Tag: Boston Globe

Celebrating Bhutto’s death (really)

Well, this is rather interesting. The Boston Globe runs an op-ed piece today arguing that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is a good thing. “Despite the prevailing opinion, Benazir’s death may offer new hope for democratic values: rights, the rule of law, and law enforcement,” writes Imaduddin Ahmed.

The same piece also appears in the International Herald Tribune, which, like the Globe, is owned by the New York Times Co.

Ahmed appears to be progressive (see this, for example), and the points he makes about Bhutto’s dark side are not novel. But it’s hard to see how Bhutto’s assassination stands for anything other than the denial of rights, the rule of terrorists and a failure of law enforcement.

Maybe it would be a good thing if Bhutto had departed from the Pakistani political scene (or maybe not — I claim zero expertise). But not like this.

An inside pitch

“Looking for the perfect gift this holiday season for the baseball fan in your life? Look no further than NESN’s DVD that chronicles the championship journey of the Red Sox.” — Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, writing in today’s Boston Globe. The Globe, of course, is owned by the New York Times Co., which also owns 13.6 percent (if I’ve done by math right) of NESN.

Online sidebars to the Everett fire

The local media have gone all out in their coverage of the Everett fire. I’m not going to try to evaluate it — from what I’ve seen, it’s all been good. Instead, I want to call your attention to what’s taking place just outside your peripheral vision.

Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have done some interesting work on their Web sites. The Globe has two slide shows, one on the ground, the other from on high. The Herald has a gallery as well, although it’s on a page that doesn’t allow me to provide a direct link. Click here and scroll down.

I particularly like an interactive map the Globe has posted (above). It takes you through the accident step by step and gives you a much clearer idea of what happened than the static graphic that appears on page one of the print edition. The Globe is also asking readers to send in photos (I don’t see any yet) and to share their stories (so far, it looks like people are mainly interested in pointing out that the Globe has mislabeled Route 99 in some of its coverage).

The Herald has posted a couple of videos — a two-minute clip that was shot at the scene of the fire, and an interview with a witness. They’re not slick, but they have a compelling raw-video feel to them that you don’t get from television newscasts. Unfortunately, the Globe is hampered in experimenting with video because of its content-sharing arrangement with New England Cable News, several of whose stories are posted alongside the Globe’s content.

I was somewhat surprised that I couldn’t find any amateur content on Flickr. However, I did come across a nearly six-minute video on YouTube, taken at the scene, that was uploaded by someone who goes by “97K.” Overall, though, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of citizen journalism coming out of the fire. Adam Gaffin, who does a great job of rounding up such things at Universal Hub, has very little. Adam did lead me to a local blog called the Everett Mirror (link now fixed; thanks, Ron), but so far there’s not much there, either. I’m not sure why, but it could be that Everett, as a working-class city, has fewer citizen-media types wielding video cameras than some other communities.

A little more than a year ago, an immense explosion in Danversport, right down the street from Media Nation, resulted in no deaths and little in the way of injuries. This week, another miracle occurred.

Pretty soon you’re talking real money

I know, I know — $1 million is a lot of money, especially when it’s gone into the pocket of a special prosecutor who’s brought only one relatively minor criminal charge.

But when I saw the lead headline in today’s Boston Globe, “Cost of probe on Big Dig nearly $1m,” I thought of the time that Lorne Michaels offered a $3,000 reward if the Beatles would reunite. Or Austin Powers’ holding the planet ransom for, yes, $1 million.

The Big Dig, after all, has cost approximately 16,000 times those legal fees.

The headline in the Globe’s online edition is a more evocative “Big Dig tunnel collapse prosecutor’s tab is $30,000 a week.” So maybe someone at 135 Morrissey Boulevard agrees with me.

More on Boston.com

Two more points about the redesigned Boston Globe site at Boston.com:

  • Once you get past an ad and a few teasers (including one for “Government Center,” a terrific resource that can be hard to find), a good chunk of the right-hand column is taken up with “Reporter’s Questions” — possible future stories for which reporters are seeking information. This feature has been around for years, but I’ve never seen it displayed so prominently. All smart news organizations are looking for ways to build communities around their journalism, and this is one way to do it.
  • The blogs may be getting short shrift on the Boston.com front, but they’re being promoted heavily on the Globe page. Just scroll down the left-hand column a bit. So are the podcasts, which have been organized and promoted in such a way that I may give a few a try now.

More thoughts on Boston.com

The FAQ that accompanies the redesigned Boston.com says that more change is coming: “Different features and sections of the site are scheduled to debut on different days. While we realize that this might be confusing in the short-term, we’ve studied our options carefully and believe that the gradual switch we have planned will ultimately result in a better user experience.”

With that in mind, here are a few random observations offered in the hope that better things are yet to come.

The look. By switching from a tiny sans serif font to the same one used by corporate cousin NYTimes.com, the site is automatically more attractive and readable. I’ve heard complaints that the Boston.com front is too crowded. It is, but it’s less crowded than before. The front also seems a bit newsier than it did previously, with the wacky, offbeat stuff moved farther down the page. The Boston Globe front would benefit from the same look, and I assume that’s coming.

Split personality. One problem I’ve had with Boston.com for a long time is that the site comes across as very different from the electronic Globe. That stems in part from its legacy. Although the Globe has always been the driving force behind Boston.com, it started out as a partnership with media outlets such as Boston magazine, Banker & Tradesman and New England Cable News. These days, it’s pretty much just the Globe, with video from NECN and New England Sports Network. But the split personality remains. Particularly frustrating is the fact that the Globe site conspires at every turn to dump you into Boston.com, whether you want to go there or not.

There are also cool features on Boston.com, like the “Government Center” collection of databases, that are maddeningly difficult to find.

Now, some of this is just a naming convention. Both NYTimes.com and washingtonpost.com let you choose that day’s print edition, which isn’t much different from Boston.com’s letting you choose that day’s Globe. But Boston.com has always struck me as flightier and more superficial, more separated from the core journalistic mission, than those other sites. As I said above, maybe that’s changing. I hope so.

Sharing. The hot trend of the moment is technology that lets you share stories you like on various social networks. Washingtonpost.com is particularly strong on this, letting you post stories to Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Newsvine, Facebook and something called StumbleUpon, which is a new one on me. The Globe’s options are relatively paltry, limited to just Digg, Facebook and del.icio.us.

Comments. As Adam Reilly notes, Boston.com still doesn’t allow you to post comments to stories. I know that the issue has been one of computer capacity, but come on, folks – buy some servers. (Yes, the site does have message boards, but that’s rather old-fashioned.)

More stories like what? I found a new feature this morning, but it needs some work. Example: Go to Shelley Murphy’s story on MIT’s lawsuit against the architect Frank Gehry, scroll down a bit, and you’ll find a box titled “MORE STORIES LIKE THIS.” Here’s what you’ll find:

  • Patrick to consider replacing police details with flagmen
  • United Tech profit up
  • Massachusetts high schools vying to update old science labs
  • State to study plans for school construction

Obviously the algorithm needs some work.

Almost forgotten. The link to Boston.com/Globe blogs has been moved to the very bottom of the Boston.com front, which doesn’t strike me as a smart move. The outside blogs section needs serious updating. Let me point out just one example: Under “Politics & the media,” you will not find Reilly’s Don’t Quote Me or David Bernstein’s Talking Politics, both at ThePhoenix.com; Jessica Heslam’s Messenger Blog, at BostonHerald.com; or (ahem) Media Nation.

With the Herald unveiling a redesign in September, we can see two different philosophies at work. The Herald has done something rather daring — it has almost completely broken the tie between its Web site and its print edition. Stories are posted blog-style, in reverse chronological order, throughout the day, with no differentiation made between wire copy and staff-written stories. It’s impossible to know whether some of those stories ever made their way into the print edition. And though the Herald is not exactly rolling in cash, publisher Pat Purcell has somehow found enough computer capacity to allow comments.

That said, BostonHerald.com can be easier to admire than to use. You’re constantly forced to drill down through submenus of submenus. I also find that I’m often missing stuff that I would have seen if I’d picked up a print edition. The solution I’ve hit upon — subscribing to RSS feeds for the sections of the paper I’m most interested in — isn’t entirely satisfying, as I feel as though I’m missing the flavor of the site.

The philosophy at the Globe, on the other hand, is evidently to take the Globe as a starting point and to build on it. It comes across as being similar to NYTimes.com and washington.com, only not quite as smoothly implemented — at least not yet.

These are interesting times for newspapers. New circulation figures show that print continues its free-fall. At the same time, efforts are under way to find new ways of measuring total newspaper readership, online and in print. As my Northeastern colleague Steve Burgard tells the Globe today, “You’ve actually got more eyeballs looking at journalism than ever before.”

By putting so much of their resources into the Web, executives at the Globe and the Herald show that they understand print’s days are numbered.

A better Boston.com

The Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, has unveiled a sparkling new design. Evaluating what’s there and what isn’t will have to wait, but my first impression is that this is much easier on the eyes.

The Globe’s own home page hasn’t changed, though I suspect it will. Choose any story, though, and you’ll see a huge improvement.

My biggest question — and one I’ll try to answer over the next day or so — is whether Dave Beard and company have managed to integrate Boston.com and the online version of the Globe better than they have in the past.

At first glance I’d say “not much.” But Beard, in his letter to readers, promises, “The changes won’t stop there.”

A note on quotes

I’m scratching my head over this, from a Boston Globe review by Brion O’Connor about two new Patriots books:

[H]e has an irritating habit of repeating pet clichés, including “mortgaging the future,” “in over his head,” and “slow slide toward mediocrity,” as well as setting up quotes — a gaffe usually corrected in Journalism 101.

Setting up quotes is bad? This Google search suggests the contrary. The very first hit is for a document called “The Art and Craft of Setting Up Quotes.”

I advise my students to tell the reader a little something about new interview subjects and what they’re going to say before quoting them, which is what I take “setting up quotes” to mean. O’Connor is a longtime journalist, and I’m guessing that what he means is different from what I mean.

Anyway, any insight would be appreciated.

The mother of all (potential) conflicts

You think the New York Times Co.’s 17 percent stake in the Red Sox creates a conflict of interest for the Times Co.-owned Boston Globe? It could have been worse — much worse.

Today the Globe’s Matt Viser checks in with a long front-page story on efforts by Joe O’Donnell, a part-owner of Suffolk Downs, to build a casino at the sagging track. Mayor Tom Menino seems to think it’s a good idea, which is a shame. It’s also a shame that so much of our local public discourse is now taken up by casino gambling.

Anyway, you may recall that last year retired General Electric chief executive Jack Welch and local advertising executive Jack Connors proposed to buy the Globe from the Times Co. Welch was the big celebrity, so he always got mentioned. Connors was the semi-celebrity, so he usually got a shout-out as well.

But there was a third member of the troika whose name often got left out — O’Donnell, who got rich selling hot dogs and popcorn at sporting events. How would you have liked the Globe to be reporting on a casino bid involving one of its co-publishers? Ugh.

My standard disclosure.