EMC co-founder Richard Egan, battling cancer, died on Friday. From there, stories in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald diverge considerably — it appears that Egan committed suicide, which the Herald had on Saturday, but which the Globe didn’t have until Sunday. John Carroll explains here and here.
Tag: Boston Herald
Optimism amid the newspaper gloom
Two pieces of news prompt this post. First, the Associated Press reports that newspaper advertising was down 29 percent in the second quarter of 2009, a devastating decline that is sure to renew questions as to how much longer the traditional newspaper business can hang on. Second, the Boston Globe’s main football writer, Mike Reiss, is leaving for a new ESPN Web site to be called ESPNBoston.
What do these two events have in common? They are further evidence that media organizations whose business models are relatively healthy have an opportunity to invade the turf traditionally occupied by newspapers. That doesn’t offer much hope for newspaper publishers. But it’s certainly cause for optimism among those who want to see journalism survive — and something worried journalism students should take solace from as well.
ESPNBoston, which has not yet launched, is not to be confused with the radio station of the same name — an also-ran with two bad signals, now reduced to spectator status in the sports-talk battle between WEEI (AM 850) and WBZ-FM (98.5). ESPNBoston, writes the Globe’s Chad Finn, is part of a strategy by the parent company to launch regional Web sites in the most sports-crazed parts of the country.
Disney-owned ESPN, among other things, operates wildly successful cable channels, publishes a magazine and produces a Web site that, according to Quantcast.com, attracts between 14 million and 20 million unique visitors each month. I don’t pretend to know what ESPN’s business strategy is for the new local sites, but it seems logical that company executives would be willing to subsidize them for quite a while if they help cement brand loyalty.
Reiss is not the only local sports reporter to leave for sites operated by non-newspaper companies. Previously, the Boston Herald lost Rob Bradford to WEEI.com, and Globe baseball writer Gordon Edes decamped to Yahoo. The Globe and the Herald have always had good sports sections, and their coverage has helped drive a lot of circulation. Their sports sections are still good, but now they must compete with online coverage produced by companies with fewer financial problems than the newspaper business is experiencing.
And sports is just one example. Tom Palmer retired from the development beat at the Globe last year and kept right on doing his thing for McDermott Ventures, a public-relations firm — a relationship that may raise eyebrows among journalism ethicists, but that is sure to becoming increasingly common.
Also in 2008, Boston.com political blogger James Pindell left to head a national network of state political sites called Politicker.com. The project was ahead of its time, and it folded in the midst of last fall’s economic crisis. But the idea lives on: Pindell is now trying a similar project on his own in New Hampshire.
Finally, and not to repeat myself, but one of the more interesting projects under way right now is the redesigned WBUR.org, published by Boston’s public-radio powerhouse, WBUR (90.9 FM); the site combines local and NPR news into a quality online newspaper. Public radio has not been immune from having to make recession-related cuts. But, unlike newspapers, both its distribution model (commuters stuck in their cars) and its business model (listener contributions, corporate underwriting and grants, supplemented with a small amount of taxpayer money) remain intact.
If the next owner of the Globe keeps on cutting, it’s easy to imagine WBUR.org morphing into a real alternative. And, of course, there’s nothing to stop the city’s television news operations from pumping up their Web sites, though they, like the newspaper business, are experiencing tough economic times.
We often hear that if newspapers die, there will be nothing left but amateur citizen-media sites that, for all their strengths, lack the capacity to do the sort of public-interest journalism a democracy needs to thrive. In fact, there is reason to be a lot more optimistic than that. I hope newspaper companies can find a way of combining their print and online operations so they can thrive for years to come. But if they can’t, it won’t be the end of journalism.
Caught flat-footed
Word of Ted Kennedy’s death broke around 2 a.m. — too late for most of the Boston Herald’s print run. A friend of Media Nation reports that Kennedy is not on the front page in the news boxes he’s seen around the area.
Of course, the Herald rectifies that online. Presumably the boxes are being restocked as I write this.
Meanwhile, what is up with the folks who put together the mobile edition of Boston.com? It’s almost 9:30 a.m., and there’s not one word about Kennedy’s death on the front page of mobile.boston.com. (I’ve saved the page here.) Nice picture of Jacoby Ellsbury, though.
I thought breaking news was automatically pushed to the site. I guess not.
Update: It’s now 11:15 a.m., and Kennedy stories are finally migrating to Boston.com’s mobile edition.
Arrogance and anger over newspapers’ decline
Newspapers executives have the right to charge whatever they want for their products, be it the print edition, Web-site access or speciality channels such as Kindle and mobile editions. The public, in turn, has the right to decide whether to buy or seek its news elsewhere.
What news organizations do not have a right to do is raise the price of what they produce by creating artificial scarcity through an illegal cartel.
Thus it was that Los Angeles Times media columnist Timothy Rutten’s latest commentary became the talk of the Twitterverse over the weekend. Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor, Vin Crosbie and I were among those kicking Rutten’s column around.
Rutten, in calling for an exemption from federal law so that newspaper companies can collude on a plan to charge for online access, made some important points about government’s role in fostering a free and independent press. In particular, he singled out the favorable postal rates going back to the earliest days of the republic as a key factor in the rise of a vigorous Fourth Estate. (Paul Starr, in his 2006 book “The Creation of the Media,” traces those postal policies to Colonial times, and identifies them as an important reason that newspapers and magazines became a mass medium in the United States in a way that they never did in Europe.)
But Rutten undermines his argument with unwarranted arrogance, including flashes of anger, at what has happened to his business. Here is a particularly choice passage:
[I]f Congress acts as it should, it will do so not on behalf of newspapers but for their readers. The press, after all, does not assert 1st Amendment protections on its own behalf but as the custodian of such protections on behalf of the American people.
Stating that the press is the “custodian” of the First Amendment is breathtaking not only for its insular cluelessness, but also because it goes against basic constitutional principles. Rutten should re-read the Supreme Court’s landmark Branzburg v. Hayes decision of 1972, in which Justice Byron White explained in ringing language why it would be wrong to grant journalists a constitutional privilege to protect their anonymous sources:
[L]iberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph just as much as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest photocomposition methods.
I don’t think White got it entirely right — surely certain types of journalism could be protected, as opposed to a professional class of journalists. But he’s inspiring in his assertion that the First Amendment belongs to all of us, and that we the people, not the press alone, are its custodians. Today, of course, the pamphleteers are armed with computers; they are legion, and they are not lonely.
Like Rutten, I want to see the newspaper business find a way out of the mess it’s in. Outside of newspaper Web sites, sources of news that consumers do not have to pay for — principally television and radio stations and their Web sites — do a fine job with the basics of local coverage.
But let’s take the Boston Globe as an example of two entirely different dilemmas. Yesterday’s edition included two stories that required a considerable amount of journalistic enterprise — a deep analysis of Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s development record and an investigative feature into the death of 7-year-old Nathaniel Turner, whose father has been charged with his murder. Those are the types of stories that are too expensive to do in the world of fast, cheap Web journalism.
On the other hand, have you seen the new WBUR.org? Combining news from its local staff with reports from NPR, the station’s Web site has the makings of a high-quality online newspaper. If the Globe started charging for access to Boston.com, maybe the Boston Herald would follow suit. But WBUR (90.9 FM), as a public station with hundreds of thousands of listeners, is going to keep its Web access free — as will New England Cable News and the city’s broadcast television and radio stations. Given that there is a considerable amount of overlap in the Globe’s and WBUR’s audiences (affluent, well-educated, liberal), the Globe would charge for Web access at its peril.
Absolutely no one knows the way forward for the troubled newspaper business. My own hope is that, once the recession ends, newspapers can thrive through a combination of smaller-circulation but more-expensive print editions, subscription fees for non-Web speciality products for the Kindle, cell phones and the like, and a more imaginative approach to Web advertising.
What makes no sense whatsover is the Rutten plan: a backroom deal to charge for something that readers have made clear they are not willing to pay for.
Democracy and the Senate (II)
The notion that the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald represent ideologically opposite editorial positions is overblown. The Herald and its editorial-page editor, Rachelle Cohen, aren’t really all that conservative. And the Globe, whose editorial page recently transitioned from longtime editor Renée Loth to former Washington-bureau chief Peter Canellos, is just contrarian enough on issues like charter schools to keep liberals agitated.
An exception is today. The Globe offers its full-throated endorsement to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s proposal that would allow Gov. Deval Patrick to name an interim senator in the event of a vacancy. The interim would serve until a special election could be held five months later. With Kennedy’s battle against brain cancer apparently entering its final stages, the matter has taken on special urgency.
In supporting Kennedy’s proposal, the Globe criticizes the Legislature for having taken the gubernatorial appointment away five years ago, when it appeared that Sen. John Kerry might be elected president and Democratic leaders at the Statehouse did not want then-governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, to name Kerry’s successor. The Globe calls the 2004 law “a partisan bill.”
Which, of course, it was. And which leads the Herald to invoke that same 2004 action as a reason to reject Kennedy’s current proposal, in an editorial headlined “Hypocrisy factor.” Continue reading “Democracy and the Senate (II)”
Follow the bouncing sports talkers
So why did the Boston Globe and WEEI Radio (AM 850) reach an agreement that will allow Globe sportswriters to appear on the station for the first time in years, as the Boston Phoenix’s Adam Reilly reported yesterday?
According to the Boston Herald’s Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa, Globe sportswriter Tony Massarotti is about to jump ship to WBZ-FM (98.5 FM), the CBS-owned all-sports station that will begin competing with WEEI this fall. Massarotti was a constant on ‘EEI when he was with the Herald.
Bringing the Globe-‘EEI war to a peaceful conclusion would presumably open the way for (a) Massarotti to return to that station or, more likely, (b) beef up ‘EEI as it seeks to compete with a new afternoon show on WBZ-FM that would be co-hosted by Massarotti and Mike Felger, though it’s not entirely clear what is going on.
Weirdly enough, Globe sports-media columnist Chad Finn tweets that Globe writers will be allowed to phone in, but not be in the studio, for WEEI’s highly rated morning and afternoon drive programs, “Dennis & Callahan” and “The Big Show,” although an exception will be made if a Globie has a chance to co-host “D&C.” (Via Boston Sports Media.)
In looking over this item, it appears I may have only added to the confusion. My work here is done. You’re welcome.
Liveblogging the Sotomayor hearings
Fans of former Boston Herald political reporter/blogger Kimberly Atkins will be interested to know that she’s liveblogging the Sonia Sotomayor hearings for her current employer, Lawyers USA. Atkins, a lawyer, is a staff reporter for the publication.
Herald reporter charged in alleged assault
Boston Herald reporter O’Ryan Johnson has been charged with assault and battery following an altercation with a 74-year-old man in a Groveland laundromat, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
The story is leading Romenesko at the moment.
More: It turns out that Johnson was part of an Eagle-Tribune team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The Tribune story mentions that Johnson is an alumnus but omits the Pulitzer. Odd oversight.
Johnson’s byline appears on only one of the Pulitzer-winning stories, but it was the first — an account of a tragic accident that claimed the lives of four boys who fell through the ice on the Merrimack River.
More ideas on saving the Globe
At the Nieman Journalism Lab, Martin Langeveld has some smart ideas for saving the Boston Globe. The one idea over which I disagree with him strongly is that the Globe should move away from a daily print edition. Langeveld writes:
My prediction is that, ironic as it may seem, Pat Purcell’s Boston Herald will be left as the only daily paper in Boston, and that the Globe will evolve into something different. That doesn’t mean the Herald wins, because in the long run, daily print is just not a sustainable business model anywhere. Or almost anywhere, if we want to hedge that bet a little.
Hard to disagree, but it all comes down to how you define “the long run.” Newspapers still make most of their money from print. Yes, Boston.com is the Globe’s most important news vehicle, but the print edition is still where the money is, and will be for some time to come.
A half-century of bad blood
Earlier today the Boston Globe posted a 1982 article about the day that Rupert Murdoch saved the Boston Herald. Interestingly, the story, by David Wessel, now economics editor for Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, gets into precisely why some old-timers at the Herald, like Joe Fitzgerald, remain angry at the Globe more than 26 years later.
As you will see, in the midst of Murdoch’s efforts to buy what was then the Herald American from Hearst, Globe publisher William Taylor sent a telegram to unions at the Herald informing them that any concessions they granted to Murdoch would have to be granted to the Globe as well. The move was seen at the time as an attempt by the Globe to nix the deal and hasten the Herald American to its grave, though Taylor denied that was his intent.
Murdoch threatened to file a lawsuit against the Globe charging the paper with violating antitrust laws, but was also quoted as saying: “I might have done the same thing in their circumstance.”
For those interested in tracing the feud back even farther, let’s not forget that the Herald American was formed as a result of the Globe’s journalistic and extra-journalistic efforts to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to strip the Boston Herald Traveler of its television and radio licenses, which the Herald held despite the FCC’s ban on cross-ownership.
The FCC ruled against the Herald Traveler in 1972, and the paper was acquired by Hearst’s Record American.
And while we’re at it, let’s go back to the 1950s, following the death of the once-dominant Boston Post. As recounted in the late J. Anthony Lukas’ masterpiece, “Common Ground,” then-Herald publisher Robert “Beanie” Choate suggested a merger with the Globe. When Globe publisher Davis Taylor turned him down, Choate reportedly told him: “You fellows are stubborn. Worse than that, you’re arrogant. You better listen to us or we’ll teach you a lesson. I’m going to get Channel 5, and with my television revenues I’ll put you out of business.”
Choate got his license — apparently with the help of Joseph Kennedy, whose son Ted, ironically, tried to put the Herald out of business in 1988 by forcing Murdoch to give up either the Herald or Channel 25. Murdoch chose to keep the Herald and sell Channel 25, although several years later he sold the Herald to longtime protégé Pat Purcell and repurchased Channel 25.
So there you have it: a half-century of bad blood between the Globe and the Herald.