Tag Results for Boston Globe

Have we reached the final days for anonymous news-site commenters? Probably not — that's more hope than reality. But there's no doubt the tide is shifting away from the anonymous and pseudonymous insults, libel and hate speech that comprise the majority of comments at news sites.

This past Sunday, the Boston Globe Magazine posted a feature by Neil Swidey on the anonymous commenters who waste electrons on the Globe's website, Boston.com. Except that Swidey didn't quite succeed. The truly anonymous whackos with whom he hoped to connect refused to crawl out from under their rocks. Instead, he ended up with a highly entertaining profile of two men who didn't mind revealing their identities and to a female Red Sox fan who all but identified herself. Swidey writes of his quest to interview the worst of the worst:

[H]ere are the people I didn’t hear back from: the screamers, troublemakers, and trolls (Internet slang for people behind inflammatory posts). Not a single one. The loudest, most aggressive voices grew mum when asked to explain themselves, to engage in an actual discussion. The trolls appear to prize their anonymity more than anyone else.

The story is accompanied by a video starring the two men. Also, last night Swidey talked about the story (photo) with "Greater Boston" host Emily Rooney on WGBH-TV (Channel 2). There's no direct link, but you'll find it easily enough if you click here.

For much of the year, the news business has been growing increasingly uneasy over anonymous comments. Swidey himself discusses some of the problems — legal challenges that could force news organizations to help potential libel plaintiffs expose commenters they want to sue, and the bizarre situation at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which outed a judge who had apparently been commenting on her own cases under a pseudonym. (I started requiring real names on my blog, Media Nation, earlier this year.)

(Click "continue" to keep reading.)

The Boston Globe assigned Michael Corcoran to cover Israel’s U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren’s commencement address at Brandeis University. The Globe claims they were unaware of his anti-Israeli internet bloggings. What do newspapers have to do to ensure their freelance reporters are unbiased in their reporting?

The blogosphere and the freelance economy are already key parts of modern journalism business models, but expect the Boston Globe to pay closer attention to both after this story about Brandeis University's commencement last month. The piece focused on a small protest aimed at keynote speaker Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States.

It was written by freelancer Michael Corcoran, who describes himself as a "political journalist covering media, healthcare and foreign policy" on his Blogger site, which can be viewed by invitation only. Apparently several posts on Corcoran's blog were highly critical of Israel and they led to this lengthy editor's note in Sunday's paper:

Editor’s note: A May 24 story about a protest against an Israeli ambassador’s commencement speech at Brandeis University was written by a part-time correspondent who failed to disclose that he had previously editorialized in personal Internet posts against Israeli policy toward Palestinians. Globe editors learned of those posts while conducting an internal review of the Brandeis coverage. The correspondent’s failure to disclose a conflict violated Globe policy, and he should not have been assigned to cover the event. The story failed to include coverage of the substance of the remarks made by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, and made no mention of an electronic petition supporting his appearance.

This factual correction is also now appended to the online version of the story:

Correction: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this story mischaracterized the group of about 20 people protesting Brandeis University's choice of Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, as commencement speaker. Many non-students were among the protesters.

Our old friend John Carroll over at the reliably-readable Campaign Outsider blog first alerted us to how Marty Peretz of The New Republic had blasted the story - and the Globe in general - for anti-Israel bias. Now Corcoran's misstatements and undiscovered blog musings are probably only reinforcing the views of those who think the Globe is too pro-Palestinian.

An ugly editor's note and an ugly result. Biased or not, the Globe certainly let a big one slip through here.

(Tip of the hat to the ever-reliable Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub on this one as well.)

The always-lively segment where our panelists bring a variety of their own short topics to the discussion. Rants and raves include Gail Huff's departure from WCVB; The Boston Globe gets jabbed by the satirical news site The Onion; the New York Times bans the word "tweet"; is the Dow Jones willing to share content?; and lackluster primary day coverage.

Mark Feeney has a nice tribute to Robert Healy in today's Boston Globe. But Healy, the paper's former executive editor, who died on Saturday at 84, was a lot more important to the Globe than Feeney lets on. In fact, Healy, with considerable help from future House Speaker Tip O'Neill (photo), had much to do with the Globe's rise as New England's dominant media institution.

O'Neill's actions in the 1960s, goaded by Healy, revealed that Robert "Beanie" Choate, owner of the Boston Herald Traveler, had improper dealings with the FCC that allowed him to circumvent the ban against owning a daily newspaper and a television station in the same market. The Herald was stripped of its license to operate Channel 5 in 1972, leading to the death of two separate incarnations of the Herald. (Today's Herald is essentially a start-up that dates back to the early 1980s.)

The story was revealed in John Aloysius Farrell's biography of O'Neill, "Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century," which I had the great pleasure of writing about for the Boston Phoenix in February 2001. The story of how O'Neill and Healy made common cause is a rollicking tale involving the Kennedys, a corrupt deal that resulted in John Kennedy winning an undeserved Pulitzer Prize for "Profiles in Courage" and O'Neill's fear that if his role in helping the Globe were discovered, the Republican Herald would crucify him.

Farrell has a great quote from Ben Bradlee, retired executive editor of the Washington Post, who said of Healy: "This little angelic-faced Healy. He looked like a choirboy. Nobody would think what he was up to. He and I shared stuff. I loved the fact Choate was in trouble."

Healy himself said of O'Neill: "He did right by the Globe and all right in the Globe through the years.”

Not exactly a tribute to the journalistic ethics of the era. But a great story nevertheless.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The ink was barely dry on the Boston Globe’s Spotlight report on patronage at the state Probation Department when the commissioner got suspended, a special prosecutor was named and a state investigation was underway. Why did this report prompt such instant impact since other outlets had reported the details of this story?

The Boston Globe Spotlight series on the state Patronage Department — ah, I mean Probation Department — is public-interest journalism at its best.

Commissioner Jack O’Brien has been suspended. There’s a chance for genuine reform. And the absurd gubernatorial candidacy of hacked-up state treasurer Tim Cahill has been brought to a merciful end, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

But credit should also go to CommonWealth Magazine and its blog, CW Unbound, which has been beating the drums about the Probation Department for months. CommonWealth, published by the nonpartisan Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), has put together a compilation of stories it’s posted on the Probation Department mess. (Disclosure: I used to be a regular contributor to CommonWealth, and I’m still listed on the masthead.)

On May 3, for example, CommonWealth reporter Jack Sullivan wrote about a court case involving Stephen Anzalone, who was challenging his rejection as a probation officer even though he would have been the seventh member of his family to draw a paycheck from the agency.

And on April 14, editor Bruce Mohl interviewed House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Murphy on why he opposed a plan by Gov. Deval Patrick to bring the out-of-control agency under the executive branch’s wing.

The Globe, as the region’s largest and most influential news organization, is doing what it does best: driving the agenda and forcing public officials to do what they should have done a long time ago. And CommonWealth, like other smaller players, is performing its role admirably as well: by keeping the story simmering until it was ready to come to a boil.

The usually-joyful Ducklings Day Parade parade took a somber turn in today's Boston Globe, courtesy of some layout editor's unfortunate desicion to run photos of the sugary-sweet annual Mother's Day costume event above the headline: "In growing numbers, the bereaved again Walk for Peace" on page B3.

That headline was attached to a story about a more sobering annual event, a walk by relatives of murder victims calling for an end to street violence. The effect of the headline above pictures of adorable little tykes dressed as ducklings was jarring, but was it a classic newspaper blooper or a bit of stealth social commentary?

It's at least an interesting juxtaposition of images. The big picture in the Ducklings Day Parade montage shows a 3-year-old white girl from the suburbs flanked by her mom and dad, whose hands she is holding. The picture with the Walk for Peace story shows a 7-year-old African-American boy from Dorchester, who is framed in the picture being flanked by a man and a woman who are also marching. But instead of holding their hands, he's holding a sign advertising a memorial fund in the name of a murder victim.

Hmmm ...

Former Boston Globe reporter Tom Palmer, who covered development for many years before switching sides and becoming a communications consultant, is urging his clients to bombard the Globe’s online-comments system.

Another former Globe reporter, CommonWealth Magazine editor Bruce Mohl, has obtained an e-mail from Palmer in which he urges residents of Harbor Towers (photo) to comment early and often in their opposition to plans by developer Don Chiofaro to build a skyscraper next to the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Palmer writes:

[Newspapers] don’t like it, and some of them are even considering getting rid of the “comment” feature because it clearly weakens their power. But for now we may comment and comment and comment — just as Don’s supporters do.

Mohl posts the full text of Palmer’s e-mail (pdf), and it’s a hoot. Among other things, Palmer includes step-by-step instructions for how to register and post comments, writing, “It is COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS.”

Maybe Palmer doesn’t find this embarrassing, but it seems to me that he has forgotten both the Lomasney rule and the Spitzer corollary: “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink”; and “never put it in e-mail.”

Photo of Harbor Towers via Wikimedia Commons.

A year ago, the biggest question at the Boston Globe was whether the New York Times Co. was serious about shutting it down if it couldn’t squeeze out $20 million in union concessions.

These days, the story is considerably more pleasant. Though no one thinks the Globe is entirely out of the woods (there is, after all, a revolution under way), the paper keeps expanding in modest but useful ways.

The latest initiative is coming tomorrow: a weekly column on the op-ed page by the Atlantic’s fine political writer, Joshua Green (photo), who, according to Globe editorial-page editor Peter Canellos, will offer a Washington perspective from a non-ideological perspective.

“He’s a pure reporter and analyst,” Canellos says. “And I think that for somebody looking at the changing landscape of Washington these days, this is a happy meeting of a writer and subject, because it’s a fascinating time.”

This coming Sunday will mark a significant expansion of the opinion pages. For years, the Globe has published a third opinion page, reserved for letters, every other week. Now the paper will publish three and four pages on an alternating schedule.

Newish op-ed columnists Joanna Weiss and Lawrence Harmon will join standbys Joan Vennochi and Jeff Jacoby. Harmon, the Globe’s chief editorial writer on city issues, will continue to write his column once a week. Weiss will now write twice weekly, picking up Harmon’s Tuesday slot.

On weeks when there are four opinion pages, Canellos says, the extra space will be used for features such as “visual op-eds” by cartoonist Dan Wasserman and longer essays by columnist James Carroll and other writers.

Finally, Canellos says that a somewhat nebulous new online feature called “The Angle” will be beefed up with some definition and some original content as the result of a new partnership with “Radio Boston,” which WBUR (90.9 FM) is expanding from a weekly to a daily program next week.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.