By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Tag: Fox 25

Best wishes to Maria Stephanos, the face of Fox 25

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Maria Stephanos tweeting during one of the 2012 presidential debates.

Good luck and best wishes to Maria Stephanos, who announced on Thursday that she’s leaving WFXT-TV (Channel 25). Garrett Quinn has the details at Boston magazine. Stephanos has been the face of Fox 25 News for a long time, and it’s not going to be the same without her.

As Quinn notes, Stephanos is Fox 25’s second recent high-profile departure. My Northeastern colleague Mike Beaudet, the station’s investigative reporter, recently announced he was stepping aside so that he could spend more time with us.

Drip, drip, drip: The third person’s name is leaking out

Who is the Rhode Island person being questioned by authorities in the alleged terrorist plot that ended in the shooting death of a Boston man on Tuesday? So far, at least, most of the local media aren’t saying. But already a Rhode Island television station has breached the wall of silence, so you can be sure we’ll all know soon enough.

According to The Associated Press and numerous other news reports, police confronted Usaama Rahim on Tuesday as Rahim was preparing to carry out a plot to behead a police officer. Rahim was killed by police after he reportedly refused to drop a military-style knife. Rahim, a relative named David Wright and the Rhode Island man met recently on a beach in that state, according to news accounts.

On Wednesday’s 10 p.m. news on WBZ-TV (the Channel 38 version), we were told that the station would not identify the man unless he is charged with a crime. The Boston Globe takes the same stance this morning: “The Globe is not naming the third person Rahim and Wright allegedly met with because he has not been charged. But after Rahim’s shooting, officials searched his Warwick, R.I., home on Aspinet Drive.”

The Boston Herald refers to the man only as “a third unidentified person.” WFXT-TV (Channel 25) informs us, “His name was being withheld by authorities.”

The Providence Journal takes us one step closer, publishing not just the street he lives on but his exact address. The Journal also quotes a neighbor who calls the person of interest “a nice young man” who has cerebral palsy, walks with a limp and works at a gas station.

Using a reverse address directory, I found the name of a man whose age bracket (18-24) made him seem likely. So I Googled his name and discovered that, in fact, WJAR-TV (Channel 10) of Providence had already identified him as the person of interest. The story includes this: “At one point, according to a neighbor, he was the area paperboy. Within the last few years, though, neighbors claim he changed his appearance. He grew a long beard, wore robes, and prayed often outside.”

A search for the man’s name on Google News suggests that WJAR is the only news organization so far that has identified the man, though I can’t be sure. I will not identify him, nor will I link to the WJAR story.

The question is whether this is ethical journalism. I say it’s not, and it’s clear that other news organizations saw no problem with holding back on naming him in these early, confusing days of the investigation. What you gain by being first with his name is minuscule; what you lose if he turns out to be uninvolved could be considerable depending on the circumstances.

Also published at WGBHNews.org.

Northeastern’s journalism school to partner with Fox 25

Mike Beaudet with Northeastern journalism students. Photo by Brooks Canaday/Northeastern University.

Mike Beaudet with Northeastern journalism students. Photo by Brooks Canaday/Northeastern University.

Northeastern’s School of Journalism has some exciting news to report. Professor Mike Beaudet, who joined the full-time faculty in 2014, will be leading an investigative-reporting class that produces stories for his other employer, WFXT-TV (Channel 25). Our students’ work will appear on television and on the Fox 25 website.

You can read the press release here. And there are more details here.

Our partnership with Fox 25 represents the next phase in our investigative-reporting efforts. For seven years the legendary Walter Robinson led a class that regularly produced front-page stories for The Boston Globe. Robinson decided to retire from Northeastern last year and return to the Globe staff, where he is still kicking ass.

While no one can replace Robby, Mike is one of the best investigative reporters in the city, and has led Fox 25’s award-winning investigative efforts for years. He also earned his master’s degree from Northeastern.

“I want all of my stu­dents to dig deep on any given story, taking the time to ask follow-​​up ques­tions and see what else can be uncov­ered,” Beaudet tells news@Northeastern. “Our job as jour­nal­ists will be to keep dig­ging until we get to the truth.”

Why Rupert Murdoch probably won’t buy the Herald

Published earlier at WGBHNews.org.

Here’s the answer to today’s Newspaper Jeopardy question: “Maybe, if there’s a willing buyer and seller.”

Now for the question: “With Rupert Murdoch getting out of the Boston television market, is there any chance that he would have another go with the Boston Herald?”

Following Tuesday’s announcement that Cox Media Group would acquire WFXT-TV (Channel 25) from Murdoch’s Fox Television Stations as part of a Boston-San Francisco station swap, there has been speculation as to whether Murdoch would re-enter the Boston newspaper market. Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin raises the issue here; the Boston Business Journal’s Eric Convey, a former Herald staff member, addresses it as well. I’ve also heard from several people on Facebook.

First, the obvious: There would be no legal obstacles if Murdoch wants to buy the Herald. The FCC’s cross-ownership prohibition against a single owner controlling a TV station and a daily newspaper in the same market would no longer apply.

Now for some analysis. Murdoch is 83 years old, and though he seems remarkably active for an octogenarian, I have it on good authority that he, like all of us, is not going to live forever. Moreover, in 2013 his business interests were split, and his newspapers — which include The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London and the New York Post — are now in a separate division of the Murdoch-controlled News Corp. No longer can his lucrative broadcasting and entertainment properties be used to enhance his newspapers’ balance sheets.

Various accounts portray Murdoch as the last romantic — the only News Corp. executive who still has a soft spot for newspapers. The Herald would not be a good investment because newspapers in general are not good investments, and because it is the number-two daily in a mid-size market. Moreover, the guilty verdict handed down to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson in the British phone-hacking scandal Tuesday suggests that Murdoch may be preoccupied with other matters.

On the other hand, who knows? Herald owner Pat Purcell is a longtime friend and former lieutenant of Murdoch’s, and if Rupe wants to stage a Boston comeback, maybe Purcell could be persuaded to let it happen. Even while owning the Herald, Purcell continued to work for Murdoch, running what were once the Ottaway community papers — including the Cape Cod Times and The Standard-Times of New Bedford — from 2008 until they were sold to an affiliate of GateHouse Media last fall.

There is a storied history involving Murdoch and the Herald. Hearst’s Herald American was on the verge of collapse in 1982 when Murdoch swooped in, rescued the tabloid and infused it with new energy. Murdoch added to his Boston holdings in the late 1980s, acquiring Channel 25 and seeking a waiver from the FCC so that he could continue to own both.

One day as that story was unfolding, then-senator Ted Kennedy was making a campaign swing through suburban Burlington. As a reporter for the local daily, I was following him from stop to stop. Kennedy had just snuck an amendment into a bill to deny Rupert Murdoch the regulatory waiver he was seeking that would allow him to own both the Herald and Channel 25 (Kennedy’s amendment prohibited a similar arrangement in New York). At every stop, Herald reporter Wayne Woodlief would ask him, “Senator, why are you trying to kill the Herald?”

The episode also led Kennedy’s most caustic critic at the Herald, columnist Howie Carr, to write a particularly memorable lede: “Was it something I said, Fat Boy?” Years later, Carr remained bitter, telling me, “Ted was trying to kill the paper in order to deliver the monopoly to his friends” at The Boston Globe.

Murdoch sold Channel 25, but in the early 1990s he bought it back — and sold the Herald to Purcell, who’d been publisher of the paper, reporting to Murdoch, for much of the ’80s. It would certainly be a fascinating twist on this 30-year-plus newspaper tale if Murdoch and Purcell were to change positions once again.

That’s Cox 25 to you

Here’s a late-afternoon bombshell for you: WFXT-TV (Channel 25) has been acquired by Cox Media Group, part of a station swap that will result in Fox owning two TV stations in San Francisco. Cynthia Littleton of Variety has the details.

I hope the move from Fox to Cox doesn’t harm the local news operation. Fox 25 News is one of the better-funded news organizations in Boston, with a fair number of people who are native to the area — including anchors Maria Stephanos and Mark Ockerbloom. Mike Beaudet, who’s joining our faculty this fall, is an award-winning investigative reporter.

Blabbing about the election

If you just can’t get enough of Media Nation, I’ll be on Fox 25 News today starting at 6 p.m. Not exactly sure what they’ve got in mind, but I imagine I’ll be popping up now and then throughout the evening.

And tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. EST, I’ll be a guest on “The Johnny Wendell Show” on KTLK Radio in Los Angeles. You can listen live here.

Live debate commentary

Several hundred thousand of my close friends and I will be live-tweeting the presidential debate. I’m at @dankennedy_nu. I’ll also be contributing to the Fox 25 News live blog at www.myfoxboston.com. Hope you’ll chime in.

Talking about the debate on Fox 25

I’ll be talking about the presidential debate tonight at 10:30 on Fox 25 News with Maria Stephanos. There may be some Web chatting during the debate as well. If you’d like to join in, I’ll post details here on Twitter.

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