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GBH News will launch a daily arts and culture program on radio and YouTube

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On October 17, 2023

In Media

A lot of observers were surprised earlier this year when GBH News canceled its weekly arts and culture television show, “Open Studio,” hosted by Jared Bowen. Even more surprising was a statement from GBH president and CEO Susan Goldberg: “We’ve had the privilege of showcasing the depth and breadth of Boston’s incredible arts and culture scene through Jared’s eyes. We will be building on that strength as well as on GBH’s long legacy as a leader in culture content. GBH continues to be deeply committed to covering the local scene.”

It turns out that Goldberg knew whereof she spoke. Because GBH News is getting ready to launch a daily one-hour radio program devoted to arts and culture, also hosted by Bowen, that will have a video component as well. The program will have rotating co-hosts, including my former “Beat the Press” co-panelist Callie Crossley. Here’s the full press release:

In a major expansion of GBH’s local arts and culture programming, GBH News is launching The Culture Show, a one-hour daily local radio program on 89.7 offering listeners a wide-ranging look at society through art, culture and entertainment. Beginning November 3, The Culture Show will air on Fridays from 2–3 p.m., following Boston Public Radio with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan.

On December 4, The Culture Show will expand to a daily broadcast, Monday through Friday, at the same time slot, adding five hours per week of local arts and culture content to the Greater Boston media market. The show will also air on CAI, the Cape, Coast and Islands NPR station, starting on December 4. Beginning in the new year, the show will also stream on the GBH News YouTube channel, and video clips will be integrated into the daily GBH News program Greater Boston.

“The Culture Show builds on GBH’s deep legacy in the arts and culture space. We are proud of our seven-decade commitment to bringing local audiences vibrant and inspirational culture programming,” said Pam Johnston, general manager of news at GBH. “Culture is the lens through which our audiences experience the world. We’re proud to be expanding our arts and culture team, offering people daily engaging conversations about what we see, watch, taste, hear, feel and talk about.”

GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen will host The Culture Show. He will be joined by rotating co-hosts Callie Crossley, the host of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley; Edgar B. Herwick III, host of The Curiosity Desk; and James Bennett II, a GBH News arts and culture reporter and CRB Classical 99.5 contributor  and a panel of cultural correspondents.

“The arts are vital to articulating and understanding our place in the world. The Culture Show offers an unprecedented opportunity to put the local arts scene front and center for listeners,” said Jared Bowen. “I can’t wait to join Callie, Edgar, James, and our listeners and guests in a shared exploration of our region’s extraordinarily vibrant cultural landscape.”

The Culture Show will drive conversations about how listeners experience culture across music, movies, fashion, TV, art, books, theater, dance, food and more, and help audiences make the most of their leisure time by guiding listeners to the best cultural experiences within a day’s drive from Boston. The show will amplify local creatives, profile the homegrown arts and culture landscape, check in with touring productions and tap into conversations about topics in the national cultural spotlight. The show will introduce a newsletter to expand its offerings in the new year.

The Culture Show will be the first permanent new daily radio show launched by GBH News since the debut of Boston Public Radio in 2013. The Executive Producer of The Culture Show is Chelsea Merz, who has a decade of experience as the executive producer of the market’s most popular midday show, Boston Public Radio. Accomplished radio professional Brian Bell will be the show’s producer and engineer.

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Boehner is to Romney as McCarthy is to — Trump?

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On October 5, 2023

In Politics

In 2015, replacing John Boehner with Mitt Romney seemed like a good, if unlikely, idea. Photo (cc) 2011 by Gage Skidmore.

With the Republican House lunatic caucus once again bringing down a speaker with no clear alternative, I want to recycle this GBH News column I wrote back in 2015, when the crazies pushed out John Boehner. This time around, with extreme right-wingers Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan facing off, the worst of the worst are suggesting Donald Trump as an alternative. Eight years ago, with a nudge from my friend Catherine Tumber, I put forth a kinder, gentler alternative: Mitt Romney.

This column originally appeared on Oct. 16, 2015.

House Republicans appear to have reached their End of Days. David Brooks of The New York Times, a moderate conservative who at one time would have epitomized Establishment Republicanism, has analyzed the situation brilliantly. So has Gene Lyons, a liberal, at The National Memo.

The immediate crisis is that the House of Representatives appears incapable of electing a speaker to succeed John Boehner. The problem is that Republicans on the extreme right vow not to respect the choice of the Republican caucus. That means no one will get a majority once the speakership comes to a full vote in the House, since nearly all of the Democrats will vote for their party’s leader, Nancy Pelosi.

So I have an idea, and I thought I’d toss it out there. We’re already having a good discussion about it on Facebook. How about a moderate Republican who’s not currently a member of the House (yes, it’s allowed) and who would be supported by a majority of Republicans and Democrats. How about — as my friend Catherine Tumber suggested — Mitt Romney?

Please understand that by “moderate” I mean moderate by the standards of 2015. Boehner may be the most conservative House speaker of modern times, but he’s a moderate by comparison with the right-wingers who are holding the House hostage. And so is Romney, who’d finally get the big job in Washington that he’s long lusted for.

Under this scenario, the Republicans would necessarily pay a high price for their inability to govern. House rules would have to be changed to give the Democrats more of a voice and maybe even a few committee chairmanships. The idea is to form a coalition government that cuts out the extreme right wing.

The chief impediment would be that Democrats might not want to throw the Republicans a life preserver under any circumstance, especially with the presidential campaign under way. But it would be the right thing to do, and I hope people of good will consider it. Or as Norman Ornstein, who predicted this mess, so elegantly puts it in an interview with Talking Points Memo: “We’re talking about the fucking country that is at stake here.”

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The nonprofit Worcester Guardian says it will be independent from the local Chamber

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On September 19, 2023

In Local News

Worcester City Hall. Photo (cc) 2015 by Dan Kennedy.

The governance structure of The Worcester Guardian, a fledgling nonprofit begun by the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, is starting to become clearer. A message by consultant Dave Nordman, the former executive editor of the city’s daily, the Telegram & Gazette, says that the Guardian will have an independent board of directors in addition to a community advisory board. The Chamber has committed $50,000 to the launch, but Nordman says the intention is for the Guardian to be a fully independent news organization.

The aim, Nordman told me by email, is “total separation.” He said that Chamber president and CEO Tim Murray will probably have one of nine seats on the board but will not serve as the chair. “The board’s main responsibility,” Nordman said, “will be to rally the community.” The announcement of an editor, he added, is imminent.

The original announcement raised questions about how closely the Chamber would be tied to the Guardian. Nordman’s assurances makes it more likely that the Guardian will be accepted by the Institute for Nonprofit News, or INN, which would be a crucial step for credibility and fundraising. The Guardian’s inaugural governing documents also tracked too closely with the INN’s policies as well as the mission statement of The New Bedford Light, a large nonprofit, as reported by Bill Shaner of the newsletter Worcester Sucks and I Love It. Nordman, though, is a pro, and his involvement suggests that the Guardian will get off to a strong start. (Nordman is also a colleague of mine at Northeastern.) Nordman writes in his message at the Guardian’s website:

I believe free, nonprofit, independent news could provide a dynamic new platform to tell the Central Massachusetts story and report on important issues impacting Worcester and the region.

I believe mistakes will be made and lessons will be learned along the way.

I believe nonprofit, for-profit and independent journalism can co-exist. I believe blogs and social media also provide a forum for healthy discourse.

And I believe Murray when he says he will allow the Guardian to tell the story of Worcester independent of the chamber.

The community will be watching.

The Worcester area is not exactly a news desert, although local residents have lamented deep cuts at the Telegram & Gazette under Gannett’s ownership. MassLive, part of The Republican of Springfield, publishes a fair amount of Worcester news. GBH News has a Worcester bureau. The 016.com aggregates news from the Worcester area as well. Still, a Worcester-based nonprofit, grounded in community values, would be a welcome addition to Central Massachusetts.

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How our weak public records law is enabling a cover-up of school sports harassment

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On June 20, 2023

In New England Muzzles

Photo (cc) 2016 by NAVFAC

Sports builds character, we are told over and over again. And yet Massachusetts has been hit with multiple cases of racist, homophobic harassment aimed at high school athletes.

🗽The New England Muzzles🗽

The leading journalist tracking those cases is Bob Hohler of The Boston Globe, who’s reported on horrifying cases in Danvers, Woburn, Duxbury and elsewhere. Yet his efforts to dig deeper have been improperly thwarted by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. According to Hohler, the MIAA has refused to turn over incident reports in response to a public records request even though the secretary of state’s office has ruled that those records are, indeed, public. Hohler writes:

Details of the alleged misconduct remain untold because the MIAA denied the Globe’s request for copies of the incident reports. The denial follows a ruling by the Secretary of State’s office in November that the MIAA, despite the organization’s objections, is a public entity subject to the state’s public records law.

MIAA executive director Bob Baldwin told Hohler that his organization has chosen to ignore the public’s right to know because officials don’t want to discourage schools from reporting incidents of harassment. Yet the lesson of past incidents is that reforms often don’t occur without exposure. For instance, it was only after Hohler reported that Danvers officials had failed to respond to a “toxic team culture” on the boys’ varsity hockey team that the attorney general’s office investigated and local leaders agreed to a series of reforms centered around policies and training. Hohler’s reporting was also followed by several departures, including the retirement of School Supt. Lisa Dana.

More than anything, Hohler’s report on the MIAA this week underscores the inadequacies of the Massachusetts public records law. There are few consequences for officials who refuse to comply with the law, even when they ignore a direct ruling to turn over public documents, as the MIAA is reportedly doing with Hohler and the Globe.

According to Hohler, the MIAA “has received 50 reports involving discrimination, harassment, or bullying — nearly one a week on average while school has been in session — since the organization began requiring its 380 member schools to file discriminatory incident reports starting with the winter season in late 2021.” The public deserves to know more about those reports.

The future of the New England Muzzle Awards

This is the time of year when I would be putting the finishing touches on the New England Muzzle Awards, an annual Fourth of July feature that highlights outrages against freedom of speech in the six New England states. From 1998 through 2012, the Muzzles were published in The Boston Phoenix. After the Phoenix closed in 2013, they were hosted at GBH News.

The one constant over all those years had been my friend Peter Kadzis’ role as editor at both the Phoenix and GBH. Following Peter’s well-earned retirement, I’ve decided that last year’s 25th anniversary edition will be the last. I’ll still track the kinds of stories that I used to highlight in the Muzzles, and the MIAA story would have been a natural. But rather than an annual round-up, I’m going to write them up in real time for Media Nation. You’ll notice a weak attempt at a logo near the top of this post. I’ll try to come up with something better.

I also want to express my appreciation to GBH News for hosting the Muzzles during the final 10 years of their existence, and to civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate, my friend and occasional collaborator, for coming up with the idea all those years ago.

Healey’s choice as housing secretary ‘won’ a 2022 New England Muzzle Award

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On May 16, 2023

In First Amendment

Edward Augustus (via Dean College)

Edward Augustus, Gov. Maura Healey’s choice to serve as housing secretary, won a New England Muzzle Award from GBH News last year for his role in suppressing public records about police misconduct during his years as Worcester’s city manager.

The Telegram & Gazette, Worcester’s daily newspaper, spent years seeking those records, which were associated with 12 internal affairs investigations and complaint histories regarding 17 police officers. Superior Court Judge Janet Kenton-Walker said she believed the city had acted in bad faith, ruling that officials had “cherry picked” language in its legal documents and used it in a manner that was “out of context.” She sternly added: “Counsel may not misrepresent to the court what cases and other materials stand for.”

Judge Kenton-Walker’s outrage led her to impose an unusually harsh penalty, ordering the city to pay $101,000 in legal fees and $5,000 in punitive damages — unheard of in a state where public-records violations are as unremarkable as breakdowns on the MBTA. Yet even that proved to be insufficient to punish the city’s outrageous conduct. The T&G went back to court, arguing that the paper should be made whole for the entirety of its $217,000 in legal fees. This past February, the city and the T&G reached an out-of-court settlement for $180,000.

Augustus was gone from Worcester City Hall before last year’s Muzzles were published, having decamped for Dean College in Franklin, where he was named chancellor.

Of course, it’s possible that Augustus’ record in rebuilding Worcester qualifies him for his new position. According to The Boston Globe:

“Ed Augustus is the leader Massachusetts needs to take the helm of our new Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and drive an ambitious, collaborative strategy to increase housing production and lower costs across the state,” Healey said in a statement.

During his eight-plus years in Worcester City Hall, Augustus helped oversee the redevelopment of Worcester’s Canal District, including thousands of new housing units that have helped revitalize the city’s downtown.

Still, Augustus’ role in stonewalling public records not only slowed the T&G’s efforts to report on police misconduct — vital journalism in the public interest — but it also ended up costing taxpayers $185,000 in addition to whatever legal expenses the city itself might have incurred.

The press ought to start filing public records requests with the state housing office as soon as Augustus takes charge — just to see what happens.

Finally, my standard disclosure: David Nordman, who was the T&G’s editor until this past summer, is now a colleague of mine at Northeastern. We work on opposite sides of the campus, literally and figuratively: he’s the executive editor of Northeastern Global News, part of the university’s communications operation, and I’m a faculty member at the School of Journalism.

Muzzle follow-up: A settlement is reached in a Worcester public records case

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On April 14, 2023

In First Amendment

A final price tag has been set on the city of Worcester’s years-long campaign to withhold public records pertaining to police misconduct from the Telegram & Gazette, the city’s daily paper, and its reporter Brad Petrishen. Open government watchdog Andrew Quemere writes that the T&G and the city reached a settlement in February for $180,000 to cover most of the paper’s legal fees plus $5,000 in punitive damages.

Last summer I gave former Worcester city manager Edward Augustus a New England Muzzle Award, published by GBH News, for leading the effort to keep residents of his city in the dark about what their police department was up to. District Court Judge Janet Kenton-Walker awarded the T&G $101,000 in legal fees in addition to the punitive damages, ruling that such a harsh penalty was justified because the city had misrepresented aspects of the case in its dealings with the court.

Not harsh enough, as it turned out. The T&G’s lawyer, Jeffrey Pyle, appealed Kenton-Walker’s ruling, arguing that the paper’s legal fees of $217,000 should have been covered in their entirety given the city’s misconduct. The state Appeals Court agreed, overturning Kenton-Walker. That led to the February settlement.

“The Telegram & Gazette spent more than three years fighting for the right to have access to documents of considerable public interest,” T&G executive editor Michael McDermott was quoted as saying in Quemere’s post. “I’m proud of reporter Brad Petrishen for pursuing these records and thankful to our lawyers for successfully defending the public’s right to know.”

And, finally, my disclosure: David Nordman, who was the T&G’s editor until this past summer, is now a colleague of mine at Northeastern. We work on opposite sides of the campus, literally and figuratively: he’s the executive editor of Northeastern Global News, part of the university’s communications operation, and I’m a faculty member at the School of Journalism.

GBH will keep tweeting

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On April 13, 2023

In Media

GBH is sticking with Twitter, at least for now. I just received this statement from spokeswoman Erin Callanan:

At this time, GBH is continuing to use Twitter as a platform for sharing trusted content with its audience. We strongly object to Twitter’s labeling of NPR and PBS  as “government-funded” media. However, GBH continues to be the most trusted media in this market, and we have a responsibility to share our news and other programming with the broadest possible audience using the tools available to us.

This remains an evolving situation, and we will continue to monitor the changes as it moves forward.

Like all public media organizations, GBH is locally owned, operated, and governed. We receive the vast majority of our support from individual donors and members, as well as from foundations. We provide independent fact-based news, as well as other quality educational entertainment. We strongly believe that editorial independence and a free press are critical to our democracy.

In my earlier item, I mentioned GBH News specifically, as that is the local news division that competes most directly with WBUR Radio. GBH, of course, is a massive operation, comprising local and national programming on television and radio.

I was affiliated with GBH News for many years and still consider myself a friend of the station. But I think this is a mistake. As I noted earlier, GBH News is already on Mastodon, the leading Twitter alternative, though GBH as a whole is not. But neither is WBUR, and they took the hit rather than continuing to play in Elon Musk’s toxic garden.

Then again, there’s no particular reason why public media outlets are under any special obligation to leave Twitter just because they’re NPR affiliates. All news organizations should be packing up and moving, and that includes The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and all the rest. It’s the right thing to do, and it would make it that much easier for small players (like Media Nation, for example) to do likewise.

WBUR leaves Twitter. Will GBH News follow suit?

By

On April 13, 2023

In Media

Update: GBH is staying on Twitter, at least for now.

Following NPR’s lead, WBUR Radio, one of Boston’s two major public media news outlets, is leaving Twitter to protest Chief Twit Elon Musk’s recent targeting of NPR as “state-controlled media.”

“NPR and WBUR believe recent actions by Musk seek to undermine the integrity of our news organizations,” WBUR chief executive Margaret Low said in a statement. “WBUR will stop tweeting from official WBUR accounts, effective April 12.”

No word yet from WBUR’s rival, GBH News, which was tweeting as recently as 5:40 a.m. today But GBH News already has a lively presence on Mastodon, and whoever runs the account reported on Wednesday that they had met with GBH executives to talk about Mastodon and the Fediverse, the underlying architecture upon which Mastodon is built.

“I’ll keep all of you filled in with what happens next,” they said.

Money-losing New England Public Media, a partner of GBH, lays off 17 employees

By

On March 23, 2023

In Media

This bears watching. New England Public Media, which serves Western Massachusetts through WFCR Radio and WGBY-TV, is laying off 17 employees, or about 20% of its staff, according to Jim Kinney of MassLive. It looks like the cutting is mainly on the television side, with a Thursday evening magazine program called “Connecting Point” being canceled.

There’s also a relationship between the GBH Educational Foundation and New England Public Media: GBH holds the broadcast license for WGBY. In 2019, when WFCR and WGBY were merged, GBH said it would invest $6 million in the television station over the next six years, Adam Reilly reported at GBH News. Reilly wrote that the combined operation employed 78 people at that time.

Kinney reported that New England Public Media lost $4.6 million during the fiscal year that ended June 20, 2022, and that it “transferred $3.4 million from the WGBH Educational Foundation to its own balance sheet” during that same year. The operation is also in the midst of a $9 million renovation to its Springfield headquarters, again with GBH’s involvement.

I was a paid contributor at GBH News from 1998 until about a year ago, and I still have friends over there. I hope that New England Public Media can right its ship — and that its problems don’t spill over to GBH’s own local and regional news operations.

GBH News covers the revival of community journalism

By

On March 13, 2023

In Local News

Nice doubleheader on the revival of local news in Greater Boston from my friends at GBH News. Jeremy Siegel reports on three startups in the suburbs — the Burlington Buzz, the Framingham Source and the Marblehead Beacon — as well as Boston Black News, a radio outlet. (Jeremy interviewed me as well.)

Tori Bedford has a piece on the ownership transition at The Bay State Banner, which has been covering the Black community since 1965 and whose new executives have some ambitious expansion plans.

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