Why Tony Snow matters

Is there a larger meaning to President Bush's decision to name Tony Snow as his new spokesman? If you subscribe to the theory -- as I do -- that the Ari Fleischer/Scott McClellan era was defined principally by an attempt to marginalize the national media and downgrade their perceived importance, then I think the answer is yes.

The Washington Post, not surprisingly, appears to be more surefooted than the New York Times in analyzing the Snow appointment. The Times' Jim Rutenberg is quite taken with the fact that Snow, a high-profile Fox News pundit, has been known to criticize the president. Rutenberg writes:

Mr. Snow is something the White House briefing room has not yet had at the lectern: a star of the opinionated cable news era. But he is also something Mr. Bush has never had: a free-wheeling outsider in a very public position, and one with a history of sharing critical opinions of the president.

True enough. But the key to the Snow appointment, it seems to me, is that Snow is a player who actually believes the mainstream media have an important role to play in keeping the public informed. Here is the lead of Jim VandeHei and Michael Fletcher's piece in the Post:

President Bush's decision to hire conservative commentator Tony Snow as his chief spokesman reflects a consensus among the president and his top advisers that his White House operation has been too insular and needs to be more aggressive in engaging with the news media and other Washington constituencies, according to Bush aides and outside advisers.

Last week, Jay Rosen marked McClellan's departure by arguing that McClellan had been put in place as part of Bush's policy of "strategic non-communication." Rosen wrote:

McClellan was a necessary figure in what I have called Rollback -- the attempt to downgrade the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country. It had once been accepted wisdom that by carefully "feeding the beast" an Administration would be rewarded with better coverage in the long run. Rollback, the policy for which McClellan signed on, means not feeding but starving the beast, while reducing its effectiveness as an interlocutor with the President and demonstrating to all that the fourth estate is a joke.

I think Rosen's on to something, although I disagree with his contention that McClellan represented a departure from Fleischer, who, Rosen claims, was unwilling to play the role of being "the jerk at the podium" -- and who, besides, had an unacceptable (to the White House) "twinkle in his eye" when dissembling. I don't see how you can say that McClellan's act was much different from Fleischer's, just a whole lot less competent.

Still, there may be something to the notion that the White House couldn't truly express the depth of its contempt for the media until it had appointed an utterly incompetent spokesman. After all, the very fact that the White House would hire someone with Fleischer's smooth performance skills suggested that, on some level, the administration took the media seriously.

As it has been forced to do again. Media Matters is very excited about what it calls "The many falsehoods of Tony Snow." And, yes, David Brock and company have compiled quite a dossier. But this appointment is about music, not lyrics. And the music is that Snow is someone of substance who sees the care and feeding of the national press as a job that's actually worth doing.

Last Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," former Newt Gingrich spokesman Tony Blankley, now editorial-page editor of the Washington Times, defined what the problem has been for the past five-plus years:

I think it is a mistake of a White House press operation not to engage the press corps here. I think that it can be done effectively and honestly, and in a serious way. You're going to get hit a lot, but to put up the shield and have no communication is going to induce future administrations to get into the same kind of -- they exaggerate the mess they're going to get into when they have no communication back and forth.

By the way, one of the good things that a White House gets from talking to the press is, is reconnaissance of how the press and to some extent the country is feeling. I think it's -- that two-way exchange is really vital to the process.

That's the shortcoming that the White House undertook to address with the Snow appointment. The question is whether Snow is the decider-in-chief's idea or someone whom new chief of staff Josh Bolsten imposed on Bush at a moment of presidential weakness, and against whom Bush will soon rebel. We'll find out.

And here's where it could get dicey for Bush: Snow strikes me as eminently likely to resign and pop off if he finds himself getting marginalized. Fleischer and McClellan would never do such a thing. Which is why this could turn out to be a pretty interesting appointment.

Close call

The Book Standard recycles its Feb. 15 review of Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," calling it a "clone" of the film "Mean Girls." Here's how it ends:

But the plot ... often seems plucked from a teen movie. Once Viswanathan, currently a Harvard sophomore, figures out how to integrate her lively voice into a more original story, she'll be on her way.

Pretty close, I'd say.

The Harvard Crimson catches up with plagiaree Megan McCafferty, who's not talking.

The Barry Bonds of chick lit

That's what Samuel Freedman of the New York Times calls Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore now in the midst of a plagiarism-fueled meltdown over her (or should that be "her"?) novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life."

Freedman's not so much commenting on Viswanathan's sticky-fingered writing style, but, rather, the fact that she paid some $10,000 to $30,000 to a consulting outfit in order to help her get into Harvard -- the equivalent, he says, of the steroids that Bonds claims he didn't take in order to boost his home-run output.

Still, given that Viswanathan is now being accused of having lifted more than 40 passages from Megan McCafferty's first two novels (Harvard Crimson coverage here; Boston Globe coverage here; Boston Herald coverage here), it would seem that Barry Bonds' single-season home-run record of 73 is within her grasp.

Globe columnist Alex Beam, who dubs Viswanathan the "Queen of Schadenfreude," predicts that the agency that helped her "conceptualize" the novel is going to wind up being accused as the guilty party. But if Beam is right, wouldn't that mean that Viswanathan didn't write any of "Opal Mehta"?

McCafferty herself is reported to be devastated by all of this, but she comes off as rather jolly on her blog. I would think she would be.

Meanwhile, the Weekly Dig has some fun today with my deathless prose. I admit to being dense enough not to have gotten it until I'd read a couple of paragraphs.

Bruce shall overcome

In reviewing Bruce Springsteen's new album, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," the Boston Globe's Joan Anderman refers to Pete Seeger as "this century's foremost activist folk singer." This century, eh? Sadly, Anderman may be right, although not in the way she intended.

Worse, Anderman likes Springsteen's last two albums, "Devils & Dust" and (ugh) "The Rising," which, she claims, was marked by "a fierce, redemptive grace."

Which is why I prefer this review of "We Shall Overcome," by Slate's Jody Rosen, who writes:

His two most recent albums have been particularly painful. The Rising (2002), Springsteen's vaunted "response to Sept. 11," made an almighty rock 'n' roll noise, but the lyrics found him straining for significance amid an explosion of abstract nouns: "faith," "hope," "blood," "fire," etc. Then came last year's Devils & Dust, a folk-flecked album whose songs suggested that the Boss had taken the praise of the tweedy set too much to heart.

Indeed.

Rosen likes "We Shall Overcome" a lot, and I'm looking forward to hearing the whole thing. Perhaps it will be the spark that helps Springsteen rediscover his writing gift, much as Bob Dylan's two early-'90s albums of folk songs, "Good as I Been to You" and "World Gone Wrong," led to his two best collections of orginals since his heyday, "Time Out of Mind" and "Love & Theft."

More trouble for Viswanathan

There is some justice in the literary world. Megan McCafferty, whose novels provided such rich, er, source material for Harvard typist Kaavya Viswanathan, is at #7 on the Wall Street Journal's hardcover bestseller list for her latest novel, "Charmed Thirds." Good for McCafferty, who's got enough class that she doesn't even mention Viswanathan on her blog.

The Boston Globe has played Viswanathan's copycat ways on page one, above the fold, each of the past two days. (Yesterday's story is here; today's is here.) But the Harvard Crimson, which broke the story on Sunday, makes clear in a way the Globe doesn't that Viswanathan's excuse -- that she must have unconsciously recycled passages from a novel she loved when writing "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" -- has failed to impress McCafferty's publisher.

Paras D. Bhayani and David Zhou, writing for the Crimson, report:

... Random House, which published McCafferty’s novels, is confident that "literal copying" occurred in Viswanathan’s book, according to a confidential letter from the publishing giant to Little, Brown that was obtained by The Crimson.

"We are continuing to investigate this matter, but, given the alarming similarities in the language, structure and characters already found in these works, we are certain that some literal copying actually occurred here," read the letter, which is dated April 22 and was signed by Random House lawyer Min Jung Lee. "As such, we would appreciate your prompt and serious attention to this matter."

Indeed, if you take a look at the Crimson's side-by-side comparisons, you'll find it hard to rule out the possibility -- the likelihood? -- that Viswanathan propped McCafferty's "Sloppy Firsts" open in her lap and started typing, making just a few changes in an inept attempt to cover her tracks.

It's hard to muster much sympathy for Viswanathan, who got a $500,000 contract to put her imprimatur on a novel that others "conceptualized" for her, and that she then couldn't apparently bother to write entirely on her own.

But I'll give her this much. In a more sane world, she never would have gotten the contract and the publicity that put her in the public spotlight in the first place. She would have plagiarized at Harvard, flunked a class, maybe even been forced to transfer to another college. And she would have learned an important lesson -- quietly. Instead, she's dealt herself a devastating blow from which it will be hard to recover.

The closing of the Internet

An enormous threat to everyone's media future is playing out in Congress this week. As I wrote in March, executives of the giant broadband companies are trying to talk government regulators into letting them discriminate in favor of Internet services that are willing to pay for the privilege of having their data move at ever faster speeds.

According to this article from InternetWeek, "The House Judiciary Committee's Task Force on Telecommunications and Antitrust is holding a hearing Tuesday on whether the Internet should operate like a utility, with equal service, or whether providers should be able to provided tiered access and pricing."

Here's a good video overview of what's at stake.

Save the Internet, a coalition headed by the progressive group Free Press, puts it this way:

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Network neutrality prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. Your local library shouldn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its Web site open quickly on your computer.

Net Neutrality allows everyone to compete on a level playing field and is the reason that the Internet is a force for economic innovation, civic participation and free speech. If the public doesn't speak up now, Congress will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by telephone and cable companies that want to decide what you do, where you go, and what you watch online.

Sorry for this long cut-and-paste job, but Save the Internet continues with a frightening list of ways that this could harm all of us. It's worth reading in full:

Google users -- Another search engine could pay dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee the competing search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.
Innovators with the "next big idea" -- Startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay Internet providers for dominant placing on the Web. The little guy will be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to compete.
Ipod listeners -- A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service that it owned.
Political groups -- Political organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their websites and online features to work correctly.
Nonprofits -- A charity's website could open at snail-speed, and online contributions could grind to a halt, if nonprofits can't pay dominant Internet providers for access to "the fast lane" of Internet service.
Online purchasers -- Companies could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower prices -- distorting your choice as a consumer.
Small businesses and tele-commuters -- When Internet companies like AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone calls, and software that connects your home computer to your office.
Parents and retirees -- Your choices as a consumer could be controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred services for online banking, health care information, sending photos, planning vacations, etc.
Bloggers -- Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio clips -- silencing citizen journalists and putting more power in the hands of a few corporate-owned media outlets.

Longtime media activist Jeff Chester writes on his blog:

We all know what AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, et al really want: to help their tired old media monopoly business model gain a faster hold over the broadband digital marketplace. That’s the reality. And if we permit that to happen the "Reality" will be harmful to consumers, seniors, educators and everyone else who desires a America that reflects our highest aspirations as a culture. Not some dumbed-down, meter always running, and 'we're data collecting on you,' AT&T/Verizon/USTA Internet.

Chester also worries that big companies that are allied against the broadband providers, such as Google (notwithstanding the example offered by SavetheInternet.com), Microsft and Yahoo!, aren't necessarily all that committed to the battle. After all, simply by paying a fee that they could easily afford, they could shut out competitors, both present and future.

What can you do? On the Save the Internet Web site, you can find out where members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee stand, as well as send an e-mail to members of Congress. MoveOn.org is running an online petition campaign as well.

This threat is very real.

Living with Neil Young

Here is a blog dedicated to Neil Young's forthcoming anti-album, "Living with War." It includes a long interview he did with CNN, a task made excruciatingly difficult by the fact that he was the only sentient being taking part in the conversation.

Young has never been a knee-jerk lefty. His 2001 song "Let's Roll" showed he was deeply affected by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In the '80s he was seen as something of a Ronald Reagan supporter. Which makes it all the more sad that he's going to be dismissed as a burned-out hippie when "Let's Impeach the President" hits (or, more likely, doesn't hit) the airwaves a couple of weeks from now.

How's that trade working out? (V)

So, who would you rather have seen pitching against the Blue Jays today? Bronson Arroyo or Lenny DiNardo? How about in the 12th inning of last night's loss? Arroyo or Rudy Seanez? Hmmm. I guess I'd have to say Arroyo, based on his latest.

And let me respond in advance to the comments I know are coming. I like Theo. I'm glad he's back. He's done a lot more good than harm, and I'm confident he'll continue to do so. But this was a bad trade, and that holds true even if Wily Mo Peña becomes a bona fide major-league ballplayer over the next couple of years. I mean, the Sox are trying to win this year, right?

There is no such thing as too much pitching. Period.

Missing inaction

Ron Newman catches the Boston Globe's Names column lazily rewriting a press release -- and not bothering to check whether the predicted event actually happened. Whoops.

It depends on the meaning of "only"

If you go to the Huffington Post right now, you'll see that the home page flogs a commentary posted today by Sen. John Kerry as being "ONLY ON HUFFPOST." In fact, it is identical to the Kerry op-ed in today's Boston Globe. Sorry, Arianna.

Looking good

Jay Fitzgerald unveils a new look for Hub Blog.

Who was George Holmes?

You have to wonder what Bobby Dellelo was thinking. The ex-convict, who served some four decades in connection with the murder of a police officer, allowed himself to become a public face of efforts to reform the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) law. What happened next was inevitable.

Advocates of reform say that prospective employers use CORI to screen out ex-cons, making it impossible for them to find work and turn their lives around. Yesterday the Boston Globe published a longish feature on Dellelo by Megan Tench, complete with an evocative portrait by photographer Dominic Chavez. Tench quoted Dellelo as follows:

"I can't even get a job driving a cab," said Dellelo, 68, who holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from Curry College.

"I can't get a home. I can't get a job. I know how to rob banks. I know how to hotwire armored cars. I did it. What do you think I should do?"

But there is absolutely no mention in Tench's story of Dellelo's murder conviction. So would you care to guess what happened today? In what might be termed a double make-up call, the Boston Herald ran an O'Ryan Johnson piece headlined "Globe's ex-con exclusive excluded killer details: Tale of woe left out conviction in murder." And the Globe itself ran a follow-up -- bylined by Marcia Cramer and Tench -- dredging up Dellelo's past in loving detail.

Johnson's article quotes Thomas Holmes, who was 9 years old when his father, George Holmes, was shot to death by Dellelo's accomplice in a jewelry-store robbery. "Why not mention the truth of what he is?" Holmes is quoted as saying. "If it was me they'd go through my background, they'd dig up everything they could. They want to make everyone feel sorry for this guy because he was in prison. My father was shot six times without having his gun pulled out of his holster."

The print version of today's Globe includes two photos of Dellelo being forcibly apprehended by authorities, once after his arrest in 1963, and another time after he'd escaped from prison in 1968 -- not his only escape, by the way. The article quotes Robert Kenney, president of the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society, as saying, "I think it's a little disgusting. I think it's shocking we're supposed to feel sorry for a guy who killed a police officer.... There is no reason for him to be walking the streets."

Holmes' and Kenney's sentiments are absolutely understandable. But let's not forget that Dellelo never shot anyone. He and his accomplice, Nicholas Yasaian, had actually gone off in different directions before Yasaian, unbeknownst to Dellelo, murdered Holmes. Yasaian later committed suicide. Legally, Dellelo is just as culpable as Yasaian. Logic and morality, though, would dictate otherwise.

Still, the Globe certainly should have offered more details about Dellelo's past in its first article -- not just because readers have a right to know, but out of respect for George Holmes' memory and his family. And it's not as if no one knew. Here is the lead of an April 4, 2004, Globe Magazine piece to which the Herald alludes: "After 30 years in state and federal prisons plus a few years in juvenile detention, Bobby Dellelo thought he had experienced everything there was to life behind bars. He was serving a life sentence for his part in a Boston jewelry heist in which an off-duty police officer had been killed." That's certainly clear enough. Aren't you supposed to check the clips?

As for Dellelo himself, how could he have not known what was going to happen when he stepped forward -- especially if he failed to come clean about his past?

For Dellelo, there is one consolation. In yesterday's Globe story, he was 68 years old. Today he's 64. Given enough time, maybe he'll get back a few more of the years he served.

Patriot name games

I had intended to issue a ringing endorsement this morning of the Northeastern Patriot's right to publish. But I can't. You see, when I investigated the Patriot on the Web, I learned that the production manager's Facebook photo is of a license plate that reads "RDSXSUX." Worse, the plateholder is emblazoned with "New York Yankees." I mean, there are limits.

But seriously. The Patriot is a new conservative newspaper on campus. I haven't seen a copy, since it ran into distribution problems earlier this week. But judging from coverage in the Northeastern News and the Boston Globe, it sounds like the problem isn't its content, but, rather, the fact that the students who put it together put the Northeastern brand in its title without going through the proper channels. Apparently they don't even have to do that if they simply drop "Northeastern" from the name.

An example would be Boston University's student paper, which is known simply as the Daily Free Press. Beneath the nameplate appears this: "The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University." Problem solved -- and a censorship controversy avoided.

Disclosure: If you don't know already, read my bio under "About the blogger," in the upper-right corner of this page.

The no-speech zone

Tom Finneran, where are you? The iron-fisted former Massachusetts House speaker would have known exactly what to do about the State Ethics Commission's ludicrous attempt to ban political statements on state-owned property. He would have abolished the commission. Now, some might say that would be extreme. But as Barry Goldwater once said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."

Yesterday, the Boston Globe's Andrea Estes reported that the commission had "tightened its rules on political activity by public officials, barring them from writing stump speeches, answering campaign questions, or holding news conferences on political topics inside the State House or other state office buildings."

The ruling follows a complaint filed by Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman Phil Johnston and state Rep. Jim Marzilli, D-Arlington. Their beef: Gov. Mitt Romney, accompanied by several staff members, had appeared outside his State House office in July 2004 to verbally cuff Sen. John Kerry. Yet the Globe story also notes that several Democrats, including Attorney General Tom Reilly, have made purely political statements while inside state office buildings. Indeed, Republican consultant Rob Gray, quoted in Estes' story, gets it exactly right:

"If the Ethics Commission intends to stop all political lines of questioning for elected officials inside the State House, that's ridiculous and impractical," said Rob Gray, a Republican consultant and press secretary to former governors William F. Weld and A. Paul Cellucci. "These are elected officials. That in and of itself means there is a crossover between policy and politics. Stifling reporters' questions only lets elected officials off the hook. What's an elected official going to say when a reporter asks a political question -- 'Hey everybody get your coats and meet me at the corner of Beacon and Park streets and I'll answer the question.' It's silly."

The trouble is, this isn't just ridiculous and impractical, although it's surely that. It's also an attack on free speech -- a logical extension of misguided attempts to limit and regulate speech through so-called campaign-finance reform. Romney, Reilly and every other elected official ought to be able to say exactly what they want, regardless of where they happen to be standing or sitting at the time.

Johnston himself may be having some misgivings. In Estes' article yesterday, he's quoted as saying, "I'm delighted. We feel completely vindicated." Today, though, Johnston tells Globe columnist Adrian Walker, "I think it's a bit extreme. We didn't ask that [political questions] be prohibited. Obviously, it's a bit absurd to say reporters can't ask political questions at the State House." Well, Phil, that's the problem with asking the ethics police to crack down on free speech: They just might go even farther than you'd intended.

WBZ-TV (Channel 4) political analyst Jon Keller wonders if the commissioners "ate a batch of mystery brownies without checking to see what the ingredients were."

Veteran political columnist Alan Lupo, writing in today's Boston Herald, waxes indignant at the whole notion that speech on Beacon Hill can be regulated. Lupo writes:

Would it be such a violation of our common sense if, in the middle of a gubernatorial press conference, a reporter might ask the chief executive’s opinion of a presidential candidacy, and the governor might actually respond?

Are we now to believe that politics stops at the door of government? This foolishness reminds me of those cloying candidates for office who insist, "I'm not a politician." Well, what are you then if you are running for office and hope to serve? A tree surgeon? An alto sax player? A member of the Black Watch Regiment?

The Berkshire Eagle makes a similar point in an editorial published today:

Government is politics and politics is government, and it is impossible to determine how a distinction can be made when elected officials are queried during campaign season. It is easy to imagine politicians using the commission ruling to avoid answering tough questions from reporters on the grounds that the questions are political in nature. According to the commission's ruling, press conferences should be stopped in their tracks by a press officer if political questions begin to dominate. The distinction between a campaign question and a question related to official matters is a subjective one, as is the decision as to when one kind of question or the other dominates. This guideline is so vague as to be meaningless, and the prospect of a press conference at the State House being ended abruptly so it can be resumed at a campaign office is absurd.

Good for the Eagle. Neither the Globe nor the Herald has editorialized on this yet, and news of the ruling came too late for the Boston Phoenix's deadline. I'm afraid that this is going to fall through the cracks unless there's a concerted effort. Yes, this led the Globe yesterday, but stories have a way of fizzling out quickly unless there's sustained follow-up.

This is scary. If nothing is done, I hope some brave politician will challenge the commission by speaking out as he or she pleases and then refusing to pay the fine that will inevitably result. It's called civil disobedience, and the future of our political discourse depends on it.

Pulitzer blowback

As no doubt many of you already know, conservative commentator Bill Bennett yesterday told his radio listeners that newly minted Pulitzer Prize winners James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times and Dana Priest of the Washington Post should go to jail for revealing the existence of secret anti-terrorism operations. Editor & Publisher has the story:

According to an E&P transcript of the audio of his radio program, Bill Bennett said that the reporters "took classified information, secret information, published it in their newspapers, against the wishes of the president, against the request of the president and others, that they not release it. They not only released it, they publicized it -- they put it on the front page, and it damaged us, it hurt us.

"How do we know it damaged us? Well, it revealed the existence of the surveillance program, so people are going to stop making calls. Since they are now aware of this, they're going to adjust their behavior ... on the secret sites, the CIA sites, we embarrassed our allies.... So it hurt us there.

"As a result are they punished, are they in shame, are they embarrassed, are they arrested? No, they win Pulitzer prizes -- they win Pulitzer prizes. I don't think what they did was worthy of an award -- I think what they did is worthy of jail, and I think this investigation needs to go forward."

He urged his listeners to write the top editors of the two papers and said their addresses were posted on his Web site.

Media Matters reports that when Bennett popped up on CNN's "The Situation Room" later in the day, Wolf Blitzer neglected to ask him about his remarks.

Of course, the media do not have carte blanche to reveal national-security secrets in a time of war. Col. Robert McCormick, the eccentric publisher of the Chicago Tribune, was nearly prosecuted for treason when one of his reporters revealed after the Battle of Midway, in 1942, that the United States had broken the Japanese code.

But context is everything. The Times and the Post revealed secrets that were unimportant to the enemy and that the American people had a right to know. As I argued yesterday, these Pulitzers are likely to become a cause célèbre among conservatives, who will use this as an example of the liberal media's treachery. That analysis, though, just doesn't hold up.

The Times, of course, revealed that the National Security Agency was wiretapping suspected terrorists in the United States without bothering to get a warrant, as required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. We can safely assume that these suspects already knew they were being wiretapped. The Times' bombshell was that the administration had decided to ignore the law.

The Post revealed the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe where suspected terrorists are interrogated. Again, it's inconceivable that advance knowledge of these prisons would somehow help the terrorists. So why shouldn't the American public be informed about what's being done in its name?

It's been many years since the line between the media and the government was drawn this starkly over matters of such crucial importance. I suspect we've only seen the opening skirmishes so far.

Springsteen online

The New York Times has posted a video from Bruce Springsteen's forthcoming Pete Seeger tribute album. "Pay Me My Money Down" sounds like it has more musicians than a high-school marching band -- or, as Will Hermes writes, "Coffeehouse folk music it ain't -- sports arena folk is more like it." Good stuff.

I hope this is the beginning of a creative revival for Springsteen, whose songwriting has waned since his last really good album, 1995's "The Ghost of Tom Joad."

Gatlin to succeed Macero

Cosmo Macero's successor as the Boston Herald business editor will be Greg Gatlin, who was the paper's media reporter -- and a very good one -- before becoming Macero's deputy. There's also talk that Macero is going to start blogging again. If he does, it will be here.

Independence day

By honoring the New York Times and the Washington Post for their work in exposing the Bush administration's covert and legally dubious campaign against suspected terrorists, the Pulitzer Prize board yesterday signaled a final end to the media's post-9/11 skittishness with respect to tough coverage of the White House. The media, in effect, reasserted their independence.

Some conservative supporters of President Bush have argued that the Times could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for revealing the existence of the National Security Agency's secret, no-warrant wiretapping program -- an example of journalistic derring-do that Bush himself publicly labeled a "shameful act." (Bush was specifically referring to the leak that led to the story. But it seems clear that he was referring as well to the story, which the Times had refrained from publishing for more than a year at Bush's request.)

Right on cue, Scott Johnson of the conservative Power Line blog denounced what he called "The Pulitzer Prize for Treason," writing that the Times article, by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, "clearly violated relevant provisions of the Espionage Act -- a particularly serious crime insofar as it lends assistance to the enemy in a time of war." For good measure, Johnson drew a parallel to Walter Duranty, the Times reporter who infamously ignored Stalin's crimes against humanity in the 1930s.

Stephen Spruiell, who writes National Review Online's Media Blog, was more restrained, contenting himself with referring to the Times' and the Post's Pulitzers as "highly politicized" awards that were "based on anonymous sources who sought to damage the Bush administration."

Although I have not yet run across any commentary suggesting that the Post may be in the same kind of legal peril as the Times, there's no question that Dana Priest's reporting, revealing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, has raised precisely the same hackles on the right. And, as is the case with the Times, the leak that led to Priest's story is under investigation.

What we have here is a situation analogous to the Pentagon Papers. Our two leading newspapers -- then, as now, the New York Times and the Washington Post -- have exposed government secrets about how the administration has waged war. Then, as now, journalists argued that the public has a right to know what's being done in its name. Then, as now, the White House and its supporters contend that the press is engaged in acts that are, at best, unpatriotic and, at worst, treasonous.

No doubt we'll hear that these awards were the work of out-of-touch intellectuals at Columbia University, which administers the Pulitzers. Well, to invoke a Clinton-era cliché, the juries that chose to honor the Times and the Post look like America.

The jurors who picked the Times for one of two national reporting awards came from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, USA Today, Newhouse News Service and the Dallas Morning News. For the Post, which won in the beat reporting category, it was the Sacramento Bee, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Philadelphia Daily News, the John S. Knight Fellowships, the News-Press of Fort Myers, Fla., the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Orlando Sentinel. Clearly this was not an Ivy League plot.

For the Pulitzer board to cast its lot on the side of a free press yesterday was an important symbolic act that will be invoked over and over again in the ugly legal and political battles to come.

How's that trade working out? (IV)

In the interest of fairness: Bronson Arroyo yesterday pitched five innings and gave up five earned runs, including two homers, in an 8-7 loss. Oh, yeah: He also went 0 for 2. But I never said he was a front-line pitcher -- just more valuable than Wily Mo Peña.

How's that trade working out? (III)

Karen Guregian (sub. req.) on how good Bronson Arroyo would look in a Red Sox uniform now that David Wells is back on the DL:

As everyone knows, the Sox had a pretty darn good starter-in-reserve, a guy who was 10th in the American League in quality starts last season. But they traded him for someone who played a line drive into a ground-rule double yesterday, someone who’s getting mock cheers when he actually makes a catch.

And this Chris Snow piece really makes it sound like Wells might be finished.

Future news tidbits

I didn't want to let the week go by without mentioning a few developments on the "what's happening to the newspaper business" front. No übertake from Media Nation. Nevertheless, here are a few things you should keep an eye on.

The week began with a perversely fascinating story in the New York Times. Steve Lohr reported that some news services are deliberately sticking flat, dull headlines on the Web versions of their stories so they'll be more likely to get chosen by the robots at Google News, Yahoo News and the like. Lohr explains:

In newspapers and magazines, ... section titles and headlines are distilled nuggets of human brainwork, tapping context and culture. "Part of the craft of journalism for more than a century has been to think up clever titles and headlines, and Google comes along and says, 'The heck with that,' " observed Ed Canale, vice president for strategy and new media at The Sacramento Bee.

"Tulsa star: The life and career of much-loved 1960's singer" is example of an evocative headline designed for human eyes. The bots' choice? "Obituary: Gene Pitney."

Also last week, Christopher Lydon's consistently excellent public radio program, "Open Source," did an hour on the future of the newspaper business. You can read a summary and download the audio here. Lydon's lead guest was Alan Rusbridge, editor of The Guardian, the British newspaper that has become something of an international phenomenon thanks to its well-executed Web version.

Rusbridge made the rather astonishing assertion that The Guardian's 14 million American readers exceeds the online circulation of the Los Angeles Times. I guess it makes sense; though the Times is a great paper, it's seen as essentially regional. The Guardian's frankly liberal orientation, easy-to-navigate Web tools and emphasis on smart but short articles are bound to make it a favorite in Blue America.

Rusbridge made one other observation that leads me to my final destination. Lydon at one point noted that, as publicly owned companies begin to flee the newspaper business, nonprofit foundations such as the one that owns the St. Petersburg Times (and runs the Poynter Institute) may become the wave of the future. Rusbridge agreed, and noted that The Guardian is actually owned by such a foundation.

Yet one of the outstanding examples of such subsidized journalism -- the Christian Science Monitor -- would appear to be in some danger, as the financially troubled Christian Science Church last week announced a series of moves aimed at putting the church on more stable footing.

The Monitor is a terrific paper with an international focus that has already morphed into a pretty much Web-only news source. (When was the last time you saw a paper Monitor?) The Boston Globe's Tom Palmer reported (fee req.) on Friday that the church intends for the Monitor to be self-sufficient by 2009 after having received millions of dollars in subsidies in recent years. But it's hard to imagine how that could happen without seriously downgrading the journalism.

The church would be an ideal patron for the Monitor's journalism. It's a shame that its own financial problems may make that impossible.

How's that trade working out? (II)

Pitching lines, season to date:

• Bronson Arroyo, 2-0, 1.98, 13.2 IP, 11K
• David Wells, 0-1, 15.75, 4 IP, 1K
• Matt Clement, 1-1, 9.00, 11 IP, 8K

OK, Wells is coming off surgery and will probably turn it around, and Arroyo will return to earth at some point. But does anyone have a good feeling about Clement?

Silverglate's Stern warning

My friend and occasional collaborator Harvey Silverglate says that the New York Times is up to its old tricks in the matter of professional gossip Jared Paul Stern. Writing in the Boston Phoenix, Silverglate argues that the Times would rather buy into the prosecution's salacious spin than to consider the possibility that Stern, until last week a columnist for the New York Post, was actually set up by Ron Burkle, the billionaire he's been accused of shaking down.

Though one might contend that Burkle v. Stern has already gotten too much coverage, Silverglate relates it to some rather more important matters: the persecution of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, terrible coverage for which the Times later apologized, and Judith Miller's gullible reports on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons capabilities and ties to Al Qaeda. Silverglate could have added to that list the Times' years-long obsession with Whitewater, the Clinton scandal that wasn't. (The Times' voluminous Stern coverage is online here.)

Stern himself now says he was the victim of a sting operation in which Burkle attempted to make it appear that Stern was offering to ease up on the nasty gossip items in return for a $200,000 (more or less) bribe. What complicates all this is that Stern was quite frankly looking for Burkle to invest in his clothing company; it's just that he claims there was no quid pro quo. Earlier this week, in an interview with Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, Stern explained his side of the story:

"On reflection, it was an error in judgment to continue the business discussion about the clothing company" while also talking about "the coverage that he was getting in the paper," said Stern, who was captured on tape comparing the arrangement he was proposing to the "Mafia." "I did absolutely nothing remotely illegal and never intended any kind of extortion."

Obviously, this doesn't look good: Stern comes off as a sleaze who got caught, and is now trying to slice the salami as thinly as he possibly can. And even though we've seen only snippets of a long conversation between Stern and Burkle, those snippets would appear -- as Timothy Noah observes in Slate -- to be "extremely damaging to Stern." Noah adds, "One finds oneself wondering how Stern could possibly explain himself."

To which Silverglate would reply: People in Stern's position do manage to explain themselves, all the time. That's why they have trials. It is impossible to get at the truth until we've heard all sides of the story. Silverglate writes:

To anyone experienced in criminal law, it is all too obvious what was going on here: Burkle was instructed to try to put certain words into the target’s mouth. Just as obviously, the sting failed: Stern resisted the bait and stuck to his proposal rather than adopt Burkle's suggestion of a "protection" arrangement. The real story here is the collaboration of the businessman, his private henchmen, and their federal prosecutor and FBI allies to try to set up a sleazy but not criminal gossip columnist for a federal bust. They failed to euchre Stern, but they seem to have succeeded with the Times.

Stern can't help but look bad because the standards of the gossip world are so low -- especially as practiced by the New York Post. It doesn't help that Stern is apparently as shallow as they come. This piece in the New York Observer will inspire laughs or nausea, depending on your inclination. But as I argued in my earlier item, it's hard to see how Stern looks any worse than his goodie-grubbing boss, Page Six editor Richard Johnson.

Silverglate's overriding point is that, however cosmically unimportant the Stern affair might be, the Times is nevertheless doing it again. It's hard to do much real journalism when your snout is buried so deeply in the government's trough.

How's that trade working out?

Home runs to date:

• Bronson Arroyo, 2
• Wily Mo Peña, 0

I hear Arroyo can pitch a little, too. Maybe he can play right field.

Going nuclear

Along with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the Iranian regime is the scariest on earth. I'll go so far as to say it's scarier than North Korea. As best as anyone can tell, Kim wants nukes to ensure that the world will leave him alone. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, seems like a dead cinch to nuke Tel Aviv as soon as he has the capability. We actually find ourselves in the rather excruciating position of hoping that Ayatollah Khamenei, the real power in Iran and not exactly a nice guy himself, is able to keep the Holocaust-denying hothead in check.

Which is why it was so depressing to read Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker blockbuster, this one reporting that the White House is increasingly talking about going to war against Iran, and is refusing even to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. The generals, according to Hersh, are up in arms at this insane idea. The administration appears to have learned nothing from its tragic misadventure in Iraq.

Indeed, perhaps the greatest tragedy of Iraq is that it has completely hampered our ability to do anything about genuine threats such as Iran and North Korea. Who could trust the White House now? I happen to be one of those who believes that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney did not lie about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities and ties to Al Qaeda; rather, they were the victims of their own insular beliefs. But, in the end, what does it matter? No matter what they say now, it will come off as Chicken Little warning us that the sky is falling. Again.

William Arkin, the Washington Post's national-security blogger, referring both to Hersh's story and to this front-page Post article, acidly observes:

A war with Iran started purposefully or by accident, will be a mess. What is happening now though is not just an administration prudently preparing for the unfortunate against an aggressive and crazed state, it is also aggressive and crazed, driven by groupthink and a closed circle of bears.

Sadly, "aggressive and crazed" sounds just about right.

Over at Slate, Fred Kaplan doesn't seem too worried about the chances of Bush and Cheney nuking Tehran anytime soon, believing, instead, that they are merely trying to scare the Iranians, the Europeans both. But who knows with these guys? Indeed, here's how Kaplan closes:

[M]aybe there's no gamesmanship going on here, maybe Hersh is simply reporting on a nuclear war plan that President Bush is really, seriously considering, a "juggernaut" that might not be stopped. If it's as straightforward as that, we're in deeper trouble than most of us have imagined.

Did Hersh get it right? His story is, for the most part, anonymously sourced, and as Arkin notes, short on details. Still, who can argue with Hersh's record? In the opening weeks of the Iraq war, he took a lot of heat for passing along the generals' fear that the war was getting bogged down in unexpected ways -- a concern that seemed greatly exaggerated after the first phase of the war was wrapped up quickly.

Several weeks ago, though, David Brooks of the New York Times wrote (sub. req.) a much-commented-upon column in which he noted that it's now clear -- and, in fact, it was clear then -- that the unconventional resistance that U.S. troops encountered during those opening weeks was the beginning of the insurgency. And that the commanders on the ground understood it needed to be dealt with, even if Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks did not. Brooks does not name Hersh, but he should have. For it was Hersh's journalism that proved particularly prescient.

Last night I caught a few minutes of Christopher Lydon's "Open Source," which devoted a full hour to the topic. It looks like mandatory listening. I'm going to grab the podcast and give it a listen tomorrow morning. As Lydon said last night, this is the only story that adults are thinking about at the moment.

Patrick's day

Chris Gabrieli was obviously furious with Tom Reilly after Reilly dumped him as his running mate in favor of one-day wonder Marie St. Fleur. But I couldn't quite understand why Gabrieli would respond by jumping into the governor's race. Wouldn't Gabrieli only wind up hurting fellow outsider Patrick and helping Reilly?

Now I get it. WBZ-TV (Channel 4) is reporting poll results showing that Patrick has zoomed from 10 points behind Reilly to three points ahead in the past month -- and that Gabrieli's the reason, as he's hurting Reilly a lot more than Patrick.

The race is starting to get interesting. The first Democratic debate featuring all three candidates will be held on Channel 4 on Sunday, April 23, at 8:30 a.m. (Ugh.) But now moderator Jon Keller writes that it will be rebroadcast on April 24 at 7 p.m., when it is sure to generate much bigger numbers.

Looks like Adam Reilly is thinking about this, too.

Farewell to Cosmo

The Boston Herald may not be quite the solid local-news vehicle that it was during the 1990s. But it's a better paper today than it was two years, the approximate moment that I think it hit its skin-and-sensationalism bottom. And it's a better paper than I would have thought possible one year ago, when it was getting ready to shed about a quarter of its newsroom jobs.

One of the prime reasons that the tabloid is still worth a look will soon be leaving One Herald Square. Late last month the Herald's assistant managing editor for business, Cosmo Macero, announced he was leaving to take a public-relations job at O'Neill and Associates. Within days, it became clear just how much Macero would be missed, when the Herald won the general-excellence award in its circulation category from the American Society of Business Editors and Writers. The Herald's business team was also honored for its coverage of the Gillette sale last year. (The Globe competes in a larger circulation category, and Steve Bailey won recognition as the best business columnist.)

The Herald business section has several good, aggressive reporters, so I expect it will renew itself. Still, Macero was special, and he'll be missed. I'm late to this, but I wanted to post something before Macero's last day, which is coming this week.

As for the Herald itself -- who knows? Investigative reporter Maggie Mulvihill, who left for a Nieman several years ago, surprised a lot of people by coming back. But now she's leaving again, this time to go to WBZ-TV (Channel 4) -- a huge loss. As we all know, publisher Pat Purcell has put the Herald and about 100 community papers he owns in Eastern Massachusetts on the market. After a flurry of speculation a few weeks ago that he'd decided to sell the community papers and keep the Herald, there's been not a sound.

Yet the Herald perseveres, with a good sports section, solid business reporting and an occasional local news story that makes you sit up and take notice. (No, not Antonin Scalia's chin flip. But this, from today's paper, on ticket-happy troopers on the Massachusetts Turnpike, is definitely worth reading.)

With the Globe experiencing serious financial problems, it's more important than ever that Boston remain a two-daily town. If the Herald weren't around, the Globe's owner, the New York Times Co., would be all the more tempted to hack away with reckless abandon.

Under the volcano

My first thought about the New York Post gossip-column scandal is that Gayle Fee, Laura Raposa, Carol Beggy and Mark Shanahan must be eating their hearts out -- or faxing their résumés to New York. Why shouldn't they lust after some boodle of their own?

My second is that Jared Paul Stern, the gossip columnist charged with attempting to shake down billionare Ronald Burkle for $220,000, must feel like someone who's been thrown into the volcano in a desperate attempt to appease the gods. It's not that what Stern is accused of isn't reprehensible -- it is. It's just that he doesn't look a whole lot worse, qualitatively or quantitatively, than his fellow Page Six gossips. Especially his editor.

The Post's archrival, the New York Daily News, broke the story last week (technically, the Post itself broke it on its own Web site), reporting that Stern and Burkle had met over Burkle's complaints that Page Six was writing unflattering fiction about him. According to the Daily News, Stern responded that a $100,000 down payment and $10,000 in 12 monthly installments could ensure him all the good coverage he wanted.

But the thing is, no one is coming out of this looking good. On Sunday, for instance, the Daily News reported that Page Six editor Richard Johnson and his staff are regularly lavished with high-value gifts. The story continues:

Johnson was feted at a bachelor party last month that cost in excess of $50,000 hosted by soft-core porn king Joe Francis at his palatial estate in Punta Mita, on Mexico's glorious Pacific coast. More than 2,000 miles from New York, the resort area boasts 343 days of 80-degree sunshine.

Francis, 32, producer of the topless "Girls Gone Wild" spring-break video series, flew the party from New York on his private jet. Francis appears regularly in the column, almost always in a positive way.

Johnson also got a free trip to the Academy Awards last month, paid for by ABC and Mercedes-Benz. The trip included first-class airfare, a three-night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel and a car and driver.

Johnson may not have taken money, but it sounds like virtually nothing else is out of bounds.

You might expect that the New York Times would react to all this with bemused attachment. Well, bemused, yes; detached, not at all. The Times has been riding this story since the moment it broke, and its editors appear to be enjoying themselves at least as much as Daily News editor Martin Dunn, who, by the way, was the Boston Herald's editor for about 15 minutes during the early 1990s.

In this Times account of Stern's being caught on tape, Stern told Burkle that a business executive (reported elsewhere as Ronald Perelman) bought himself good coverage by hiring Johnson's fiancée (now wife) -- and that media mogul Harvey Weinstein had helped himself by publishing books written by Page Six gossips and had put Johnson to work on a screenplay.

OK, Stern's not the greatest source. But the bit about Burke's fiancée is true. And it ought to be easy enough to verify the Weinstein stuff -- as I hope the Times did before publishing it. Otherwise, the Times would be no better than a blog.

Seen in this light, Stern's claim that he was not soliciting cash but, rather, an investment by Burkle in his clothing line strikes me not as sleazy behavior that makes him different from Johnson but, rather, sleazy behavior that makes him very much like Johnson.

If Stern is telling the truth, then I see no particular reason why he ought to be singled out. I say the gods at the bottom of the volcano ought to demand the whole lot of them.

Journalists and math: Not a good mix. An earlier error has now been fixed. Thank you, Mike.

Apple's mixed blessing

Please pardon the lack of recent entries -- there have been too many other things on my plate. As Mark Twain would have said, it's better not to blog and be thought stupid than to blog and remove all doubt.

So nothing too heavy this morning, except to note that Apple announced yesterday that its new, Intel-based Macs will semi-support Windows, letting users boot up either OS X or WinXP.

Such a machine would obviously solve the multimedia problem I was whining about a couple of weeks ago. But I wonder. Even though Apple claims it's not going to give Microsoft its unconditional love, doesn't the mere existence of a Windows option reduce the incentive for software companies to write Mac versions of their products?

"You don't need a Mac version -- just run Windows" is not the sort of advice I want to hear.

Shafer's in love, too

So much so that he's canceling his New York Times subscription and going all-digital.

Looking for some help

Does anyone know of a reasonably well-done one-hour (or less) documentary dedicated to the proposition that the media are hopelessly suffused with liberal bias? I'd like to show it to my History of Journalism students before the semester ends. Thank you in advance.

No comment necessary

I wouldn't bother to quote this stuff, except that Aaron Margolis has a really good-looking blog design and even manages to attract comments. So I guess he's fair game. Anyway, I briefly alluded to his attack on Jill Carroll yesterday, and now feel compelled to follow up. To wit:

The real story that is being avoided is that Jill Carroll read a script at the terrorists' gun point that could just as easily been written by Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Ted Kennedy, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, George Soros, Sen. Russ Feingold, or Michael Moore. You may also to that list: Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Saddam Hussein, and all the cowardly masked terrorists you see in videos released by al Jazeera. The real story here is that the terrorists used Jill Carroll to spread their propaganda, the same propaganda that is commonly professed by the anti-war left wing of the United States, including prominent Democratic members of Congress.

Yes, that's right. The "real story." Absolutely amazing.

I think I'm in love

The New York Times today unveils a complete redesign of its Web site. It looks great. The best part is that it has a new feature called "Today's Paper," which gives you the digital equivalent of what you might otherwise have delivered to your doorstep in the morning.

Before, the Times site only gave you the front page. When you'd go to the other sections, it was hard to tell whether you were looking at something from that day's paper, an article that wouldn't appear until the next day or just a wire-service update that would never find its way into print. For someone old-fashioned enough to want to read that day's paper, even if I didn't get to it until evening, I like the new arrangement much better.

Two suggestions:

• It looks as though there are no story descriptions for "Today's Paper" except for material appearing on the front page. Bring them back.
• Offer a week's worth of "Today's Paper." That's what the Wall Street Journal does for paying subscribers. It would be a great feature to offer TimesSelect customers who, say, missed the previous day's edition and want to page through it quickly.

Overall, though, this looks like a big step forward for a newspaper Web site that was already among the best.

Update: I missed it at first, but there is indeed a feature called "The Times in Print from the Past 7 Days." Thanks to Geoff for pointing it out.

Good news from Bruce

This looks like the best news from Bruce Springsteen in years. I'm not a Pete Seeger fan, but I like bluegrass, and I've always loved Springsteen's treatment of old-time material such as the classic Woody Guthrie songs he performed on "Folkways: A Vision Shared."

So "We Shall Overcome" strikes me as a good bet to be his best album in ages -- including the tolerable-but-overrated "Devils & Dust" and his hideous 9/11 album, "The Rising." It's about time.

Another one

A blogger named Aaron Margolis, who actually wrote that Jill Carroll "set herself up to be a new hero for the liberal left with her criticism of the Bush Administration" in one of her death-threat-coerced interviews, hasn't apologized either. But, after all, he was just asking questions. Right?

LGF's sorry performance

Charles Johnson is "happy to report" that Jill Carroll isn't actually ready to run off and join the Sunni insurgency. And he links approvingly to a blog that blames Carroll's ordeal on the media (the "MSM," natch) for its exploitation of freelancers.

Chuck: You viciously smeared a woman who'd been terrorized for 82 days because you thought she kinda sorta looked like she meant it when she criticized the U.S. mission in Iraq and said nice things about her captors.

I'm glad you're happy. Now how about an apology?