U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz (again) might consider running the other way when we try to present them with our coveted statuettes for dishonoring the First Amendment.
The 17th Annual New England Muzzle Awards are now online at WGBHNews.org and The Providence Phoenix. They should be up soon at The Portland Phoenix as well. This is the second year that WGBH has served as home base following 15 years at the late, great Boston Phoenix.
As always, the Muzzles are accompanied by an article on Campus Muzzles by my friend and sometime collaborator Harvey Silverglate. There are a couple of new touches this year as well: the WGBH design is responsive, which means it looks just as great on your tablet or phone as it does on your laptop; and WGBH reporter Adam Reilly, WGBHNews.org editor Peter Kadzis and I talk about the Muzzles on “The Scrum” podcast, which of course you should subscribe to immediately.
Peter, by the way, is a former editor of the Phoenix newspapers, and has now edited all 17 editions of the Muzzles.
Finally, great work by WGBH Web producers Abbie Ruzicka and Brendan Lynch, who hung in through technical glitches and my whining to make this year’s edition look fantastic.
Great news from my other employer, WGBH: My friend Peter Kadzis has been named senior editor of WGBH News. Kadzis will be in charge of building up the site’s news and commentary. I can’t think of anyone more qualified.
Peter is the former editor of The Boston Phoenix and the former executive editor of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group. It was he who took a chance by naming me the Phoenix’s media columnist in 1994, a beat I’ve been working in one capacity or another ever since. He’s been working part-time at WGBH since the Phoenix went out of business last March.
The following is an announcement to the WGBH staff from Linda Polach, executive managing editor of WGBH News.
Peter Kadzis
I am very pleased to announce that Peter Kadzis will be our new senior editor of WGBHNews.org. He will be working closely with [web producers] Abbie [Ruzicka] and Brendan [Lynch] to oversee all facets of our website and ensure it becomes an integral part of our overall news mission.
For months, digital content editor Mac Slocum and I searched for the right candidate for this position: a strong news person with a good understanding of the web. Eventually, we realized someone in our own newsroom had those qualities and much more.
Peter has already proved to be a valuable asset to our newsroom. We’ve all come to benefit from his experience, institutional history, rolodex and engaging personality. It made sense to expand the web position to match Peter’s extensive news management background and we believe the role of growing the website is one for which Peter is well suited.
We all know Peter as the former executive editor of the Boston Phoenix. But he was also in charge of the operations, budget and personnel for all publications of the Phoenix Media Group, including the weekly papers in Providence and Portland. He was responsible for the papers’ respective websites and he was the liaison for the group’s three radio stations. During his extensive news career, he was editor of both the Boston Business Journal and Providence Business News and he has written for Forbes, the New York Daily News, the Providence Journal and the Boston Globe. I could go on and on.
In this new role, Peter will be one of the leaders of our newsroom. He will work closely with [managing director] Phil [Redo], [managing director of news] Ted [Canova] and I on setting our news agenda and making sure we properly execute the WGBH news vision.
To say Peter is excited by the challenges ahead is an understatement and we’ve already starting talking about ways to take our website to the next level.
In addition to being smart, funny and extremely knowledgeable about our community, Peter is just an all around nice guy. Please congratulate him and do what you can to make his transition smooth.
