Tag: Boston Globe

30 years ago this week

I hadn’t thought much about the 30th anniversary of the Blizzard of ’78 until I saw Tom Gagen’s op-ed piece in today’s Globe, in which he describes the futile efforts to put out a paper the morning after.

Gagen brought back my own memories of trying to publish a paper that night. I was an editor at the Northeastern News, and we had two sports reporters — Steve Silva and Mike Tempesta — at the Beanpot. By all rights, Steve and Mike should have been trapped at the Boston Garden. But the editor, Anthony Pastelis, and I implored them to come back after the game, insisting we were going to get that week’s edition out one way or another.

Somehow, Steve and Mike managed to walk back to Northeastern, arriving in the newsroom at 2 or 3 a.m. and looking like frozen snowmen. We put the finishing touches on the paper. But later that morning, when we got in touch with our compositor/printer — the Boston Phoenix — we were told that it wasn’t going to happen. I’m not sure it would have mattered if the Phoenix’s printing plant was right down the street, but the fact that it was in Auburn, in Central Massachusetts, made our hopes of getting a paper out impossible.

These days, of course, we’d have just published the paper online and that would have been that.

Questions about a tragedy

My heart goes out to Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan and his family. Ryan’s son, Keith, was found dead in Pakistan yesterday. Bryan Marquard has a warm, well-rounded portrait of Keith Ryan in the Globe, and online sports-media columnist David Scott offers a tribute.

Ryan’s death is being cast as a suicide, but Mike Underwood’s story in the Herald raises another possibility. Here is the article that Underwood is apparently referring to, from the Pakistani paper Dawn. An excerpt:

The [U.S.] embassy said no “foul play” was involved, but senior police officers thought otherwise.

They said it was too early to determine from the bullet wound in the skull of Mr Keith Ryan whether it was a case of suicide or homicide.

The article goes on to say that there is some forensic evidence suggesting that murder was more likely than suicide, and that a full post-mortem will be conducted in Germany.

Keith Ryan was working as a U.S. agent in one of the most dangerous areas in the world. Regardless of whether this was a suicide or a homicide, he died in service to his country.

Globe denies layoff story

Globe spokesman Al Larkin calls the Metro report “factually incorrect,” according to accounts by the Phoenix’s Adam Reilly and the Herald’s Christine McConville, although he doesn’t rule out the possibility of some layoffs.

Credit where it’s due: Looks like Lisa van der Pool of the Boston Business Journal was the first to report the Globe’s denial. Meanwhile, in today’s Metro, Saul Williams says he stands by his story. (9:40 a.m.)

Can the Globe really lay off “hundreds”?

This item in Metro Boston looks pretty alarming. But if the Boston Globe lays off “hundreds,” as Metro claims, wouldn’t that pretty much empty out the building? And wasn’t it just yesterday that Joe Keohane reported at Boston Daily that the Globe had messed up a story about downsizing at Metro? And aren’t the Globe and Metro corporate cousins? And isn’t it a full moon tonight? (Close.)

The Newspaper Guild is taking the Metro report seriously. This one obviously bears watching. But I’m skeptical about the prospect of “hundreds of layoffs” — and I hope I’m proven right, given what it would mean for journalism (and journalists) in Boston.

James Pindell is moving on

Boston.com political blogger James Pindell is leaving to take a job as national managing editor of something called Politicker.com. Here’s the announcement.

Pindell writes the Primary Source blog for Boston.com. Some of his stories appear in the Boston Globe as well. Keep an eye on him: He’s one of the more interesting young people working in Web-based journalism today, having covered the New Hampshire primary in 2004 as editor of the late, lamented PoliticsNH.com.

As I tell my students, this may be a lousy time to pursue a traditional career path in journalism, but it’s a great time if you’re willing to be entrepreneurial and embrace new ways of doing things. Pindell gets new media in a way that most journalists don’t, making himself accessible by e-mail and AIM, and building a community around his work via Facebook.

His work for Boston.com and the Globe may be of interest mainly to political junkies. But because of his vision about where journalism is going, this is a big loss to the Globe.

Photo of Pindell is copyright (c) by Bill Fish Photography and published here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Celebrating Bhutto’s death (II)

Alert Media Nation reader T.A. has called my attention to Imaduddin Ahmed’s blog, in which he discusses his offensive op-ed about Benazir Bhutto. He writes: “A couple of readers have stated their unease about my pointing out Bhutto’s flaws so soon after her death.”

No, no, no. That’s not it at all. It’s obviously fine that he pointed out her flaws. What’s offensive is that he wrote about how glad he is that she was assassinated — as in, “Benazir’s death may offer new hope for democratic values.” It really doesn’t get any clearer than that.

Ahmed also lunges for the moral high ground and misses, writing, “I’m also offended that the deaths of artist Gulgee, 50 train passengers and over 200 flood victims didn’t mean as much to the media.”

Well, if you’re going to go all John Donne on us, Mr. Ahmed, let me just say that I’m offended that you can celebrate Bhutto’s death without bothering to note that 23 other people (in addition to the gunman) were killed as well.

And I continue to be offended that the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune would provide a forum for his piece.

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.