ambassador Marc Grossman, as Under Secretary of State until 2005, worked directly with leaders from across the region on a broad range of political, economic and security issues. For his efforts to promote democracy and fight narcoterrorism in Colombia, he was awarded Colombia’s highest civilian honor, the Order of San Carlos.

An opinion piece such as Grossman’s is worthless if it’s not independent. The Cohen Group would benefit mightily from a free-trade deal with Colombia. Surely there are experts who could have made the case as effectively as Grossman without being tainted by their future earnings being tied up in the outcome of the free-trade debate.

Moving on at the Globe

Adam Reilly has a column in this week’s Boston Phoenix that attempts to put talk of a 10 percent wage cut at the Boston Globe in a larger context of union contracts, obsolescence and the future of the newspaper business.

What interested me, though, were the words of an unnamed newsroom insider, who demonstrated that there are some people at 135 Morrissey Boulevard who get it, and who are ready to move on:

It’s weird having white-collar and blue-collar workers in the same union, because they think differently. They’re trying to preserve something that’s dying. We understand it’s dying, and we don’t want to hang on to it. We want to go forward.

I’m not sure if this is the same source talking, but this, from later on in Reilly’s piece, is interesting nevertheless:

There’s no financial model that’ll stop the bleeding. We deliver a product whose business model doesn’t work. Printing a newspaper on paper and delivering it to people is not sustainable.

If the Globe is to survive, it needs to move quickly to an all-online or mostly online model, with the print edition subordinate to the Web. There are still a lot of smart people at the Globe, and I don’t doubt that they know this, starting with editor Marty Baron.

What we may be witnessing now, with the losses continuing to mount, is one of those turning points at which a slow transition suddenly becomes a stampede.

Questions about a 22-year-old’s death

Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham does an exceptionally good job of framing the questions over the death of David Woodman, the reveler who stopped breathing while in police custody following the Celtics’ victory, and who died over the weekend.

As Abraham points out, there is a lot we don’t know. Which means that Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis’ approach — announcing there was no excessive force even before the investigation gets under way — is wrong.

File away Shelley Murphy and Christopher Cox’s story on the fact that all nine officers involved in Woodman’s arrest went to the hospital to be treated for stress, leaving it to an officer who wasn’t there to write the report. It could be meaningless, or it could prove to be a key to understanding what happened that night.

The Globe and the Pentagon Papers

Former Boston Globe editor Matt Storin writes about the Globe’s role in publishing the Pentagon Papers.

Given that the case led to a landmark Supreme Court decision extending freedom of the press, it’s interesting to ponder the note on which Storin closes. He quotes Daniel Ellsberg, the Defense Department employee who stole the documents and gave them to the press, as saying that today he’d simply upload them to the Internet.

Where, indeed, you will find them now.

Tania deLuzuriaga’s illegal smile

I’d be interested to know from Media Nation readers whether Boston Globe reporter Tania deLuzuriaga was violating the state’s motor-vehicle laws in her test drive of a Vespa.

Let’s start by asking whether a Vespa is a scooter or a motorcycle. If it’s a scooter, then she was definitely violating the law. It’s illegal to drive a scooter fast than 20 mph, and the operator must stay to the right-hand side at all times.

DeLuzuriaga makes it clear that she was prepared to go as fast as 35, the Vespa’s top speed. Also, the photo of her on the front of City & Region — not online, for some reason — shows her on the left side of the right-hand lane, nearly on the dividing line, with a motorcyclist to her right.

But that’s just throat-clearing. For legal purposes, the Vespa is probably considered a motorcycle. And here’s what she writes in her lede:

It was an all-too-familiar situation: Ahead, a red light glared, and bumper-to-bumper traffic stretched as far as the eye could see. Taxis honked. Drivers sighed. Nobody was happy — except the reporter on the white Vespa who slipped into the space between the lanes and nimbly passed among the cars. Pedestrians stopped to watch, and drivers’ eyes gleamed with irritation and envy as the reporter made her way to the front of the line, turned right, and zipped off on her way.

As I understand it, it’s illegal for the operator of any motor vehicle, most definitely including motorcycles, to wiggle between lanes of traffic. I think this is the relevant law, although it doesn’t seem quite to get at it:

When any way has been divided into lanes, the driver of a vehicle shall so drive that the vehicle shall be entirely within a single lane, and he shall not move from the lane in which he is driving until he has first ascertained if such movement can be made with safety. The operators of motorcycles shall not ride abreast of more than one other motorcycle, shall ride single file when passing, and shall not pass any other motor vehicle within the same lane, except another motorcycle.

In addition, the state Registry of Motor Vehicles advises motorcyclists, “Never weave between lanes.” The RMV’s advice tends to be the law.

Finally, Media Nation’s Grammar and Style Police have ruled that when writing a first-person story, you should use “I” instead of referring to yourself in the third person. Unless you’re Wade Boggs. Which deLuzuriaga is not.

Second-best Celtics team ever?

That’s what Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan says in today’s tour de force: his ranking of the top 10 Celtics teams of all time. He places this year’s winners right behind the fabulous 1985-’86 team.

Ryan’s list is sure to be controversial. Given that the Celtics have won 17 championships, it seems odd that he’d pick three losers among his top 10 — including the 1972-’73 squad, his only entry from the Dave Cowens era. Also, even at my advanced age, I’ll have to take his word for it on the great Bill Russell teams.

But this, kids, is why it’s important that papers like the Globe retain some institutional memory as they desperately seek to downsize their way to profitability. No one else in Boston could have written this piece. Good thing Ryan didn’t take the buyout.

Have you seen the Globe today?

To borrow from an old advertising campaign.

Our phenomenal delivery guy of some 20 years’ standing, Brent, is gone. The paper arrived late yesterday, and as of 9 a.m. today, it’s still not here. So, for the second morning in a row, I’ve read the paper strictly online, propping open my MacBook while eating breakfast.

Warning: I could get used to this.

Headline news

A couple of odd headlines in today’s Boston Globe:

  • “Judge resists push for prison for drunk driver.” In fact, the judge sentenced the guy to three years in the House of Correction, with about a year off for time already served. Not good enough for the sister of the victim, but prison nevertheless.
  • “25-year sentence in pornography case.” The pornography, in this instance, was produced by the perpetrator, who filmed himself having sex with girls as young as 6 and 8. This is about rape, not porn. (Note: The online headline, as you will see, is slightly different.)