Boston Globe – Page 2

The Globe’s print circulation drops again, but it says paid digital ‘is thriving’

The Boston Globe’s paid print circulation continues to fall, and the paper has stopped reporting numbers for digital subscribers — although a spokeswoman says that paid digital “is thriving and surpassing expectations.”

The print numbers come from the Globe’s annual “Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation,” which it is required to publish under postal regulations. The Sunday Globe numbers appeared this past Sunday and the weekday numbers were reported on Monday.

The Globe’s average weekday paid print circulation for the 12-month period ending in August 2025 was 51,626. That’s a decline of 5,824 over the previous year, when the figure was 57,450, and a total drop of 13,351 from two years ago, when it was 64,977. In percentage terms, daily paid print circulation is down 10.1% over last year and 20.5% over two years ago.

On Sunday, the most recent 12-month average for paid print is 89,809, down 12,894 (from 102,703) compared to the previous year and down 26,647 (from 116,456) compared to two years ago. The percentage drops are 12.6% over the previous year and 22.9% over the past two.

Of course, what really matters at the Globe, and at most other newspapers, is paid digital circulation. Unfortunately, I have nothing to share, as the Globe has stopped providing those numbers. Don Seiffert reported in the Boston Business Journal last June that the Globe was no longer including paid digital in the numbers that it makes available to the Alliance for Audited Media. He quoted a Globe spokesperson as saying that its digital-subscriber base “continues to grow at a steady pace” and that the paper will share those numbers “periodically, most likely around significant milestones.”

In the past, the Globe has shared its internal numbers for paid digital with journalists. But when I asked for them this week, Globe spokeswoman Carla Kath told me by email, “While I can’t share exact figures right now, our subscription business is thriving and surpassing expectations. We will continue to share our subscriber numbers at key milestones.”

Last fall, the Globe said that paid digital circulation had reached 261,000, up from 245,000 the previous year. Chief executive Linda Henry has set a long-term goal of 400,000 paid digital subscribers.

In the absence of any paid digital numbers, I’ll note that Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab recently reported that the Globe’s website received 8,691,001 visits in June of this year, making it the 13th most heavily trafficked newspaper site in the U.S. That was down 18.9% from the previous month, when the Globe was No. 7. (Large month-to-month fluctuations in web traffic are not unusual.) That’s impressive for a paper with an exceptionally tight paywall, something that limits casual traffic.

If Globe executives want to boost digital subscriptions, I’d suggest that they offer a few free shares each month, as many other papers do. If non-subscribers could have a chance to sample the Globe’s journalism, they might decide it’s worth handing over their credit-card information.

NJ PBS chair weighs in, Emily Rooney on not quitting and Karen Attiah fights back. Plus: Please come to Waltham.

*“NJ Spotlight News” anchor Briana Vannozzi, right, interviews U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.*

NJ PBS chair Scott Kobler has issued a statement in which he criticizes New Jersey government officials for “intransigence or maybe even apathy” over the public broadcasting funding crisis.

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As I noted Wednesday, NJ PBS may shut down in June 2026 following a breakdown in negotiations between the state and WNET of New York, the public media organization that runs the New Jersey operation. In addition to losing some $1.5 million in federal funds, NJ PBS’s allotment of state funds has been cut from $1 million for the coming year to just $250,000.

The cuts are likely to affect NJ Spotlight News, a website covering statewide politics and public policy as well as the name of NJ PBS’s daily half-hour newscast. The two operations merged in 2019. Although WNET has pledged to keep the news operation alive online and on its New York-based station, Thirteen, regardless of what happens, its reporting capacity is likely to be reduced unless a well-heeled benefactor or two steps up.

Continue reading “NJ PBS chair weighs in, Emily Rooney on not quitting and Karen Attiah fights back. Plus: Please come to Waltham.”

Renée Graham quits Globe editorial board over Charlie Kirk editorial but will remain as a columnist

*Globe Opinion’s original headline. It was later changed to “Charlie Kirk murder: America needs dialogue, not bullets” online and “An attack on democracy” in print.*

Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham has quit the paper’s editorial board in protest over last week’s editorial (sub. req.) praising the slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s commitment to free speech — an editorial that was widely derided by critics who objected to Kirk’s often hateful rhetoric. Graham will remain as a columnist and will continue to write her Globe newsletter, Outtakes.

Graham confirmed those developments in an email exchange but would not offer any further comment.

A Globe spokesperson said of Graham’s decision: “We are grateful to Renée Graham for her valuable contributions to our team and to the editorial board. We respect her decision to resign from the board and are pleased that she will continue in her role as a Globe Opinion associate editor, columnist, and newsletter writer.”

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Kirk was murdered during an appearance at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. It’s been the top story in the news ever since given the public nature of his death (including a graphic video), the devotion of his millions of followers (Donald Trump and JD Vance among them), and his comments targeting Black women, members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants and others.

Continue reading “Renée Graham quits Globe editorial board over Charlie Kirk editorial but will remain as a columnist”

Media commentators are struggling to deal honestly with Charlie Kirk’s words and deeds

*Charlie Kirk. Photo (cc) 2022 by Gage Skidmore*

Following the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last Wednesday, non-MAGA commentators who have felt compelled to weigh in have struggled to find the right balance between expressing their loathing for what Kirk stood for without making it seem like they were celebrating his death.

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It shouldn’t be too hard. Here’s how the historian Heather Cox Richardson put it in her widely read newsletter:

Condemnation of the shooting was widespread. Perhaps eager to distance themselves from accusations that anyone who does not support MAGA endorses political violence, commenters portrayed Kirk as someone embracing the reasoned debate central to democracy, although he became famous by establishing a database designed to dox professors who expressed opinions he disliked so they would be silenced (I am included on this list).

Indeed, she wrote about her inclusion on Kirk’s Professor Watchlist shortly after it was established in 2016, saying, “I am dangerous not to America but to the people soon to be in charge of it, people like the youngster who wrote this list.” She closed with this: “No, I will not shut up. America is still worth fighting for.”

Continue reading “Media commentators are struggling to deal honestly with Charlie Kirk’s words and deeds”

Semafor reports on a Globe editor’s behavior; plus, the Herald’s ICE-out, and Wu says no on public records

J. Jonah Jameson of “Spider-Man” fame visits the San Diego Comic-Con in 2017. Photo (cc) by William Tung.

When does aggressive but acceptable behavior on the part of editors cross the line into workplace abuse? Back when I was covering the media for The Boston Phoenix, I heard some hair-raising stories emanating from the newsrooms at The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.

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But though the targets of that abuse were shaken up, consequences for perpetrators were few. There was a sense at least among some folks that it went with the territory, and that if you didn’t like it, you should suck it up. I’ll hasten to add that I didn’t accept that line of thinking, and I’m fortunate to have never been yelled at by an editor — at least not one I worked for. (A few editors I’ve reported on let me have it, but that’s OK.)

Continue reading “Semafor reports on a Globe editor’s behavior; plus, the Herald’s ICE-out, and Wu says no on public records”

Here are three ideas for Boston Globe Media’s new vice president of product

It’s time for the Globe to ease up a bit on the metered paywall. Photo (cc) 2017 by Kali Norby.

Boston Globe Media has named a vice president of product. Jim Bodor “will help define and implement our product vision and strategy, ensuring our products are customer-centric, innovative, and market-leading,” according to an email to the staff forwarded to me by a trusted source. And I could give him an earful. Here are three ideas I hope are on his to-do list:

- Clean up the homepage. Overly busy homepages are epidemic among leading newspaper websites, including those of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post — not to mention large regionals like The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Minnesota Star Tribune. Still, the Globe takes it to another level. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
- Offer some gift links. The Times and the Post give subscribers 10 links a month that they can share on social media or with friends. The Journal and The Atlantic offer unlimited sharing. Giving non-subscribers some grazing privileges can turn them into paying customers. Why not start with five or six shares a month and see how it goes?
- Fix the social connection. Sometimes I’ll be scrolling Bluesky or Facebook and I’ll see a link to a Globe story that I want to read. I’m a paying subscriber. I’m logged in. Yet if I try to come in from an external link, more often than not I’ll hit the Globe’s paywall. The Globe isn’t the only publication that has that issue, but it’s time to repair it once and for all.

What follows is the full text of the memo announcing Bodor’s appointment. Dhiraj is Dhiraj Nayar, the president and chief financial officer of Globe Media. AB is Anthony Bonfiglio, the chief technology officer.

Team,

We are excited to share that Jim Bodor joined us today in the new role of VP of Product at Boston Globe Media. Jim will help define and implement our product vision and strategy, ensuring our products are customer-centric, innovative, and market-leading.

Jim will partner closely with the newsrooms, sales, business, technology, and marketing to achieve key business outcomes focused on furthering our product-led culture of innovation, experimentation, and audience-first thinking.

Jim brings extensive experience as a digital product leader in the media and learning industries. Most recently, he served as vice president of product management at Harvard Business Publishing (HBR), where he led HBR’s first generative AI initiatives, directed the relaunch of the HBR.org mobile app, and championed the company’s first virtual events program, among other things.

Early in his career, Jim held leadership roles at WGBH and The Boston Globe, where he launched subscription products, scaled digital platforms, modernized content strategy, and led redesigns of award-winning programs.

Across all of these roles, Jim has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to balance strategic vision with operational excellence, blending business acumen, customer focus, and product innovation.

Please join us in welcoming Jim back to the team.

Thank you,

Dhiraj & AB

Boston Globe photo editor struck and killed by motorist in rural Illinois

A photo editor for The Boston Globe was killed last Saturday when he was struck by a car while bicycling in rural Illinois. Lloyd Young, 57, had traveled to Illinois to visit family, according to the Globe. The driver, a 54-year-old woman, was not identified.

According to 25News, a local television station, Young had worked for the Bloomington Pentagraph before coming to the Globe, where he had worked since 2006. In an email to the staff earlier this week from editor Nancy Barnes and other top editors, they said in part:

Lloyd has been a part of the Globe family since 2006, joining from the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers in Stuart, FL. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990 and received his Master’s degree from the VisCom program at Ohio University, focusing on picture editing & newsroom management.

Lloyd led our photographic news coverage, day in and day out. He was an exceptional colleague to other photo editors, photographers and designers, working closely with the copy desk daily, selecting the most significant images locally and from around the world.

We will dearly miss him at the Globe. Please keep Lloyd’s family in your heart and prayers.

In 2013, Young talked about his work in a video interview produced by the Globe. You can watch it by clicking above.

Some context for The Boston Globe’s editorial endorsing a shield law to protect journalists

*Illustration produced by AI using DALL-E*

The Boston Globe has published an editorial favoring passage of a shield law that would protect journalists from being ordered to identify their anonymous sources or turn over confidential reporting materials. The editorial is a strong statement in favor of press freedom, but it would have benefited from some context.

The Globe says that Massachusetts is one of just 10 states that lacks a shield law, which is accurate but not entirely true. In fact, 49 states, including Massachusetts, have some sort of shield protection either in the form of a state law or a ruling by state courts. The sole exceptions are Wyoming and, notoriously, the federal government.

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Massachusetts is among those states that rely on court rulings rather than an actual law, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press lumps the state in with seven others that provide the lowest level of protection, a list that also comprises Idaho, Utah, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, Mississippi and New Hampshire.

According to the Reporters Committee, Massachusetts lacks not only a shield law but also a ruling by its highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, that would recognize some sort of journalists’ privilege. “Nevertheless,” the organization says, “Massachusetts courts have been willing to use a common law balancing test based on general First Amendment principles to protect reporters’ confidential sources in some circumstances.”

The way such balancing tests work is that one of the parties in a criminal or civil matter — in criminal court, usually the prosecution — demands that a journalist turn over information that they believe is crucial to proving their case. A judge then determines whether the information is important enough to require that the journalist produce it and if there is any other non-journalistic source for the same information.

As the Globe editorial notes, the most recent time that happened here was last December, when Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone ordered Boston magazine reporter Gretchen Voss to turn over notes she had taken during an off-the-record interview with murder suspect Karen Read. Cannone reversed herself the following month, and Read was acquitted of the most serious charges in her case in June. (As the Globe editorial observes, Boston magazine is now owned by Boston Globe Media, but Voss was defended by the previous ownership.)

The legislation supported by the Globe would protect reporters who find themselves in a situation similar to that of Voss. Two identical bills that are pending in the state Legislature, one filed by Rep. Richard Haggerty, D-Woburn (H.1738), and another filed by Sen. Rebecca Rausch, D-Needham (S.1253), say in part:

In any matter arising under state law, a government entity may not compel a covered journalist to disclose protected information, unless a court of competent jurisdiction determines by a preponderance of the evidence, after providing notice and an opportunity to be heard to the covered journalist, that the disclosure of the protected information is necessary to prevent, or to identify any perpetrator of, an act of terrorism against the United States, the commonwealth or its subdivisions; or the disclosure of the protected information is reasonably likely to prevent a threat of imminent violence, bodily harm, or death.

Terrorism, imminent violence or death are clearly much more stringent requirements than simply needing confidential information to prove a court case. Unfortunately, the chances of such legislation being enacted must be seen within the context of the Legislature’s inability to accomplish much of anything, let alone something as controversial as this. As the Globe observes, “the Massachusetts Legislature has for at least 15 years running declined to allow even a floor vote on the measure.”

One final bit of trivia: Rep. Haggerty is a member of the family that has owned The Daily Times Chronicle of Woburn since its founding in 1901, and where I was on staff for much of the 1980s.

Longtime Globe managing editor Jennifer Peter is leaving to take the top job at The Marshall Project

Jennifer Peter, the longtime number-two editor at The Boston Globe, is leaving to become editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, a highly regarded nonprofit news organization that covers criminal justice. Peter will start her new job on Sept. 29.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning outlet was founded 10 years ago with former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller as its top editor. Peter succeeds Susan Chira, who stepped down in December 2024. At The Marshall Project, Peter will be in charge of a staff of more than 60 journalists.

“I’m beyond thrilled to be joining such a high-caliber news organization with such a critical mission, particularly at this time in our history,” Peter was quoted as saying. “The Marshall Project was launched to meet the urgency of this moment, when so much of the criminal justice system is being reshaped.”

Added CEO Katrice Hardy: “Jennifer is the kind of leader and editor who has spent her career helping produce groundbreaking investigations and journalism, sometimes under the most trying circumstances.”

Peter has a background in newspapers and at The Associated Press, joining the Globe in 2004. She’s worked in a variety of editing jobs and oversaw the Globe’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. She was named managing editor in 2017.

In an email to the Globe staff that a source forwarded to me, Globe editor Nancy Barnes called Peter’s departure “bittersweet news” and said “she models a leadership quality that I admire: the ability to be kind, compassionate and yet unbending in her commitment to truth and ethics.” The full text of Barnes’ email follows:

Dear all,

This is bittersweet news that I am about to share with you, so brace yourselves.

After nearly 21 remarkable years at The Boston Globe, Jen Peter is leaving to become the editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization focused on criminal justice reporting.

I know this is tough news for so many of you, who have worked with Jen for a long time. As I was joining the Globe, Brian McGrory told me she was beloved, devoted to the newsroom, and incredibly hard-working. I have found all of this to be true. I would add that she models a leadership quality that I admire: the ability to be kind, compassionate and yet unbending in her commitment to truth and ethics. During my tenure, she has overseen our daily news report through a torrential cycle of news, taken leadership of several departments, and guided important projects, including last year’s examination of the handling of the state’s emergency shelter system. In addition, she has served as chief of staff, and helped with budget issues. She seems irreplaceable.

And yet… This is an exciting opportunity for Jen, to lead her own news organization at a time when so much is happening in the criminal justice space. I’m looking forward to seeing where she takes that organization next. Her last day in this newsroom will be Wednesday, Sept. 17. However, the good news is that she won’t be going far as this job will be mostly remote and she and her family will remain in Boston.

Jen started her journey at the Globe in 2004 as a co-editor of Globe North, moving on to become state politics editor and then city editor under then Metro Editor Brian McGrory. She succeeded him in that role during another turbulent news cycle: the Boston Marathon bombing, the capture and trial of Whitey Bulger, the conviction and suicide of Aaron Hernandez, the drug lab scandal, and several hotly contested mayoral, gubernatorial and US Senate elections.

She also oversaw several major projects, including 68 Blocks, a year-long immersion in the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood; Getting In, which involved assigning eight reporters to follow families trying to get their children into the Boston Public Schools; Bus 19, which told the story of inequality in Boston through the regulars on a bus that traversed the city; and the Power of Will, Billy Baker’s story of one family’s relentless (and successful) pursuit of a cure for their child’s brain cancer. As managing editor, she conceived of the Valedictorian Project, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and helped guide the newsroom through the COVID years.

Many of you will want to know what’s next for the newsroom as Jen moves on to new challenges. We are going to put that question aside for a few weeks so that we can properly thank Jen, celebrate her innumerable contributions, and send her off in style.

Please join me in congratulating her — and let’s also remind her every day why she is going to miss this newsroom.

Nancy

The Globe’s investigative sports reporter, Bob Hohler, leaves behind a remarkable legacy

Boston Globe reporter Bob Hohler carved out a unique beat for himself over the years.

As an investigative reporter focusing on sports, he’s covered such high-profile stories as the Red Sox’ chicken-and-beer fiasco of 2011 and the near-fatal shooting of David Ortiz in the Dominican Republic. He also helped uncover a racist, homophobic, antisemitic hazing scandal on the Danvers High School hockey team and a lack of precautions that may have led to a devastating brain injury suffered by a Sharon High School football player.

Now Hohler is retiring, according to a newsroom memo from sports editor Matt Pepin that was provided to me by a trusted source. So, too, is a less well-known but equally valued member of the sports staff, Jim Hoban, the chief copy editor.

Hohler is leaving with his boots on. On Thursday, the Globe reported that it’s filing a lawsuit against the town of Sharon in an attempt to obtain documents it believes are public related to the brain injury suffered by 16-year-old Rohan Shukla.

He’s also written about topics other than sports over the years. When I posted news of his retirement on Facebook, another retired Globe legend, Steve Kurkjian, recalled that Hohler covered the Clinton White House during the Monica Lewinsky scandal (more properly known as the Bill Clinton scandal). “He said getting news out of the White House was easier than Red Sox ownership,” Kurkjian wrote.

Another commenter, Adam Sell, remembered that Hohler was a major contributor to a Spotlight series on the city’s taxi industry, even getting a license and driving a cab himself, as he had done years earlier as a college student.

Hohler’s retirement is a huge loss for the Globe and its readers. I hope the editors understand what a unique role he played in covering the intersection of sports and investigative journalism — and finds a suitable replacement rather than letting his beat go uncovered.