I write in response to the recent article that ran under the headline, “Gants calls off DeLeo leak inquiry.” This article carried the sub-headline, “Law enforcement officials tell SJC they […]
Media and Journalism
Posted inOpinion, State House News Service, The Download
Gorillas in our midst
Bloom County, the edgy political comic strip that now lives on social media, cut to the heart of the problem over the killing of a gorilla at a Cincinnati zoo […]
Posted inThe Download
Columnist uses his imagination
In his recent columns, Lowell Sun columnist Peter Lucas seems to be letting his imagination run a little wild. A week ago he posted a column based on a WGBH […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Voters trump media predictions
There’s nothing those in the media like reading and writing more than “we got it wrong” stories, provided they have company. And in the case of Donald Trump, there are […]
Posted inThe Download
Social media’s gutless wonders
In all the years I’ve been a reporter, no one has ever sent me an anonymous message wishing I was raped again. I’ve never been the subject of tweets calling […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Selective House briefings
When House Ways and Means chairman Brian Dempsey opened the floor to questions from reporters at a Wednesday afternoon press briefing on the just-released House budget for 2017, he was […]
Posted inUncategorized
Quincy dumps GateHouse marketing bid
THE CITY OF QUINCY has told GateHouse Media, which owns the local Patriot Ledger and hundreds of other newspapers, that its bid for a city marketing contract is dead. A […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
One on One with George Regan
Photograph by Frank Curran The scene: The Union Wharf office of George Regan, the president of Regan Communications Group and long-ago press secretary to former mayor Kevin White. His dog, […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
A Marblehead housewife
“Darn, I knew this was going to happen someday. If you’re reading this, I’m dead.” So begins Barbara Anderson’s final column in today’s Salem News. Anderson died Friday at the […]
Posted inThe Download
GateHouse creates its own conflict
As the print news business continues to contract, there’s a push on by the suits in the corporate suites to find revenues wherever possible. That push can sometimes blur lines […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Is the media to blame for Trump?
It’s become almost accepted wisdom that the news media have fanned the flame of Donald Trump, basking in his click-bait commentary and covering his every move as if he was […]
Posted inThe Download
Capital concerns at the Globe
For those of us in the news business, the Boston Globe’s shrinking Capital section is an alarming sight. The nation is in the midst of one of the most interesting […]
Posted inThe Download
The Times (and its paragraphs) they are a changin’
The New York Times took heat this week for tinkering with an online story about Bernie Sanders several hours after it was posted, turning a favorable report that the candidate […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Spotlight sends out a survey
The Boston Globe Spotlight Team earlier this month sent an email to nearly 200 private, independent schools in New England asking them to fill out an online survey documenting instances […]
Posted inThe Download
Forecast calls for sunshine followed by clouds
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
