TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2002 — Today’s Boston Herald includes a report that the Metro, a free Boston daily, has changed newspaper editors. My response to this news is: how can anyone tell?

I have been mystified by Metro’s success since its launch last year. First, I scoffed at the thin publication. But over time — to my amazement — I discovered that it is widely read. Here’s how I made that discovery. Each day I shamble over to the MBTA stop near my home. In one hand, I carry a plastic 7-Eleven bag containing three daily newspapers — including two broadsheets. In the other, I carry the New York Post, which you can still get in some parts of Boston, and I devour it as I walk. There isn’t much opportunity to see what other people are reading — let alone to see where you’re going — with this kind of routine. But one day, situated in my usual foothold on the train, I happened to glance up and witnessed what looked like half the car reading the newspaper. To my surprise, everybody — mostly young people — was reading the Metro.

But what is there to like in such a publication? With the exception of semi-regular columns from political analysts Jon Keller, Craig Sandler, and sometimes WBZ talk-show host David Brudnoy, most of the local stories are surface-level summaries of news reported in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and on television. The inside pages usually display a longer feature that might be useful if you had just parachuted into Boston from Buenos Aires or Tokyo. Today’s paper, for instance, has a gee-whiz introduction to Cambridge neighborhoods, offering the startling information that "[Harvard] Square has always attracted its fair share of misfits."

At least the local stuff is produced by local reporters. That’s more that can be said for the international coverage — and there’s plenty of it in Metro. The paper gets its international reportage from Reuters, a British based news service that prides itself on "freedom from bias." As part of that credo, Reuters refuses to designate the 19 individuals involved in the September 11 attacks as terrorists. Does Boston really need a new daily that refuses to recognize Al Qaeda members for what they are? On the Middle East as well, Reuters — and Metro by extension — seems to reflect an anti-Israel bias disguised under the rubric of evenhandedness. A headline today reads, "Israeli Forces Kill 9 in Hebron." The story reports on an Israeli military sweep of Hebron, noting that it came "two days after gunmen killed four Israelis in a Jewish settlement." There is no mention that one of those killed was five-year-old Danielle Shefi, slain in her bed.

Upon some investigation, I learned that at least some of these qualities may be changing. Metro publisher Russel Pergament says he’s rethinking the Reuters policy regarding the use of the word "terrorist." "We are going to change that," he says. "Obviously the September 11 terrorists were terrorists, not tourists. Reuters just has some idiosyncrasies that we’re going to work out." However, Pergament does praise the wire service for providing "a nice rich perspective on the world." As far as the Middle East is concerned, Metro might be heading in the right direction. It was the only daily, for example, with a story on the new alliance between Jews and Episcopalians to fight anti-Israel bias within that church — a story written by a local reporter on a local development.

I don’t think I’ll become a regular reader of Metro any time soon. But as long Metro can fix some of Reuters’ excesses, it will at least satisfy the first aspect of the doctor’s oath — "first, do no harm" — which applies equally well to journalism. Pergament says that someday Metro’s readers may graduate to weightier publications. If his publication can act as a feeder-system for news readers, that’s fine with me.