Tag: Howie Carr

Howie Carr, working-class hero

I know we’re not supposed to take Howie Carr seriously when he writes about the Boston Globe. But check out his Boston Herald column today. “Danny Donuts” is Dan Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild. Carr writes:

Let’s face it, the Globe is on the ropes because it’s crammed to the rafters with writers who can’t write, reporters who can’t report, and editors who can’t edit, because Danny Donuts and his cohorts couldn’t sell an ad to save their inherited, tastefully weathered summer homes on Nantucket.

Now here is Jason Schwartz, describing Totten’s background in a Boston Magazine profile:

Totten first got active in the union in 2002, and it was a natural fit. His father was a member of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association for more than 35 years, his sister was a union representative for the Boston school system, and his grandmother had been a steward for the hotel and telephone workers union “back in a time,” Totten says, “when it wasn’t very popular or easy for a woman to hold such a position.”

We also learn from Schwartz that Totten is a graduate of the former Boston State College, surely one of the forgotten Ivies, and earned his MBA at Anna Maria College in Paxton, widely regarded as the Wharton School of Central Massachusetts.

Carr, meanwhile, lives in Wellesley and makes some three-quarters of a million dollars from his talk show on WRKO Radio (AM 680), as well as a presumed six-figure income from the Herald. He’s also a graduate of Deerfield Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — a real working-class hero.

For Howie to characterize a self-made man like Totten as overprivileged is laughable, bordering on the offensive.

Did Severin take a pay cut?

From Jessica Heslam’s interview with Jay Severin in the Boston Herald:

Severin referred questions about the conditions of his return — including whether he took a pay cut — to his agent and attorney, George Tobia. Tobia declined to comment on the conditions, saying simply, “Jay is very excited to be back in the fold on his station. He loves working there and he’s excited about doing a great show for WTKK.”

If the answer was “no,” wouldn’t Severin and Tobia just say “no”?

From Eric Moskowitz’s story in the Boston Globe:

As have others who have followed the issue from both sides, [El Planeta managing editor Marcela] García speculated that the suspension had as much to do with Severin’s reported $1 million annual salary and his recent drop to 14th in the ratings as with his particular remarks. A spokeswoman for Greater Media Inc., has confirmed that WTKK’s parent company and Severin are in negotiations.

Negotiating over what?

Keep your eye on the big picture. From the beginning, this has sounded more than anything like the story of a troubled media company — and keep in mind that all media companies are troubled — trying to get out of a contract it agreed to in the midst of an entirely different economic climate.

I don’t think we’re going to see any $1 million-a-year local radio hosts anymore. It must be particularly galling for Greater Media to have to pay Severin that much to come in last in his two-person race with WRKO’s Howie Carr.

No doubt Severin’s ratings on Tuesday will be spectacular. We’ll see if he can sustain it.

A threat or an extension? Or both?

If I’m reading the morning papers correctly, then we learned two new things as the New York Times Co.’s 30-day (32-day?) deadline for the Boston Globe’s unions expired last night. (The Globe’s story is here; the Boston Herald’s here.)

First, the 30-day deadline has become a 90-day deadline. The Times Co. had threatened to shut the Globe today if its demands weren’t met. Instead, it has said it will file the legally required paperwork to close the paper in 60 days. Color this any way you like, but it looks to me as though Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (in photo) and company just tacked on two months, something they had previously indicated they would not do. Howard Kurtz reports in the Washington Post:

The move could amount to a negotiating ploy to extract further concessions from the Globe’s unions, since the notice does not require the Times Co. to close the paper after 60 days. The deadline, however, would put the unions under fierce pressure to produce additional savings, and the Boston Newspaper Guild promptly called the step a “bullying” tactic by the company.

OK, but wasn’t yesterday’s Globe supposed to be the final edition if management didn’t get what it wanted? This looks like more of a retreat than a “bullying” tactic. If the company’s rhetoric was to be believed, then it was going to stop publishing immediately and sort out the legalities later. That didn’t happen. Thus it looks like we get to go through this all over again in late June.

Second, perhaps management didn’t make a new demand, but it certainly clarified one of its demands. We’ve all been reporting that the company was seeking $20 million in union concessions, and that lifetime job guarantees for more than 400 employees somehow figured into that.

Now we know that the company is making two separate demands: $20 million in concessions, and an end to lifetime job guarantees. That presages much deeper cuts — which, unfortunately, makes sense, since the Globe is reportedly on track to lose $85 million this year.

The idea of lifetime job guarantees seems unsustainable at a time when the newspaper business is getting much, much smaller. Yes, I am a junior faculty member working toward tenure, which is often described as a lifetime job guarantee. But my understanding is that it’s easier to get rid of a tenured professor than it is a union member in the Globe’s so-called Book of Life. It could be that the only way to eliminate them is to throw the Globe into bankruptcy and let a judge void those provisions.

The New York Times today runs just a short story on the Globe negotiations, sticking to a pattern of undercovering what’s happening here. We talked about the lack of Times coverage (among other things) on “Beat the Press” last Friday. (The segment also features a wide-ranging interview with Globe editor Marty Baron, who tries makes up for the silence emanating from New York. Baron, in his subtle way, says some surprisingly tough things about Times Co. management.)

The Globe is the largest, most significant paper in the United States to face closure, yet it’s gotten less national attention than the shutdown of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, the number-two paper in a smaller media market. You’ve got to think the Times’ ability to set the news agenda has a lot to do with that.

Finally, a word about Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, the working stiff from Wellesley, who yesterday wrote yet another piece making fun of the Globe. I am a conflicted Howie fan. There are few columnists or talk-show hosts as talented and entertaining as Carr. But his juvenile-delinquent act has gotten tiresome.

For Carr to pretend that the Herald’s relative financial health is somehow evidence that the Herald has “won” is ludicrous. Weekday circulation of the Herald’s print edition is half that of the Globe’s, and the Herald is barely a factor on Sundays. According to Compete.com, the Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, drew nearly 5.5 million unique visitors in March, compared to nearly 1.1 million for BostonHerald.com.

Adam Gaffin has further thoughts about Howie.

The Herald’s coverage of the Globe’s troubles has been first-rate. Every morning, I rush to check BostonHerald.com to see what’s new. Carr’s sneering screeds only detract from that.

Photo of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (cc) by JD Lasica and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

The numbers tell the story

Jay Severin has been disappeared from the WTKK home page, though you can still find his blog if you know where to look.

The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam has the numbers, and they tell a gruesome story. During the first quarter of 2009, Severin dropped to 14th place among 25- to 54-year-old listeners, the most demographically important group. Severin’s WRKO rival, Howie Carr, was in sixth place. Severin had a 3.6 share; Carr, 5.2.

Heslam notes that Severin’s plunge came as radio stations switched to a new method of measuring audience. What’s unclear is whether the old system was artificially inflating Severin’s numbers; the new system is artifically hurting him; or people are just sick of listening to his race-baiting rants.

I love this:

Sources within Greater Media, which owns the station, have told the Herald that management has been dissatisfied with the “hateful” tone his show has taken. One source said Severin had been warned in the past.

So when was this magical period when Severin’s show was not “hateful”? No doubt Greater Media executives thought Severin sounded a whole lot less hateful when he was beating Carr every day. I’m sure one thing they really hate is paying a reported $1 million-plus a year to a host who’s coming in 14th in the ratings.

Lehigh on Severin

Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh, who’s tangled with Jay Severin before, weighs in with a terrific column on Severin’s suspension from WTKK Radio (96.9 FM). I love this:

From the start of his talk-radio career, Severin was just bright enough to be an accomplished charlatan, clever enough to coat his gut-level biases and bigotry with a thin veneer of analysis. But he was neither smart nor knowledgeable enough to add much of value to the public discussion.

On “Beat the Press” this evening, Emily Rooney expressed the view that Severin will be back. Perhaps she’s right. (The segment should pop up on the new BTP Web site over the weekend.) I believe that was Curtis Sliwa I heard filling in for Severin this afternoon, which suggests that management didn’t even have a Plan D in place, never mind a Plan B or C.

Still, I find it hard to believe that management is happy about paying Severin a reported $1 million-plus a year only to lose the ratings battle to WRKO (AM 680) host Howie Carr — who, after all, would now be ‘TKK’s morning host if only he hadn’t signed a contract with ‘RKO that would make Curt Flood weep.

Are these the Severin sound bites?

The Boston Globe posts two brief audio clips of Jay Severin insulting Mexicans. They are utterly unremarkable — pedestrian, humorless, racist crap of the sort that’s been tumbling from his mouth for years.

If WTKK (96.9 FM) managment wants to claim that these are what got him suspended (and we don’t know that), then you’d have to say this is a John DePetro situation. That is, management wants Severin gone and is looking for any convenient excuse.

Brian Flaherty writes that Severin makes more than $1 million a year, although I don’t know who or what his source is. And Flaherty notices something I’ve noticed, too — Severin’s afternoon drive-time rival, Howie Carr of WRKO (AM 680), has been crowing about having the largest talk-radio audience in the afternoon lately, something Severin had bragged about for quite a few years.

More than a million dollars is a lot to pay a talk-show host who is essentially in last place, given that there are only two major-station political talk shows in Boston during afternoon drive.

More: Lance has worse. Vile stuff — though, again, I’ve been hearing this garbage from Severin for years.

Globe, Herald target each other

Boston Globe reporter Keith O’Brien today weighs in with a story about the financial problems being faced by the Boston Herald and GateHouse Media, which owns some 100 community papers in Eastern Massachusetts.

GateHouse’s problems are considerable and well-known. The Herald, though, is a bit of a mystery, as publisher Pat Purcell tends to play his cards close to the vest. What we know is that the paper and its reporting staff have gotten tiny, but that Purcell appears to have hit upon a formula for survival.

O’Brien, after chronicling shrinkage in the Herald’s staff and circulation, offers a quote from Sunday editor Tom Mashberg: “How are things now? It’s tough. We once had a newsroom filled with reporters and a commercial department filled with commercial staff. And it has definitely shrunk.”

Mashberg, upset that none of the positive comments he says he made got into O’Brien’s story, has fired back with an e-mail to the Globe, which I offer here in its entirety, with Mashberg’s permission:

To Globe Editors:

Tom Mashberg from the Herald here. I’m pretty disappointed at the way the reporter slanted this story. We spoke at length about how the Herald was performing miracles to survive and turn a profit in a terrible climate. When I asked him what he was going to use from me, he sent me this email:

“Here’s what I will be attributing to you: The total staff figures you sent me yesterday. Is that OK?

“And I will be quoting you regarding how the Herald has dealt with the cuts. And about how the Globe should have seen these changes coming. The quote at the end of our interview yesterday when you said it was puzzling that the Times allowed this to play out like this at the Globe.

“This could change, of course. Still haven’t filed my story. So e-mail or call if you have any questions.”

No one expects a puff piece, especially between competing newspapers. But it looks like the editors got hold of this and turned it into a hatchet job. I guess that explains a lot about where the Globe is headed. Sad.

If O’Brien or anyone else at the Globe would like to respond, I will post it immediately.

Meanwhile, Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam today reports that veteran media-watcher Michael Wolff believes neither Rupert Murdoch (about whom he wrote a book) nor New York Daily News publisher (and former Boston real-estate mogul) Mort Zuckerman has any interest in buying the Globe.

Heslam includes this toxic quote from Wolff: “I don’t think that anybody’s going to buy the Boston Globe. The Boston Globe is now an unbuyable property. It loses too much money and it has too many union obligations. No one will want it now. They might have wanted it. They did want it two years ago. Not now.”

Left unsaid is that (1) Murdoch can’t buy the Globe, since the Federal Communications Commission bans anyone from owning a television station (WFXT-TV, Channel 25) and a daily newspaper in the same market; and (2) Murdoch and Purcell are business partners.

Finally, the second of Herald columnist Howie Carr’s sneering pieces about the Globe’s missteps over the years prompts an observation. Carr actually found a way to poke fun at the 1998 departure of Globe columnist Patricia Smith, who was caught fabricating, without making any mention of the other, far better known Globe columnist who lost his job that summer: Mike Barnicle, caught making things up and plagiarizing by — among others — the Herald.

Anyone who listens to Carr’s talk show on WRKO Radio (AM 680) knows how much he detests Barnicle. But, after all, Purcell hired Barnicle to write a column a few years ago, and though it didn’t work out, Barnicle still pops up occasionally in the Herald. Since Carr can’t write what he’d really like to write, perhaps he should go cover a press conference or something.

Union don’ts at the Globe

One line I’ve been recycling this week is that the showdown between New York Times Co. management and the Boston Globe unions would not come down to midnight on the 30th day — that union officials, based on their own comments, seemed to understand that both the Times Co. and the overall situation was serious, and would quickly agree to $20 million in cuts as the price of keeping the paper alive.

Well, now I’m not so sure. Coverage during the week has suggested increased intransigence on the part of the unions, and especially of Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten. And today, Christine McConville begins her report in the Boston Herald thusly:

Boston Globe unions are showing signs of digging in against management as frustrated labor leaders say their members have already given up enough in the effort to keep the struggling broadsheet afloat.

Meanwhile, the Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald learns that it might be possible for the Times Co. to place the Globe in bankruptcy even without selling it. That could actually be good news, as it gives Times executives a way of restructuring the paper without having to find a buyer in a brutal economic environment and without having to shut it down. (And has the Herald been indispensable this week or what?)

It is despicable that the Times Co.’s cash-fattened managers have said virtually nothing this week. They owe an explanation to the community at least as much as they do to their employees.

Still, there’s no question that the systemic disaster that’s bringing the newspaper business down has more to do with the Globe’s problems than any specific mistakes by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Steven Ainsley and crew. So it’s interesting to see, as Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix reports, that there may be a mounting insurrection among some reporters against the union leadership, who could conceivably destroy the paper rather than give up perks like lifetime contracts.

So did I leave anything out? Oh, yes. Almost forgot. Howie Carr is an idiot.

Let the Pike go bankrupt

This story in today’s Boston Globe, reporting that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority will face bone-crushing additional debt payments if the Legislature tries to repeal the absurd toll increases the authority’s board recently approved, has me wondering why we shouldn’t just let the Pike go into bankruptcy.

Regardless of why and how all this happened, the idea that the Legislature can’t replace something stupid (toll hikes) with something smart (a higher gas tax) because of deals that the Pike negotiated in the credit market smacks of extortion. I hope legislators will seriously consider doing what they think is right for the public, and let the Pike stew in its own mess.

Weirdly enough, some of this has to do with the bankrupt financial firm with which the Pike did much of its business, Lehman Brothers.

And by the way, I think my credentials as a good-government liberal are pretty much indisputable. If I’m taking a Howie Carr-like position on all this, then I think it’s likely these hacks have lost virtually all the support they ever had.

The Outraged Liberal has some additional thoughts.

Another easy payday for Howie Carr

At the Boston Globe, columnist Yvonne Abraham writes of the Dianne Wilkerson affair: “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.” No. Ten years ago it was sad. Now it’s just funny.

And at the Boston Herald, columnist Howie Carr has been caught stuffing his underwear with Pat Purcell’s cash. If he put more than 10 minutes into typing about Wilkerson, I’d be shocked.