Northeastern University – Page 14

A note on style

From the time that I began writing Media Nation in 2005, I’ve been following the Associated Press Stylebook. I don’t particularly like it. In many ways, it’s the least common denominator of styles. But it is what we teach at Northeastern, and I thought I should model good behavior.

Now I’m moving on. As some of you know, I’m writing regular commentaries for WGBH News, which uses the Chicago Manual of Style (more or less). Among other things, that means italics for the titles of newspapers, books, movies, and the like; Oxford (serial) commas; and an s after an s apostrophe, as in Fred Jones’s car rather than Jones’. (No italics for the titles of reference books, in case you were wondering.)

I happen to prefer these differences. Chicago is what we used at The Boston Phoenix, and what is used at most magazines. More to the point, the switch will make it easier for me to repost my WGBH stuff to Media Nation, which I do for archival purposes, and for the folks at WGBH to scrape Media Nation. I also occasionally write for The Huffington Post, whose style guidelines are similar to those at WGBH.

Now I’ll just have to remember the differences between Chicago and AP when I return to teaching next year.

The Boston Phoenix’s archives are coming to Northeastern

In case you haven’t heard, there’s big news about the late, great Boston Phoenix and its related properties — WFNX Radio, Boston After Dark, the Phoenix papers of Portland, Providence and Worcester, and Stuff and Stuff at Nite magazines.

On Friday, The Boston Globe reported that Phoenix publisher Stephen Mindich is donating all of the archives to Northeastern University. The performance of the Phoenix’s website, which is still live, should improve over time. The long-term vision is even more exciting: We hope that every print edition of the Phoenix/Boston After Dark going back to 1966 will be digitized in a searchable format.

Mindich’s gift has been in the works for a year (I’ve dropped hints here and there), and we are finally able to go public. The Globe story is more than kind regarding my own modest role. I put Stephen together with Northeastern archivist Giordano Mecagni, and they did the rest. I am so proud of the 14 years I worked for Stephen, and I’m excited that this incredible resource will be available for years to come.

Here is an excerpt from Stephen’s farewell message, published in the Phoenix’s final issue on March 14, 2013:

What I can and will say is I am extremely proud, as all of you should be, of the highest standards of journalism we have set and maintained throughout the decades in all of our areas of coverage and the important role we have played in driving political and socially progressive and responsible agendas; in covering the worlds of arts and entertainment, food and fashion — always with a critical view, while at the same time promoting their enormous importance in maintaining a healthy society; and in advocating for the recognition and acceptance of a wide range of lifestyles that are so valuable for a vibrant society.

George Bush Sr.’s no-class putdown of Michael Dukakis

Michael Dukakis. Via Northeastern.edu — Michael Dukakis. Via northeastern.edu.

While you are enjoying George H.W. Bush’s putdowns of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and, yes, George W., pause for a moment and consider his vicious characterization of Northeastern’s Michael Dukakis, one of our great public citizens, as a “midget nerd.”

No, I don’t necessarily expect a 91-year-old to know that “the M-word” is considered offensive to people in the dwarfism community. But one of the reasons it’s offensive is that it’s nearly always used to demean and degrade someone. (Dukakis, obviously, is not a dwarf; he is merely on the short side of average.)

The elder Bush has his good qualities, but he could be a nasty piece of work. You may recall that his late henchman, Lee Atwater, issued a deathbed apology for the “naked cruelty” and racism of Bush’s campaign against Dukakis in 1988, in which Atwater said he “would strip the bark off the little bastard.” Somehow I doubt Bush is going to say he’s sorry.

“Spotlight” is “All the President’s Men” for a new generation

On Thursday night I had a chance to see an advance screening of “Spotlight,” sponsored by Northeastern’s School of Journalism and the College of Arts, Media and Design. And I was blown away. How often does a movie for which you have high expectations actually live up to them?

As soon as it was over, Northeastern’s Barry Bluestone said something that I was thinking: this is “All the President’s Men” for a new generation. It is at least as good a piece of filmmaking. And it underscores the vital role that journalism plays in hold powerful institutions to account — in this case the Catholic Church, which at one time was the most powerful Boston institution of all.

After the film, five of the Globe journalists portrayed in the film — Walter Robinson, Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll, Sacha Pfeiffer and Ben Bradlee Jr. — stuck around for a brief discussion. (By the way, I know Robinson fairly well, and Michael Keaton is scary-good at capturing his demeanor.) Two of them, Robinson and Carroll, are Northeastern graduates. Robinson also worked as a journalism professor at Northeastern for seven years before returning to the Globe in 2014.

Congratulations to everyone involved in “Spotlight.” I hope it helps the public understand why the work that great journalists do matters to all of us.

Callum Borchers leaves Globe for Washington Post

In other Boston Globe-related news, staff reporter Callum Borchers is leaving the paper to take a job at The Washington Post. According to the official announcement, Borchers “will join The Fix to launch a new beat exploring the intersection of politics and the media.”

Cal earned a master’s degree in journalism at Northeastern a few years ago, and I was lucky enough that he took a class with me. He’s done terrific work at the Globe, and I wish him all the best.

Charles Fountain’s colorful new take on the 1919 Black Sox

By Bill Kirtz

Print the legend?

Charles Fountain doesn’t.

Meticulously researched and colorfully written, his new book, “The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball” (Oxford University Press, 290 pages, $27.95), offers a host of new information about the often-told 1919 Chicago Black Sox saga.

He’s unearthed a ton of fresh material, including the papers of American League founder Ban Johnson and the files of cover-up maestro Alfred Austrian.

Fountain, a long-time Northeastern University School of Journalism friend and colleague, sorts through the myriad versions of how and why the World Series was fixed, never resorting to easy conclusions. He separates what’s ain’t from what’s so. When the facts are murky, he’s content to present — not pontificate.

This tapestry of baseball and social history encompasses 19th-century game-throwing, the 1920s melange of politics, sports and gambling, and colorful portraits of legendary lawyers and sportswriters.

We learn that “hippodroming” — game-fixing — is as old as organized baseball itself, as supposed amateurs took “sporting men”’s money to drop flies and strike out. And we see the machinations of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey and baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis as they try to contain and manipulate the burgeoning Black Sox scandal.

Fountain, the author of two well-received sports books (on famed scribe Grantland Rice and on the history of spring training), is especially good on tracing the incestuous relationships between writers and their subjects — and on the wink-and-nod clubbiness and vicious newspaper competition that prevented the biggest baseball story of the (or perhaps any) era from leaking earlier.

“The Betrayal” is a treasure trove of bizarre incidents, including Keystone Kops detective efforts fueled with Scotch, fishing trips and apartment-sharing with a conspirator’s paramour. There are vignettes galore about larger-than-life characters like lawyer-jury rigger William Fallon and criminal mastermind Arnold Rothstein. Fountain even manages to bring in “Jazz Age siren” Peggy Hopkins Joyce for a cameo.

Fountain also offers a reporting primer. The criminal trial of seven players and four gamblers began in torrid heat. How hot? Ninety-four degrees. (Fountain looked up that day’s weather report.)

From Attell (Abe: boxer, bagman and one of the saga’s host of double-crossers) to Zork (Carl: gambler and plotter), “The Betrayal” is a richly detailed page-turner.

There’s only one real rattlesnake here but plenty of two-legged ones in executive offices and judicial robes — as well as in dugouts.

“The Betrayal” is a must-read for anyone interested in American sports, morality and justice — and how they occasionally mesh.

Bill Kirtz is an associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University.

What I’ll be doing in the coming year

I thought I should say a few words about what I’m up to.

For the next year, I’ll be on sabbatical from Northeastern as I work on a book about how three business people who are passionate about newspapers are using their wealth to reinvent their papers and possibly to show the way for others. They are John Henry of The Boston Globe, Jeff Bezos of The Washington Post and Aaron Kushner of the Orange County Register. Kushner is no longer running the Register, but the print-centric orientation he took during his time at the helm has much to tell us.

My project actually became public two years ago when the Globe somehow got word. That item has proved useful in helping me to line up interviews. But only now am I embarking on the bulk of my reporting. I lost a year when I agreed to serve as interim director of Northeastern’s School of Journalism following the death of my friend and mentor Steve Burgard. Steve’s death was a difficult blow. In terms of the book, though, the delay may prove to be a good thing, as it seems to me that Henry’s and Bezos’ visions are still coming into focus.

I have a contract with University Press of New England and a year that should be (I hope) free of distractions. I’m excited to push ahead.

Best wishes to Maria Stephanos, the face of Fox 25

Screen Shot 2015-09-11 at 9.25.53 AM — 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.

A conversation I’m going to miss

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During the past two months I’ve had the privilege of teaching our Journalism Ethics and Issues class at Northeastern, in which I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the news and related issues with 10 bright, engaged young people. Our last class is Wednesday, but, for me, one of the highlights took place Monday, when we talked about the Charleston shootings.

I’m posting the slides I used for the last part of the class, but I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. It was the students who led all but the last hour of the three-and-a-half-hour class. I could easily have let them continue, but at some point I figured I had to start earning my salary.

The issues that engaged them the most were whether the media are more reluctant to label a white supremacist such as Dylann Roof a “terrorist” than, say, they would be with an Islamist extremist, and how much coverage the media should give to the perpetrator of a notorious crime versus the victims. Although no one took the view that the media should refrain from naming Roof and reporting on his motives, we were unanimous that the media should focus as much as possible on the lives of the victims and their families.

This has been a great group of students, and I’m going to miss them.

Jonathan Kaufman to lead Northeastern’s J-School

kaufman-e1434464059328 — Jonathan Kaufman

Today is an exciting day for Northeastern University’s School of Journalism: We are finally able to announce that our new director will be Jonathan Kaufman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the executive editor of Bloomberg News. Kaufman, who is also a veteran of The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal, will be joining us on July 13.

Laura Krantz of the Globe covers the story here.

Jonathan’s arrival means that my stint as interim director will soon be coming to an end. I’ve been serving in that role since last September, filling in for Steve Burgard, who was taking a sabbatical to work on a book project. My term was unexpectedly extended last October when Steve died after a brief illness.

It’s been an interesting and sometimes difficult year to say the least. But Jonathan will be a worthy successor to Steve. We are all expecting great things.

Below is the official announcement, which is also online.

BOSTON — Northeastern University’s School of Journalism today announced the appointment of veteran business journalist and Bloomberg News Executive Editor Jonathan Kaufman as the school’s new director. Kaufman will begin his new role at Northeastern on July 13.

“I am thrilled to be joining Northeastern to help shape the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and globally, expand new media and digital innovation, and reflect and speak out about the challenges and opportunities journalism faces in the 21st century,” said Kaufman. “Northeastern has blazed a trail with its blend of classroom and experiential learning. I look forward to working with the faculty and students in the exciting years ahead.”

As Bloomberg’s Executive Editor for Company News, Kaufman oversees more than 300 reporters and editors worldwide covering business, health, science, education and international news for Bloomberg News newswire, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Bloomberg.com. Under his leadership, Kaufman’s team at Bloomberg has won numerous awards, including a 2015 Pulitzer Prize, several George Polk Awards, an Overseas Press Club Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, and an Education Writers Association Grand Prize.

Before joining Bloomberg, Kaufman held various positions at The Wall Street Journal, most recently as Senior Editor. During his time as the Journal‘s China Bureau Chief, Kaufman led coverage of the country’s emergence as a global economic superpower, the SARS outbreak, and environmental and social issues. A graduate of Yale University (BA) and Harvard (MA), Kaufman began his journalism career at The Boston Globe in the early 1980s, where he won a Pulitzer Prize as part of a team examining racism and job discrimination in Boston. He is the author of two books, “A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe” and “Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America.”

“Jonathan is a gifted journalist and an acknowledged leader in his field,” said Bruce Ronkin, Interim Dean in the College of Arts, Media and Design, which houses the School of Journalism. “He brings decades of experience across traditional and digital media to Northeastern, along with deep knowledge of the business sector and a global worldview. He is a perfect fit for our school and the university.”

At the helm of the School of Journalism, Kaufman will lead an accomplished team of faculty, oversee the school’s undergraduate program serving 225 students, and continue to grow graduate programs in professional journalism and media innovation. He succeeds Associate Professor Dan Kennedy, who is serving as the school’s interim director after long-time School of Journalism director Stephen Burgard passed away in 2014.