Boston Herald – Page 26

Recycling quotes isn’t plagiarism

Today’s Worcester Telegram & Gazette runs an “amplification” that reads:

Remarks by Darrel Slater in a Nov. 23 editorial on the release of accused killer Daniel Thomas Tavares Jr. from custody in Massachusetts were reported in the Boston Herald Nov. 21. The editorial neglected to credit the Herald as the source of the quotation.

Fair enough. The Herald deserved credit. But I’m beginning to think we’re all getting carried away when it comes to the use and misuse of background material.

This latest incident began to unfold yesterday, when Boston magazine’s John Gonzalez reported on the matter. The T&G had begun an editorial by quoting Slater, the father of a young woman allegedly murdered by Tavares in Washington state. “It’s because of stupidity in Massachusetts that my daughter is dead…,” Slater reportedly said. “How does a guy who killed his mother, gets charged with more crimes, get out of jail? How can he leave the state?”

As it turns out, the T&G had taken that quote from a Herald story written by Michele McPhee and Jessica Van Sack.

To be sure, the T&G should have credited the Herald. But the headline on Gonzalez’s item — “Worcester Telegram Plagiarized Herald” — vastly overstates what happened. This was not plagiarism. Opinion pieces regularly recycle quotes from other news sources without credit.

No one could reasonably have believed that the T&G editorialist had interviewed Slater. The problem here was simply that the Slater quote was a pretty significant exclusive for the Herald, and it was cheap of the T&G not to acknowledge it. The paper’s editors realized that and have made amends.

But do quotes always need to be credited? Of course not. Let me offer an absolutely typical example from yesterday’s James Carroll column on Middle East peace prospects, which appeared in the Boston Globe. Toward the end, Carroll writes:

Which brings us to the final reason for hope. The status quo is now universally recognized as catastrophic for everybody. “Unless a political horizon can be found,” Olmert said last week, “the results will be deadly.” Deadly to a two-state solution, Palestinian hope, and Israeli democracy. Deadly to the world. By comparison, all obstacles to peace are minor.

No one would think Carroll had interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert said it, it got reported around the world and Carroll used it as background material in expressing his opinion. It was an entirely unremarkable bit of journalistic craft.

Recently, you may recall, WBZ-TV (Channel 4) political analyst Jon Keller was called out by the Herald’s Jessica Heslam because he recycled some quotes without credit in his fine new book on Massachusetts politics, “The Bluest State.” What Keller did was standard practice for an opinion journalist, especially in a non-academic book aimed at a mass audience. Nonetheless, he was put through the wringer for a few days.

There is a huge difference between plagiarism (“It involves both stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterward”) and being slipshod with background material. I’m afraid we’re beginning to lose sight of that.

Why is McPhee sorry?

If the Boston Herald is going to report on Michele McPhee’s on-air apology for seeming to draw a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia, shouldn’t the paper also report what she was apologizing for?

On Thursday, the Boston Globe’s “Names” column included this item on McPhee:

WTKK apologized yesterday for a comment by Michele McPhee that seemed to equate homosexuality with pedophilia. McPhee, the brassy Boston Herald reporter who hosts a daily, two-hour talk show on 96.9 FM, was talking about the trend in the fashion industry toward skinny models. After saying that the industry is largely dominated by gay men, McPhee said: “And who do homosexual men like? Little boys.” Asked about the comment later, McPhee declined to talk to us. But a station official then issued the following statement: “Michele’s comments were made in the context of a fashion industry that designs women’s clothes for atypical body types. She regrets if her remarks were taken to mean anything else, as no other meaning was intended.”

Globe item prompted some further ruminations by John Gonzalez of Boston Magazine.

The Herald finally weighed in today. But though Herald reporter Jessica Heslam quotes McPhee’s apology at length, we never quite learn why she’s sorry.

Heslam does write, “Station officials have refused to release an audiotape of the comment in question.” But surely McPhee could have confirmed the quote reported by the Globe for her fellow Herald staffer. And failing that, the Herald could have have reproduced what McPhee had “reportedly” said. It’s not like she was denying it.

Trashing the competition

A few delivery drivers for the Boston Herald have found a surefire way to make their product stand out from the free competition, Metro Boston and BostonNOW: grab stacks of Metros and BostonNOWs and, you know, throw them out. Herald spokeswoman Gwen Gage tells Boston magazine that such tactics would never, ever be condoned at One Herald Square. (Via Romenesko.)

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.

Editor’s statement

Jessica Heslam reproduces an e-mail from Jon Keller’s editor, Michael Flamini:

Jon Keller’s The Bluest State is a political book written by a journalist for a trade audience. His book is based mainly on his years of reporting on the state and local governments of Massachusetts and its politicians, and includes coverage of public events and press conferences attended by many journalists. Jon Keller’s book is a lively and controversial work with a pointed thesis. The Bluest State is more akin to an op-ed piece than to a work of historical analysis or an academic treatise. It is unreasonable to expect extensive footnotes for each and every quote, or a lengthy bibliography. What’s more, references are made in the book’s index and throughout the text to quotes and facts reported in other newspapers, including the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. Thus, Jon Keller discloses to his readers, throughout his book, that he has occasionally relied on others’ reporting (in addition to relying on his own prodigious reporting) when he sometimes includes quotes made by individuals or other facts previously reported.

More on Keller

Great comment from an anonymous poster to Media Nation. Here’s just a small excerpt:

It’s true that in newspapers, journalists usually attribute quotes that were gotten by another publication to that publication. But I almost never see this in books. I’ve seen books that have almost nothing but quotes from primary sources that don’t mention anything about where they came from. The fact that “everybody does it” does not, of course, make something right. But let’s not pretend that what was done here is anything other than the norm.

He’s absolutely right. Keller is being singled out for a practice that is rampant throughout the entire book industry. Read the whole thing. I guarantee you there are local authors quaking in their boots tonight at the prospect that they’ll be next.

The Herald and Jon Keller

Boston Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam writes that Jon Keller’s book, “The Bluest State,” is “riddled with almost three dozen instances of direct quotes and other material lifted from numerous newspaper articles without any attribution.” Her story, teased on the front page, is leading Romenesko right now. So any hope Keller might have had that this would go away is pretty much gone. We’ll be talking about this for a few days, at least.

My purpose here is not to pick a fight with Heslam. She found what she found, and she has a reputation for getting her facts straight. And I suppose Media Nation readers have a right to treat what I say about Keller, the political analyst for WBZ-TV (Channel 4), with suspicion. As I have made clear in the past — most recently last Saturday, when the Boston Globe reported that Keller’s son, Barney, was the spokesman for Republican congressional candidate Jim Ogonowski, and that Keller had disclosed that fact only occasionally — Keller is a friend of mine. I also gave “The Bluest State” a favorable review (with appropriate disclosure) in the Guardian recently. So I write this item in that spirit.

So what do I think? My opinion is based on having known Keller for the past 16-plus years as well as from having read “The Bluest State” fairly carefully. It comes down to three things:

I believe Keller is incapable of deliberately violating the ethics of journalism. He is an honest reporter and a craftsman who takes great pride in his work. Which leads to my next two points.
A fair reading of “The Bluest State” makes it absolutely clear that Keller has written an amalgam combining some original reporting with a lot of material that, at this point, is essentially in the public domain. I find it hard to believe that anyone would think Keller had personally interviewed everyone he quotes.
Keller’s methodology is hardly unusual. Op-ed-page columnists regularly quote kings, prime ministers and presidential candidates without specifying that they didn’t actually interview those people. And you can be sure that if you leafed through just about any political book aimed at a general (as opposed to an academic) audience, you will find numerous examples of quotations not attributed to the news outlet that conducted the original interview.

I respectfully disagree with Samuel Freedman, who teaches at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and writes for the New York Times. Freedman tells Heslam that Keller made it appear he personally conducted every interview. I suspect Freedman hasn’t actually read the book, because if he had, he would come to the opposite conclusion.

In fact, Heslam herself offers evidence that all but proves my point, writing:

In one example from Keller’s book, he took five direct quotes from neighbors, a parent, a school board member and city councilor from four Globe articles written in 1988, 1989 and 1990 on the controversy surrounding the Commonwealth Day School on Brattle Street in Cambridge.

The ’80s? Would anyone honestly believe Keller was passing off nearly two-decade-old quotes as having come from his own reporting? Of course not.

Keller could have avoided this with footnotes, but that’s atypical in the trade press. But, again, the lack of footnotes is not evidence that Keller was trying to pass off other news outlets’ interviews as his own. Rather, in a book aimed at a general audience such as “The Bluest State,” the assumption is that readers will take it on faith that Keller got it right — not that he interviewed everyone who’s quoted.

Update: Adam Reilly agrees, and makes a telling observation about the different ways that Keller handled his own material and his second-hand research.

What’s bugging Tim Cahill

State Treasurer Tim Cahill is very upset that U.S. Customs agents harassed his family when they flew home from Italy recently because one of his daughters was found carrying peaches (Globe story here; Herald story here). “As a citizen who cares about security, I think that the time needs to be spent better and maybe on less serious issues than peaches,” Cahill is quoted as saying.

Both papers report having made unsuccessful attempts to get government officials to comment (the Globe’s Andrea Estes appears to have tried quite a bit harder than the Herald’s Dave Wedge), and then leave it at that. But about three seconds of Googling would have revealed what their intuition should have told them in the first place — that fruit can carry non-native insects and other nasties that could wreak havoc if they get loose in the United States.

Here’s part of a press release on a food-sniffing dog that works for the Houston Airport system:

During their training, these canines are taught to alert their human counterparts when they sniff five primary odors: apple, citrus, mango, pork and beef. Plants and flowers are also at the top of the dogs’ target items list.

These target items are foreign to the United States and may contain certain diseases and insects that are not currently present in the country. The function of CBP [Customs and Border Protection] is to prevent these potentially dangerous items from entering the country and, by the same token, to prevent foreign items from the U.S. entering other countries.

Meats can carry livestock diseases, such as swine fever and mad cow disease that can kill American livestock. Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, can carry insects or diseases, such as the Mediterranean fruit fly or citrus canker, which can wipe out hundreds of acres of the U.S.’s agriculture.

Or maybe we could review how Dutch elm disease, spread by bark beetles, came to wipe out the graceful elm trees that used to line the streets of Boston and other American cities. According to this Wikipedia entry (corroborated by the Encyclopedia Britannica):

The disease was first reported in the United States in 1928, with the beetles believed to have arrived in a shipment of logs from the Netherlands destined for the Ohio furniture industry. The disease spread slowly from New England westward and southward, almost completely destroying the famous Elms in the “Elm City” of New Haven, reaching the Detroit area in 1950, the Chicago area by 1960, and Minneapolis by 1970.

Maybe the agents who stopped the Cahills acted unprofessionally and didn’t bother to explain themselves. Maybe they were unnecessarily rude, the default mode for too many government officials with a little bit of power. But certainly they had a legitimate reason to confiscate the peaches. Too bad the papers didn’t make more of an attempt to find out why.

Even better: Steve finds the notice at left on the Customs Web site. It begins: “We regret that it is necessary to take agricultural items from your baggage. They cannot be brought into the United States because they may carry animal and plant pests and diseases. Restricted items include meats, fruits, vegetables, plants, soil, and products made from animal or plant materials.”

BostonHerald.com’s new look

BostonHerald.com unveils a slick-looking redesign. Smart — not too many people will be looking at it over Labor Day weekend, giving them a couple of days to work out the bugs.

Pluses: It’s attractive, and you can post comments on stories, which gives the Herald a leg up on the Globe’s Boston.com site. A minus: There’s still no view where you can see a list of every story in the paper from top to bottom, as you can with the Globe.

Overall, a big step forward.

Robert Dushman

Robert Ambrogi’s Media Law blog passes along word that First Amendment lawyer Robert Dushman has died of lung cancer. Dushman, just 59 years old, was considered one of the country’s leading media lawyers, according to this obituary (PDF) from the New England Press Association.

Dushman represented the Boston Herald in the libel case brought by Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy. The two most impressive people in the courtroom during the 2005 trial were the lead lawyers, Dushman and Howard Cooper, who represented Murphy. Dushman had the harder task — a tough case and an unsympathetic client.