Tag: Boston Globe

Globe versus Herald: Scarborough edition

About a month after the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reported that the Boston Herald’s paid circulation was falling and the Boston Globe’s was rising, the Herald today offers the results of a new Scarborough survey that claims exactly the opposite.

OK, not exactly the opposite — the Scarborough report counts total print and Web readership, not papers and digital editions sold. Overall, according to Herald reporter Frank Quaratiello, “The Herald’s print and Web audience rose 6 percent while the Globe’s combined audience dropped 6 percent.”

Unlike ABC reports, I do not have access to Scarborough surveys, which clients such as the Globe and the Herald pay for. So I’m not in a position to endorse or dispute the Herald’s take. (But if anyone wants to send me a copy …)

And though it doesn’t merit its own item, I’ll note a final Globe-versus-Herald brief for today: a Herald story quoting an unnamed union source who says the New York Times Co. is shutting the Globe’s suburban bureaus in the near future — “another sign that the Big Apple company is setting the stage to sell the Hub broadsheet.”

More: I should note the latest ABC figures, which show the Globe’s total paid circulation on Sundays is 365,512, whereas the Herald’s is 81,677. On Monday through Friday, it’s 225,482 for the Globe and 103,616 for the Herald.

For Web traffic, the best I can do is Compete.com, whose overall numbers are suspect, but which has some usefulness in terms of making apples-to-apples comparisons. According to Compete, the Globe’s free Boston.com site attracted 2.8 million unique visitors in April, compared to 1.2 million for BostonHerald.com.

It depends on what you mean by “bureaus.” Update: The Herald story refers to the Globe’s “remaining suburban bureaus.” But two Globe sources tell me that the Globe only has one — in Danvers.

Globe versus Herald: Elizabeth Warren edition

Politico posted a feature late Sunday afternoon on the state of the rivalry between the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald over Elizabeth Warren’s questionable Cherokee roots. I’m quoted near the end.

And is it just me, or have things between the two papers been heating up since the Globe began printing and distributing the Herald earlier this year?

Update: McGrory won’t have to reveal source

Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory will not be ordered to reveal the identity of a source who told him about a secret sidebar conference involving two jurors in the murder trial of Dwayne Moore.

Moore was the principal suspect in a horrific 2010 multiple murder in Mattapan. His case ended in a mistrial earlier this year, and prosecutors are seeking to bring charges again. Moore’s lawyer had accused the prosecution of leaking the information to McGrory in an attempt to poison the jury pool. But Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke disagree, according to the Globe’s Peter Schworm.

“I don’t see anything in the column that differentiates it from all the other news stories,” Locke was quoted as saying.

Here is my earlier, more detailed post.

The humiliation of Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has written almost exactly what I was thinking regarding U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren and her exaggerated (and possibly non-existent) Cherokee heritage. So I recommend you read it. I have just a few additional thoughts.

I have to admit this is one of those stories that got by me. I didn’t think it would amount to much after the Boston Herald’s Hillary Chabot broke the story on April 27. Even though Harvard Law School had touted her as a diversity hire, there was no evidence (and there still isn’t) that she had ever sought to claim minority status for career advancement. And when the Boston Globe reported that she was, in fact, 1/32 Cherokee, that seemed to be the end of it. After all, the current tribal chief is only 1/32 Cherokee.

But things got a lot worse for Warren last week, when the Globe published a correction stating that there was no real evidence of Warren’s Cherokee background. Apparently this is nothing more than one of those family legends that may or may not have some basis in fact.

Like Douthat, and like millions of other Americans, I grew up thinking I might have some Native American heritage. My mother’s family was named Shaw; we had a cottage in Onset when I was growing up with a sign out front that said “Shawnee,” a tribute to that supposed heritage. My mother didn’t think there was anything to it, but who knows? As far as I know, no one in my family has traced our ancestral roots. We do go back to the early days of Plymouth Colony, so anything is possible.

I’ve heard it said that Warren should have been able to put all this behind her rather easily, but I don’t think it’s that simple. At root, I think she harbored a romantic vision of herself, which is why she listed herself as a Native American in law directories and contributed recipes to a cookbook by Native Americans. I suspect she’s deeply embarrassed that her fantasies have been exposed and mocked.

Can Warren overcome this politically? We’ll see. I’ve thought from the beginning that Warren’s Republican opponent, Sen. Scott Brown, was a tough candidate with first-rate political instincts. As I recently wrote in the Huffington Post, I thought the only reason that Warren had a chance was the large Democratic turnout that could be expected given that she’ll be on the same ballot as President Obama. Otherwise, Brown would be a shoo-in.

Let’s just say that the events of the past few weeks won’t help Warren.

U.S. Treasury Department photo via Wikimedia Commons.

For newspapers, a digital break from the bad news

It’s hard to know what to make of the latest numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations given that the New York Times gets credit for a paid-circulation boost of 73 percent. Yes, it makes sense to add print and digital subscriptions together. But some of the numbers reported on Tuesday are anomalies that won’t be repeated once digital subscriptions grow into maturity.

Still, good news is good news. Thanks to digital subscriptions, the Boston Globe registered a 2.5 percent circulation boost on Sundays (now 365,512) and a 2.9 percent increase on weekdays (225,482) — the paper’s first increases since 2004. Those numbers, though, do rely to some extent on favorable ABC rules when it comes to counting digital readership.

The Globe reports 18,000 digital subscriptions. ABC gives the Globe credit for about 33,000 digital readers. The difference is that the 18,000 figure counts Globe readers whose only subscription is digital. The higher ABC figure encompasses those whose subscriptions include some combination of print and digital — “engaged home delivery print subscribers who access BostonGlobe.com at least once per week,” according to an email from Peter Doucette, the Globe’s executive director of circulation sales and marketing.

Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell has talked about a paid-subscription model for his paper, and I’d imagine that talk is likely to increase after Tuesday. The Herald’s daily paid circulation fell by 12.3 percent, to 108,548; on Sundays it declined by 6.2 percent, to 81,925. In its own story today, the Herald emphasizes the popularity of its free website, traffic to which it claims is up 25 percent over the past year.

One point the Herald does make in its rather snippy account of the Globe’s numbers is that paid digital circulation simply isn’t as valuable to advertisers as paid print circulation. That’s true, and, if anything, the situation may be deteriorating. According to newspaper analyst Alan Mutter, the share of online advertising going to newspaper websites dropped to an all-time low in 2011.

What that means is the question of who will pay for journalism remains as vital as ever. The newspaper business is proving that at least some of its users are willing to pay for online news. Will there be enough of them to make a real difference — and will they be willing to pay enough to offset the continuing loss of advertising revenues?

Those are questions that will have to be answered. For now, we should all be glad that the issue is whether the new circulation numbers are as good as they seem. That’s a nice break from wondering if the bottom is about to fall out.

Journalism that deepens our understanding

Walmart in Merida, Mexico

I’d like to call your attention to three stories that stood out for me yesterday as examples of high-quality journalism that tells you something important that you didn’t already know, that places isolated facts within a broader perspective, or both.

• First up is David Barstow’s remarkable New York Times story on Wal-Mart’s Mexican bribery scandal — a scandal that was known to few outside Wal-Mart before this weekend. Clocking in at a New Yorker-like 7,600 words, Barstow’s article documents corruption at every level of the company, from active bribery in Mexico to passive acceptance at Wal-Mart’s U.S. headquarters.

Given the complexity of the story, I thought the “Guide to People in This Article” was a nice touch. So was the inclusion of Wal-Mart’s full response as a stand-alone document.

The story is a tour de force with implications that will be playing out for some time to come. It’s also a reminder that there are certain types of public-interest journalism that can be carried out only by a high-profile, well-funded news organization with its own army of lawyers.

• Next is Meghan Irons and Beth Healy’s Boston Globe article on the financial crisis that threatens the Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church, a leading institution in Boston’s African-American community that is in big trouble over an ill-advised expansion project.

The church’s primary lender is another African-American institution, OneUnited Bank, which brought down the hammer in part as a reaction to its own problems related to the national mortgage crisis.

The story has been in the news for some time now, but Irons and Healy are the first to pull all the strands together in a way that makes sense, even though no one from OneUnited would talk with them on the record. It’s fleshed out with photos and a video of a recent protest by African-American leaders in front of OneUnited headquarters.

• Finally, I was driving home from work on Sunday when I heard a long (11:29) piece on NPR’s “All Things Considered” called “Poverty in America: Defining the New Poor,” which explained how Clinton-era welfare reform has resulted in a shift toward food stamps as the primary means by which the government provides assistance to poor families.

During the recession of the past several years, the number of Americans on food stamps has risen from about 30 million to about 46 million.

Particularly riveting was NPR’s interview with Vicki Jones, who recently wrote an op-ed piece for the Chicago Sun-Times on what it’s like to live on $60 a week in food stamps while going to chiropractic school full-time and supporting her 7-year-old son.

Although the clear message of the story, reported by Guy Raz, is that we are not doing enough for the poor, the piece also functions as an outstanding explainer, bringing into focus a number of issues that are poorly defined when used as debating points by partisans.

Thanks to the Times, the Globe and NPR, I know more today than I did 24 hours ago.

Photo (cc) by ruffin_ready and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

The Globe’s recent Pulitzers and the city’s cultural life

Wesley Morris

Boston is a city where culture matters. So Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris’ Pulitzer Prize for criticism makes an important statement about the paper’s place in the cultural life of the city.

Morris’ Pulitzer comes just a year after Sebastian Smee won for his visual-arts criticism. Three years before that, Mark Feeney was honored for his criticism of photography, art and film. That is an impressive record. It also marks the Globe’s sixth Pulitzer since Marty Baron became editor in the summer of 2001.

I will confess that I do not usually read film criticism. But after Morris won, I went back and re-read the appreciation he wrote of Steve Jobs’ legacy shortly after the Apple chief executive died. It was smart in all the right ways, expressing the mixed feelings we all have about the overarching place in our lives that we have devoted to our digital devices.

Though I haven’t seen “The Help,” I was interested to see what Morris, an African-American, would make of a film that seems to have sparked ambivalence, especially among black movie-goers. Morris’ review is a meditation on well-meaning whites and the sting of liberal condescension. And the last sentence is a killer.

Boston, fortunately, is still a place where intelligent, literate criticism is read and appreciated. My former professional home, the Boston Phoenix, has long thrived on the strength of its outstanding arts commentary. It matters here, which is one of the reasons that this is such a great place to live and work.

As we all know, professional, informed criticism has ceded substantial ground to bloggers, commenters on Amazon and Yelp, and other unpaid reviewers. There’s a place for such amateur voices, and some of them are quite good. But gifted, deeply informed critics like Morris, Smee and Feeney show why crowdsourced reviews are a valuable supplement — not a substitute.

BostonGlobe.com wins major design award

Except for the Pulitzers (which are being announced next week), I try to stay away writing about journalism awards. There are so many that this could become little more than an awards blog if I opened the door.

This, though, seems worth an exception: BostonGlobe.com has just been named the “World’s Best Designed website” by the Society for News Design. Here is some of what the judges had to say:

The re-launch of BostonGlobe.com decisively raised the bar for digital news design. The Globe’s intrepid embrace of responsive design rewrote the equation of our industry’s expectations and ambitions and defined state-of-the-art across the Web. Most importantly, the site embraces the increasingly chaotic ecosystem of devices without sacrificing thoughtfulness or splintering user experience.

“Responsive design” refers to the fact that the Globe’s website senses whether you are using a computer, a tablet, a smartphone or some other device and automatically adjusts its appearance accordingly. I wrote about that last fall for the Nieman Journalism Lab a few weeks before the site made its debut.

Coincidentally, last night my Reinventing the News students at Northeastern visited the Globe Lab, where they heard from several members of the Globe’s technology team, including Miranda Mulligan, design director for BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com.

BostonGlobe.com is at the heart of the Globe’s efforts to persuade readers to pay for online content. The paper is off to something of a slow start in that regard — about 16,000 digital-only subscribers at last count. But its technology is innovative and excellent. It’s nice to see that being recognized.

A possible collision course over a confidential source

Brian McGrory

Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory, who wrote about a secret sidebar conference with two jurors over the recent mistrial involving the Mattapan killings, may be hauled into court and ordered to reveal the identity of a confidential source.

Boston Herald reporter Matt Stout reported on April 3 that John Amabile, the defense lawyer for murder suspect Dwayne Moore, was demanding to know who had leaked information to McGrory about the lone juror whose refusal to convict Moore led to a mistrial. Four people died in the shootings, including a 2-year-old boy.

(Update: The Globe’s Maria Cramer also covered Amabile’s complaint on April 3.)

If the prosecution had leaked to McGrory in defiance of an order by the trial judge, Christine McEvoy, Amabile told the Herald, he might seek to have the charges against his client dismissed.

McGrory, not surprisingly, declined to talk about the matter in any detail when the Herald contacted him, saying, “Obviously I quoted someone in the column on a grant of anonymity, and I hope you would understand that.” And McGrory told his own paper, “Because the information was provided to me under the condition of confidentiality, I obviously can’t reveal the nature of the source.”

The parties were back in court on Tuesday. Cramer reports that Amabile told Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke, who’s looking into Amabile’s complaint, that he might subpoena McGrory or prosecutor Edmond Zabin. Cramer writes that “Locke urged him not to do so without seeking the court’s permission.”

And the Herald’s Laurel Sweet, who also reported on the Tuesday hearing, quotes Locke as telling Amabile, “I’m not taking any remedies off the table.”

The inquiry will resume on May 8. If McGrory is asked to attend, it sounds like he’d be well advised to bring a toothbrush.

McGrory would have little to worry about if Massachusetts were not one of 10 states lacking a shield law giving journalists the right to protect their confidential sources. Last month, a legislative committee heard a proposal to create such a law, a broadly defined measure that would appear to protect anyone engaged in journalistic activities, including bloggers and citizen journalists.

The McGrory situation shows why a shield law could be beneficial. Whoever leaked to him was confident that the Globe would not reveal his identity. It is clearly in the public interest to get as many details about the Mattapan case out into the open as possible.

If Amabile’s complaint somehow leads to the source’s identity being revealed, that would have a chilling effect on the next insider who’s tempted to pick up the phone and call a reporter.

Note: This post has been corrected and updated.