BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
e-mail delivery, click
here. To send
an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click
here.
For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Friday, May 23, 2003
And so it goes. New York
Times reporter Rick
Bragg has been suspended
for two weeks. The Columbia Journalism Review website
has
the details.
Here's what I don't get. Bragg is a
Pulitzer winner. He was working with an intern -- an intern who
actually went to the scene and did the bulk of the reporting. Ethics
aside, why wasn't Bragg magnanimous enough to give the kid a byline?
Hell, why didn't he put the kid's name first?
Argh.
posted at 9:38 PM |
comment or permalink
Coming to earth? Boston
Herald publisher Pat Purcell's gravity-defying act has been dealt
a setback. Dow Jones reports that Purcell is making some
significant cutbacks at
Herald Media, which owns the Herald and Community Newspaper
Company, a chain of about 100 papers in Greater Boston and on Cape
Cod. (Thanks to Cape
Cod Media for pointing me
to this one.)
In recent weeks, insiders have told
me that though things were tight, there was no sign that Purcell was
in any financial jeopardy. The Washington office has been expanded
from one person to two, and the Herald sent two people to
cover the war in Iraq -- a significant expense for what is,
essentially, a local paper.
It also comes at a time when the
Herald has been tarting itself up. Former editor Ken Chandler,
who went on to edit the New York Post, is back as a consultant
to Purcell, and the pages lately have been notably more tabloidy, to
the distress of some staffers. In addition to such headlines as
today's all-caps "POLS PIG OUT" (pork-barrel spending on Beacon Hill)
and "HELL NEXT DOOR" (the Hells Angels have bought a house in
Chelsea), the paper's two gossip pages have been brought together
under the "Inside Track" brand, complete with a comely bimbo of the
day.
Still, speculation that Rupert
Murdoch, the owner of WFXT-TV (Channel 25), will buy the
Herald strikes me as wrong, or at least very premature.
Purcell loves being a local media magnate and, if anything, he's been
talking about further acquisitions, not a sellout. The
Herald's business pages have endlessly hyped the pending
repeal of the cross-ownership laws, and Purcell recently told the
crowd at his Herald 100 luncheon that he wants to become a radio
entrepreneur.
Sounds to me like Purcell intends
to try defying gravity for at least a little while longer.
posted at 10:42 AM |
comment or permalink
Her brilliant career.
Herald columnist Tom
Keane today makes two
points about Suffolk County sheriff Andrea Cabral's switch from
independent to Republican and, now, to Democrat. I think he's wrong
on one, but he's surely right on the other.
1. Keane notes that, last fall,
Cabral promised then-governor Jane Swift that she would seek
election in 2004 as a Republican if Swift appointed her to fill the
vacancy. Keane flatly asserts that Cabral "broke her word" by
becoming a Democrat, adding that "in politics, it seems, promises
often carry little weight -- which may explain why so many voters are
cynical about politicians."
Keane's take is accurate but
facile. He goes on to detail how Cabral was disrespected by Governor
Mitt Romney. As Swift herself knows, Romney's preferred mode for
female officials is to walk 10 feet behind him with their
mouths shut, à la Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. Okay,
Cabral broke her word, but how much was she supposed to
take?
And how about that dime-drop re her
unpaid
student loans that occurred
approximately three nanoseconds after she was photographed whooping
it up with Ted Kennedy? If she had doubted her party-switching
decision at all, she certainly knew then that she'd done the right
thing.
2. Keane argues that Cabral might
well have lost the election by switching parties. This is
counterintuitive -- other analysts have mainly focused on the fact
that Suffolk County is overwhelmingly Democratic -- but here, I
think, Keane gets it just right.
Cabral, Keane observes, will almost
certainly face a challenge in the Democratic primary from Boston city
councilor Steve Murphy. Keane writes:
Primary races are
low-turnout events, dominated in Boston by more conservative
voters, where a candidate's ability to get supporters to the polls
is decisive. Murphy has (next to Mayor Tom Menino) the city's most
powerful organization, well honed and capable of delivering.
Cabral, a political neophyte, has none.
By this calculus, Keane adds,
Cabral would actually have a far better chance in the November 2004
general election -- a presidential election, when turnout will be
high, attracting the liberal voters whom Cabral needs to win.
This was how former Republican
sheriff Ralph Martin did it. It's how Cabral might have done it as
well. Instead, perhaps without realizing it, she's chosen a much
tougher route.
posted at 8:24 AM |
comment or permalink
Mad cow: the prequel. Not to
claim prescience or anything like that, but in December 2001 I wrote
this
piece on mad-cow disease --
and suggested that it was one of the more important undercovered
stories on the horizon.
Now
mad cow is back. And here's
one point the media seem to be missing as they focus on how that
animal in Canada ever could have become infected: bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or BSE, as the disease is known scientifically, is a
rare but naturally occurring disease.
What causes it to spread is the
abhorrent practice of feeding dead cattle to live ones. Cattle are
ruminants who do not normally eat meat. The media -- not to mention
Canadian officials -- should focus on the feed.
posted at 8:24 AM |
comment or permalink
The investigation continues.
Some small indication of the hell that has descended upon the New
York Times can be seen in today's "Editors'
Note" about staff reporter
Rick Bragg (scroll down).
It also provides some insight into
what a Times byline really means. Answer: not as much as you
might have thought.
posted at 8:23 AM |
comment or permalink
Headline of the day.
"Sampson
Lawyers May Plead Insanity"
(from today's Herald). We were out of our minds when we
agreed to represent him.
posted at 8:23 AM |
comment or permalink
Thursday, May 22, 2003
The quiet death of a
civil-rights pioneer. Last week one of the most significant
civil-rights figures of the past 40 years died. Yet you didn't see
his obituary in national papers such as the New York Times,
the Washington Post, or the Los Angeles Times -- or
even in the big dailies in his home state of Texas.
The person in question was Lee
Kitchens, who died on May 12 at the age of 73 near his home in Ransom
City, Texas. One would think his passing would have warranted some
media attention for his professional accomplishments alone: a
longtime engineer for Texas Instruments, he was involved in
everything from the development of the first transistor, to the first
handheld calculator, to TI's belated entry into the personal-computer
market. He also headed up TI's operations in Europe and East Asia at
various times before spending his last pre-retirement years teaching
at Texas Tech.
Kitchens's claim to wider fame,
though, came from his role as a founding father of Little
People of America, the
largest organization in the world for dwarfs and their families. LPA
was founded in 1957 by the late actor Billy Barty; but Kitchens was
at the group's second meeting, in 1960, and was one of LPA's most
involved members right up until his unexpected death. A former
national president, he was vice-president of membership when he
died.
It was rare to see a documentary or
read an article on dwarfism without coming across Kitchens, who was
endlessly helpful with everyone who sought him out -- journalists,
new parents, whoever. I had the privilege of spending a couple of
hours with him last Fourth of July week in Salt Lake City at the LPA
national conference, interviewing him for my book on the culture of
dwarfism, Little People: Learning To See the World Through My
Daughter's Eyes, which will be published this fall by
Rodale.
A laconic pipe-smoker who reminded
me of my late uncle, also a native Texan, Kitchens cheerfully held
forth while seated on the scooter he used to get around. Kitchens,
who was exactly four feet tall, had a type of dwarfism known as SED.
Despite his considerable accomplishments, he'd led a sad life in many
respects: his wife and their adopted son and daughter had all died.
"Past history," he told me, with characteristic Texas
stoicism.
If Billy Barty's life as an
entertainer symbolized LPA in the minds of the public, Kitchens's
life as a respected professional symbolized the organization in the
minds of its members. Even though Barty and Kitchens were born not
that many years apart, it was as though they were of two generations.
Barty was widely credited for having the vision to found LPA; but it
was Kitchens whom everyone -- figuratively -- looked up
to.
Kitchens served on a number of
disability commissions, both in Texas and nationally, and gradually
came to see the utility of working with other disability groups in
order to advance a broader agenda. It was also his advice that led
us, after some years of reluctance, to get a handicapped parking
placard so that our daughter, Rebecca, could cut down on her walking.
Walking is good exercise, of course; but for a dwarf, moderation is
the key lest it begin to take a toll on the back. Better a placard
now, Kitchens warned me, than a scooter when she's 30 or
40.
The last time I saw Kitchens was in
the fall, when he visited the LPA regional conference at the Sheraton
Ferncroft in Danvers, site of this coming July's national conference.
It was something of a shakedown cruise, and Kitchens was there so
that he could report back to the national officers on how things were
progressing. He took a few pictures of Becky as she waited to play
boccia (never did see them, unfortunately), and later showed off his
digital camera to our son, Tim.
So far, the only paper that has run
an obit on Kitchens is the hometown Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal.
As for all you other editors out
there: you missed a big story, but it's not too late.
posted at 9:47 AM |
comment or permalink
More Jayson Blair. Yes, I
realize that we've slipped past the overkill stage, but here's a link
to the
New York Observer piece
that everyone's talking about, if you haven't seen it
already.
Today's Globe has a
comprehensive
overview of Blair's brief
time at that paper. The Globe goes high up with Blair's claim
that he's been diagnosed with bipolar disease, better known as
manic-depression -- a serious mental illness. If this is true, can't
someone please get this guy out of the limelight?
For my money, though,
this
piece by Jill Rosen, which
will appear in the upcoming American Journalism Review, is
among the most revelatory. Rosen really gets into Blair's time as a
student at the University of Maryland, where all the
self-destructiveness that would later bring him down was on full
display.
posted at 9:46 AM |
comment or permalink
New in this week's
Phoenix. The Jayson
Blair scandal -- and a host
of other less-publicized acts of journalistic wrongdoing -- are
further undermining a news media already beset by a crisis of
credibility. Plus, crossed
signals at the
Globe, and the panderers take on flag-burning
once again.
posted at 9:35 AM |
comment or permalink
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
The New Yorker and the
neocons. Has the liberal New Yorker become an outpost of
neoconservative war-hawkery? That is the argument made by
Daniel
Lazare in the current issue
of the Nation.
Lazare contends that the New
Yorker and its editor, David Remnick, have been in retreat ever
since that infamous post-9/11 mini-essay by Susan
Sontag, in which she blamed
the terrorist attacks on American ineptitude (and worse) even as the
remains of the World Trade Center continued to blaze.
Lazare's argument is not without
merit. Remnick, in signed pieces for the "Talk of the Town" section,
came
out in favor of the war in
Iraq, and Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting built the case both for Al
Qaeda's worldwide capabilities and for the essential evil of Saddam
Hussein's regime.
But this being the Nation,
Lazare travels down several roads that many readers will find
puzzling, and occasionally offensive. To wit:
- Lazare blasts Nicholas Lemann,
the author of several important post-9/11 pieces (and the newly
named head of the Columbia School of Journalism) as someone who
"seems to have reinvented himself as the sort of star-struck
journalist who daydreams about fly-fishing with Dick Cheney and
gushes over Condoleezza Rice." His evidence: Lemann's use of a
pro-Condi quote from another White House official.
Really.
- In a case of moral equivalence
run amok, Lazare writes: "Whenever The New Yorker uses the
word 'terror' or one of its cognates, for instance, it is almost
always in an Arab or Muslim context. While a Nexis search turns up
numerous references in the magazine to Palestinian, Egyptian and
Pakistani terrorism since the Twin Towers attack, it turns up no
references to US or Israeli terrorism or, for that matter, to
terrorism on the part of Christians or Jews. A Nexis search over
the same period reveals that the word 'fundamentalism' appears
almost always in an Islamic context as well." I'm not sure what to
say about this except the old standby: I am not making this
up.
- Last year Goldberg wrote a
densely reported, important piece on Saddam
Hussein's gas attack
against the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq in 1988. Lazare,
though, is put out that Goldberg had found far greater evidence of
perfidy on Saddam's part than had Human Rights Watch in an earlier
report, even though Lazare gives us no reason to think that HRW is
definitive on this matter. To be sure, Lazare accurately notes
that Goldberg reported claims of ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda
that have yet to be borne out. Still, Goldberg's report of what
happened in Kurdistan was impressive and disturbing. And why does
Lazare care that Goldberg served in the Israeli army?
Strangely, Lazare looks at the
alleged ideological swings of the New Yorker's investigative
reporter, Seymour Hersh, without really considering just how plain
wrong the guy has been. Hersh's
most egregious piece
appeared in the April 7 issue, in which he reported that the war was
faltering, that there weren't nearly enough troops on the ground, and
that the generals were furious with Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld for leaving American soldiers vulnerable and exposed. I
understand that Hersh is a captive of his sources, but he obviously
needs better sources. Count me among those who felt used.
In that respect, Jack
Shafer's recent Slate deconstruction of
Hersh is more valuable for
what it says about the New Yorker's shortcomings than is
Lazare's ideologically blinkered essay.
It's not that Lazare isn't on to
something. It's that this isn't it.
posted at 8:17 AM |
comment or permalink
Monday, May 19, 2003
The price of reform.
Campaign-finance reform is one of those things that always sounds
good in theory. Media Log is not immune to its charms, and in fact
continues to be steamed at House Speaker Tom Finneran for his
unrelenting campaign to nullify the state's voter-approved Clean
Elections Law.
Even so, it's easy to exaggerate
the benefits of reform and to play down the unintended negatives. Two
examples from this morning's Globe.
On page one, Raphael Lewis reports
that Governor Mitt Romney has been accepting campaign contributions
from executives at corporations
that have business pending
before the state, including Fidelity (which would love to keep
that mid-'90s tax break), the law firm of Mintz Levin, and EMC
Corporation. (To be fair, it sounds like EMC's state ties are pretty tenuous, although founder Richard Egan is involved in the Pioneer Institute, a Romney-friendly think tank.)
That news is broken up by this
howler:
Romney ... has pledged to
accept no political action committee money, said spokesman Eric
Fehrnstrom.
Now, I'm prepared to believe that
Romney isn't going to let his decision-making be influenced by
campaign donations. I really am. But as Lewis's story shows,
political-action-committee money has been fetishized by reform
advocates as pernicious in ways that ordinary contributions are not.
Yet how does Romney expect to impress anyone with his no-PAC-money
stance when he's taking money that is every bit as tied to special
interests?
There's nothing unique in what
Romney is doing. The PAC-money-bad/special-interest-donations-okay
hypocrisy has become standard for any politician looking to boost his
campaign account while making googly eyes at reformers. Still, no one
should be impressed.
The second story, which appears on
page three, concerns those boneheaded
attack ads aimed at
moderate Republicans such as Maine senator Olympia Snowe and Ohio
senator George Voinovich, who have been singled out for insufficient
loyalty to George W. Bush's radical tax-cutting agenda.
Bush's chief campaign strategist,
Karl Rove, is quoted as calling the ads "stupid and counterproductive
and not helpful," which they surely are. But illegal? Could be, given
a prohibition on certain types of advocacy-group ads that mention
elected officials or political candidates by name.
The ads are sponsored by the
Republican-libertarian Club for Growth. The club's president, Stephen
Moore, tells Globe reporter Nicolas Thompson that complaints
that his group's ads are illegal "are pretty frightening from a
free-speech perspective."
Thus does Moore show a far better
grasp of the First Amendment than he has of politics.
posted at 7:38 AM |
comment or permalink
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
