Nothing riles up the media more than government secrecy at any and all levels. Whether it’s a local Board of Health going into executive session without explanation or Congress exempting itself from the Freedom of Information Act, reporters and editors decry the moves to conduct the people’s business behind closed doors. But the question comes, […]
Media and Journalism
Posted inThe Download
A lapse in news judgment
Last Friday, the Boston Globe posted a stop-you-in-your-tracks story online about Comcast Sportsnet reporter Jessica Moran resigning amid questions about her relationship with Red Sox manager John Farrell. It was fascinating in many respects, not the least of which is both the Globe and the Red Sox are owned by John Henry, adding a level of […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
For the record, Trump is a little off-base
Word leaked out several days ago a recent meeting Donald Trump held with the New York Times editorial board included assertions by the bombastic billionaire that what he’s saying on the campaign trail about illegal immigrants may not be the same as what he’d do if elected. Trump’s opponents, especially Sen.Ted Cruz, jumped all over that, calling […]
Posted inThe Download
OMG: Whitey’s ‘solitary act’
The Boston Globe breaks a story that is fascinating on multiple levels about gangster James (Whitey) Bulger breaking a rule at his prison in Florida and being sent to solitary confinement for 30 days. Bulger, who is serving a life sentence for participating in 11 murders, was shipped off to solitary last June for masturbating […]
Posted inUncategorized
Galvin upholds Jones decision on privacy grounds
SECRETARY OF STATE WILLIAM GALVIN’S OFFICE has ruled that the Foxborough Police Department acted properly in denying on privacy grounds a public records request for a surveillance video of New England Patriots defensive end Chandler Jones. The 6-foot-5-inch, 265-pound lineman showed up shirtless in the parking lot of the Foxborough police station on the morning […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Senate unanimous in support of Public Records Law update
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE ACKNOWLEDGING THAT ADVANCES in current technology has rendered the decades-old law ineffective, the Massachusetts Senate on Thursday passed a public records reform bill updating the statute governing access to public documents for the first time roughly 40 years. By a unanimous vote, the bill that supporters said would strengthen access to […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download
Patching together blanket coverage on Baker’s speech
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the State of the Commonwealth speech received blanket coverage and analysis in print and on television. But that was then and this is now. With the depletion of resources and the presence of instant analysis on social media, those who want anything beyond the static recitations of […]
Posted inThe Download
Local media matters
When the masthead changes at major newspapers, it’s a seismic shift that causes ripple effects in all corners of the profession and often gets the attention of readers. But there’s probably no position that can have more of an effect on people’s daily lives, whether they know it or not, than the editor of the […]
Posted inThe Download
Globe highlights its own hypocrisy
A little over a year ago, the Boston Globe ran a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of editorials documenting the challenges facing food service workers– wages too low to live on, minimal job security, few organizing rights, and the risk of wage theft. “These are all indecencies that, theoretically, should fall to lawmakers to address. But political […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
DeLeo rips Globe for ‘painful’ analogy
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE HOUSE SPEAKER ROBERT DELEO lashed out at the Boston Globe Friday afternoon, asking for an apology after the broadsheet likened the House to a plantation. The article by Globe State House Bureau Chief Frank Phillips reviewed 2015 and forecast the year ahead for DeLeo, Senate President Stanley Rosenberg and Gov. Charlie […]