One more reason

I almost forgot. One more reason that print circulation at the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette may be falling more steeply than elsewhere in the country is the credit-card disaster of last winter.

Now, what would make me remember that?

Earlier today we received a message on our answering machine to call a fraud hotline for one of our Visa cards. A half-hour ago, a very helpful woman at Chase told us that $2,700 had been transferred from that card and into someone's pocket just yesterday. We canceled the account immediately.

I have no one to blame but myself. Shortly after the story broke some months back, I checked to see whether we were among those whose credit-card numbers had been stolen. We were, but I figured that if nothing bad happened immediately, then we would be OK. Inertia is a powerful force.

And how stupid and/or naive am I? I just got finished entering a different credit-card number at the Globe's customer-service site.

Do I know for a fact that this attempted $2,700 transfer was related to the Globe? No. But I'm willing to bet that it was.

Ellis on Welch

Have a look (sub. req.) at former Boston Globe columnist John Ellis' latest for the Wall Street Journal, in which he analyzes the Jack Welch/ Jack Connors/ Joe O'Donnell play for the Globe. His take on how Welch managed to prevent an auction that would drive up the price is fascinating, if a little hard to follow.

Still, Ellis' bottom line strikes me as exactly right: "Mr. Sulzberger would be a fool, of course, to sell the Globe to anyone at this juncture."

Oh, and in case last week's ridiculous back-and-forth over the meaning of "in play" isn't completely dead, here is Ellis' lede:

Last week in Boston, a group of local businessmen led by Jack Welch let it be known that they were interested in acquiring the Boston Globe from the New York Times Company for $500-$600 million. The offer served to put the Globe "in play" (as the talking heads say) and to galvanize Class B (non-family) shareholders of Times stock, already up in arms about mismanagement and financial performance.

Don't feel as though you have to respond, Mike.

Thanks to Adam, who also points to a fuller summary of Ellis' column for those who aren't Journal subscribers.

Kerry and the "S"-word

Isn't it obvious that John Kerry was referring to President Bush — and not to American troops — as "stupid"? Well, not to some people, apparently. Kerry, hardly the political world's most artful speaker, has managed to put his foot in his mouth once again. We'll be hearing about this right up until Election Day.

Kerry responds here, calling his remarks "a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops."

Then again: I don't know. Maybe I'm seeing this through the lens of what I know Kerry meant. But if you watch him actually speaking the words — wow: "Education — if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

I mean, I instantly knew what he meant. But that's not what he said. I guess.

But he's a funny guy! Let's not forget this Kerry knee-slapper about Dan Quayle. Guaranteed to win you a home visit from the Secret Service.

A citizen-journalism pioneer

I've got a profile of citizen-journalism pioneer Dan Gillmor in the new issue of CommonWealth Magazine. Gillmor, author of the much-celebrated "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People," is the founder of the Center for Citizen Media, which brings him to Harvard for a few days each month.

Gillmor's a former technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Philosophically, he's at the midpoint between the New Media triumphalists and the Old Media traditionalists.

"Contrary to some folks in this area, I'm a big fan of traditional media," Gillmor says. "I want to help them work in ways that they've never done before. I want to work with people doing citizen media independently, and in places where that intersects with journalism, I hope I can help."

Keeping up with the "Unlikely Bigfoot"

Three years ago I profiled Bill Siroty, a New Hampshire physician with an unusual hobby: staying up half the night to compile a daily, 40,000-word e-mail of every political story he could find. Some 500 people, including much of the nation's political press, were subscribers to his free service.

Well, now the former Howard Dean supporter has taken his New Hampshire Links service to the next level, unveiling a slick-looking, well-organized Web site. The Hotline is linking to him as its premier source for New Hampshire political news.

Who needs The Note when you've got Dr. Bill?

Answering the obvious with the obvious

The Boston Globe today reports on the latest drop in newspaper circulation, including particularly steep declines at the Globe and the Boston Herald. Why are things worse here? Robert Gavin's article makes the case that Net-savvy Massachusetts is making the transition to the Internet even faster than the rest of the country.

Gavin could have cited numbers from the Globe's own Web site, Boston.com. According to figures from last January — already out of date — Boston.com attracts some 4 million unique users every month, and has a million registered users. The unique-user figure is the same as the one I referenced in this post last October, but the number of registered users is up considerably. Surely there are a considerably number of people among those 1 million registered users who've canceled home delivery in the past year or two.

The story is similar at the Herald, where Jesse Noyes ends his report with this: "BostonHerald.com averaged over 2 million unique visitors a month, up 33 percent year-over-year, according to the most recently reported figures."

Again, last year I noted that the Herald claimed 3 million a month for its online network, which includes BostonHerald.com, the massive Town Online site and a few advertising properties. Now Herald Interactive says that number has risen to 4 million, an increase of 33 percent — precisely on track with the 33 percent increase that the Herald claims just for its own Web site.

The Herald Web site has become considerably more attractive in the past year, as publisher Pat Purcell removed the paid-subscription barrier for columnists. Being able to get your fix of Peter Gelzinis, Margery Eagan and Howie Carr for free is a large disincentive to buying the paper. But Purcell, to his credit, knows that he has to figure out a new business model if the Herald is to survive.

By the way, the circulation numbers are pretty stomach-churning.

The Globe is down 7 percent on weekdays, from 414,000 to 386,000, and 10 percent on Sundays, from 652,000 to 587,000. It wasn't too many years ago that the Globe guaranteed advertisers at least 500,000 on weekdays and at least 800,000 on Sundays.

The Herald is down 12 percent on weekdays, from 230,000 to 203,000, and 13 percent on Sundays, from 132,000 to 115,000.

Not good, especially given industry estimates that it takes somewhere between 10 and 100 online readers to make up for the revenue generated by one print reader. (I can't remember where I picked that up — perhaps a Media Nation reader can enlighten us.)

The point, though, is that dropping print numbers are just part of a much larger picture.

Special dogsled edition

How early is the North Pole edition of the Boston Globe printed? As you can see from this image — and no doubt from your Sunday Globe, unless you take home delivery in Boston's northern suburbs — the death of the great Red Auerbach leads the paper today, as of course it should.

Yet there isn't a mention of Auerbach's death in the edition of the Globe that was delivered to Media Nation Central this morning, even though it made the front of the New York Times, which was delivered along with it.

Of course, Auerbach's image dominates the front of the Boston Herald, too.

Now, I realize that certain things in life are constrained by the laws of physics. But tell me, Steve, exactly why is it that I pay for home delivery?

Special Northeastern aside: this Globe sidebar, a talker with Celtics fans who were interviewed at the Garden last night, is by NU student Glenn Yoder.

Healey's river of denial

This is pretty incredible. Kerry Healey tells the Salem News that her gubernatorial candidacy sank like a rock because the public was repulsed not by the negative ads with which she assaulted Deval Patrick, but, rather, by negative ads taken out against her.

Here is the top of Ed Mason's story:

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey yesterday dismissed recent public opinion polls showing she trails Democrat Deval Patrick by at least 25 points because of the negative tone of her attack ads. Instead, in a meeting here with Salem News editors, she blamed an onslaught of negative ads launched by Patrick and others for her plummet in the polls.

"If you tallied up all the negative ads run against me and the governor since the primary," Healey said, "I've run maybe three negative ads and they've run, I don't know, 20."

There is so much that I could say, but I'll leave it at this: Even Scotto gets it. And denial is a river that runs through Prides Crossing.

And you thought Howie Carr was rough

From CFO.com: "Jack Welch, retired General Electric chief executive, has partnered with Hack Connors, a Boston advertising executive, to consider a bid for the Boston Globe newspaper."

Jack Welch's journalistic values (II)

It was Election Night 2000. Fox News had just called Florida for George W. Bush. And, according to allegations that were later investigated by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, General Electric chairman Jack Welch put his arm around NBC News' director of elections, Sheldon Gawiser, and asked him why NBC was not doing the same.

Welch, of course, was both a major contributor to the Republican Party as well as Gawiser's überboss, since GE owned NBC. The behavior described by Waxman is the very definition of inappropriate interference in the news operation by a meddlesome owner.

The Waxman investigation came to a head on Sept. 10, 2001, when the California Democrat released an eight-page letter detailing efforts that Welch had allegedly made to influence NBC's election coverage. We all know what happened the next day; the investigation was quietly shelved.

But the allegations raise more questions as to whether Welch would respect the traditional dividing line between the newsroom and the publisher's suite should he be successful in putting together a deal to buy the Boston Globe from the New York Times Co.

I learned about the allegations regarding Welch's behavior that night from Phil Rosenthal's column in today's Chicago Tribune. Digging deeper, I found this Los Angeles Times story on Waxman's Web site. Here's the heart of it:

According to Waxman's sources, Welch spent much of the night at NBC's decision desk, where election returns were projected.

Among their allegations:

• Welch and other visitors "distracted" NBC News Director of Elections Sheldon R. Gawiser with repeated questions about how his projection decisions were made.
• Welch had access to raw election data that weren't available to news anchors, writers, producers or other on-air reporters.
• After instruction about reading the data, Welch later concluded that Bush had won Florida, and shared his analysis with Gawiser. Witnesses told Waxman that "at almost the same time, John Ellis — George W. Bush's cousin and Fox News' senior decision desk official — called both the Florida and the national election for George W. Bush. Immediately after this announcement, Mr. Welch was observed standing behind Dr. Gawiser with his hand on his shoulder, asking why NBC was not also calling the election for Bush."

According to Waxman's sources, "shortly after this," Gawiser called the election for Bush. A similar call was made by all major television news outlets within minutes.

Unfortunately, Waxman's investigation was a mess, marred by his insistence that NBC turn over a videotape — by subpoena, if necessary — that might have shed light on Welch's behavior. Waxman's attempted assault on the First Amendment was the subject of a contentious interview with Waxman by NPR's "On the Media" and in a letter by the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

And even Waxman conceded that Welch may have been joking when he reportedly said to Gawiser, "How much would I have to pay you to call the race for Bush?"

Nevertheless, as Waxman wrote in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times in August 2001, "I don't know if Jack Welch acted inappropriately on election night, but it's a question that's both easily answered and worth answering."

Now more than ever.

Dept. of bizarre analogies

"The two-party system works. Even in Palestine they have Hamas and Fatah." — Gov. Mitt Romney, speaking yesterday at a Kerry Healey event.

Phoenix editor leaves

Bill Jensen has left as editor of the Boston Phoenix just a few months after being named to the job, and barely a year and a half after coming to the paper. I have zero insight into this, but here is the announcement.

Jensen is apparently going to be chief Web guru for the New Times/Village Voice chain.

Fortunately for the Phoenix, Jensen's predecessor, Peter Kadzis, is still around.

Not the only potential buyers

As I wrote yesterday, all sorts of possible buyers of the Boston Globe would surface now that Jack Welch, Jack Connors and company had made their interest known. Well, check this out from today's Wall Street Journal:

Other potential buyers have been sniffing around the Globe this year as its financial troubles have mounted....

Ben Taylor, the former Globe publisher whose family sold the Globe to the New York Times, has long been unhappy with the performance of the business and has talked about wanting to buy it back, according to a person close to the situation. Mr. Taylor didn't return a call for comment.

Private equity firms such as Providence Equity Partners, Bain Capital and Blackstone Group have been eyeing the paper as a possible target, although it is unclear if they have reached out to the Taylors, according to a private equity executive.

The Globe today publishes a correction — in fact, the New York Times Co. has not denied that it would sell the Globe. Instead, the company has said nothing one way or the other.

Meanwhile, the Times itself reports that Welch has talked with Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell about being a possible partner in the Globe deal.

This is going to get very interesting.

Jack Welch's journalistic values

What kind of a co-owner of the Boston Globe would retired General Electric chairman Jack Welch make? Assuming yesterday's news gets beyond the speculative stage, that will become a key question. And according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a left-leaning media-watch organization, the answer could prove to be troubling.

Remember, being a media executive is old hat for Welch: GE acquired NBC in 1986, just five years into his chairmanship. FAIR's research found that GE's business priorities affected NBC News' coverage mainly through unspoken intimidation — but that Welch wasn't above making his journalistic priorities explicit, either.

Here are some choice tidbits from a piece that Jim Naureckas wrote in 1995 in Extra!, FAIR's magazine:

[Former NBC News president] Larry Grossman ... was told in no uncertain terms what GE expected from him. "You work for GE!" Welch once shouted at his subordinate, poking a finger at Grossman's chest (Ken Auletta, Three Blind Mice).

Welch told Grossman not to use phrases like "Black Monday" to describe the 1987 stock market crash, because it was depressing the price of blue chip stocks like GE. And warned the NBC News chief, "Don't bend over backwards to go after us just because we own you." Welch even told Grossman to allow Today show weather forecaster Willard Scott to keep plugging GE light bulbs (Lawrence Grossman, The Electronic Republic; Electronic Media, 11/11/91).

In 1991, Extra! reported that the Today show wouldn't even touch a story about a boycott of GE products organized by peace activists as a way of drawing attention the company's role in producing nuclear weapons. Todd Putnam, then the editor of National Boycott News, wrote that a producer told him he'd be "looking for a new job on Tuesday" if he were to greenlight such a segment.

Do you think Welch would take a high-profile ownership stake in the Globe while promising to keep his hands off the news coverage? I don't. And his stewardship of NBC is powerful evidence.

No fair, Channel 4!

WBZ-TV (Channel 4), which has done such a great job with Flash video on its Web site, has reverted to a Windows/Explorer combination for its post-debate webcast with Jack Williams and John Henning. I bolted downstairs to Media Nation Central as soon as the debate was over, but alas, I can't watch.

The Web stream for WBZ Radio (AM 1030) is working (yes, I realize I could just turn on the radio, but what fun is that?), so I'm listening to Paul Sullivan, the Comeback Kid.

I thought the debate itself benefited from not having a live audience or a panel of questioners. Moderator Jon Keller did a good job of keeping things on track while letting Deval Patrick and Christy Mihos mix it up with Kerry Healey. (I did think Keller's first couple of questions, on guns and pot, were odd.) I thought Grace Ross was particularly good tonight. I was also encouraged to see Patrick do his own counterpunching and not just play Edgar Bergen to Mihos' Charlie McCarthy.

Look, I'll be honest — I fell asleep for part of the debate, not because it was boring, but because it was one of those days. Barring some cataclysmic event, it's all over except for the Patrick victory party. So I doubt anyone was hanging on every word.

In play

The Boston Globe is now officially in play. That's the real meaning behind Steve Bailey's front-page story reporting that a local group wants to buy the Globe from the New York Times Co.

Not that retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Boston advertising executive Jack Connors, concession magnate Joseph O'Donnell et al. are necessarily going to succeed in their quest. But watch: Now everyone who's ever harbored the fantasy of owning the Globe is going to surface. The sense is that now is the time. (The Boston Herald adds a wrinkle: Mall developer Steve Karp may be involved with the Welch/ Connors/ O'Donnell group as well.)

That said, it could well be that the Times Co. won't even consider selling. The company bought the Globe in 1992 for $1.1 billion — a huge amount, given that the Times Co.'s worth 14 years ago was $2.2 billion.

Did you see what Bailey's reporting the Globe is worth now? Try $550 million to $600 million, in 2006 dollars. Surely Arthur Sulzberger Jr. would like to goose that up before unloading the Globe, unless he concludes that the price is only going to keep dropping.

Last Friday I mused about the possibility of local ownership, writing:

What's missing is an identifiable group of Boston-based investors who'd be interested in buying the Globe. I would love to see such a group step forward so we could all have a look. A locally owned Globe might be a better Globe — but it all depends on who those owners might be.

I have to say that Times Co. ownership looks pretty good compared to the Welch crowd. Perhaps my own last name will allow me to get away with a bit of ethnic profiling, but this looks like the Revenge of the Pasty-Faced Irishmen. This is Old Boston, not New Boston — a nostalgia move, about the past rather than the future. Two items in Bailey's column tell you all you need to know:

— Mike Barnicle, the ethically challenged former columnist for the Globe and, more recently, the Herald, is involved in some sort of consulting role. Barnicle has been a frequent, if little-seen, presence on MSNBC (co-owned by GE) since leaving the Globe in 1998. Barnicle's wife, Bank of America executive Anne Finucane, used to work for Connors. Might this presage Barnicle's return to the City & Region front? Good grief.

— Bailey reports that it's "unclear" whether the Welch group wants Boston.com. Frankly, I'd be a lot more impressed if the would-be owners wanted Boston.com but were "unclear" about whether they wanted the Globe. The arithmetic is pretty simple. Revenues at the paper are huge but dropping. Revenues at the Web site are small but rising.

The Welch/ Connors/ O'Donnell move comes at a time when industry observers are questioning not just the chain-ownership model but the very idea of whether newspapers can remain a profitable business.

As Bailey and others (including Media Nation) have noted, the Philadelphia Inquirer has gone from chain to local ownership, and the Chicago-based Tribune Co. is under pressure to sell the Los Angeles Times to local investors.

But the new owners of the Inquirer have announced cuts that go beyond what Knight Ridder ever tried to do. And though Bailey reports that the Welch group would be willing to operate the Globe at a lower profit margin than the Times Co., the Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Globe right now isn't earning any profits at all.

Among the more promising models is that of the nonprofit foundation, which is how papers such as the St. Petersburg Times, the Christian Science Monitor and Britain's Guardian.

Could such an arrangement work with a large metropolitan daily such as the Globe?

Bob Jordan checks in

Robert Jordan, a former president of the Boston Globe's newsroom employees union, writes in response to this item from last Friday:

Dear Dan,

In one of your recent postings, you asked readers to check out a "toxic" quote from Dan Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, which appeared in the New York Post, which, in reference to the New York Times Co., owner of the Boston Globe: "It seems to us they’ve ruined the paper and are guilty of gutting it."

You stated that his quote "goes far beyond the rhetoric of previous Globe union heads, such as Robert Jordan and Steve Richards." I may write or speak a little differently than Dan, but both of us would be talking about the same reality of the Globe's cost-cutting measures and the devastating impact they are having on the workplace and upon the hard-working employees who are forced to pay unrealistic and unaffordable health care costs.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Jordan

Anyone for a chorus or two of "Solidarity Forever"?

Update: Jordan has also written a response to Mitchell Zuckoff on Romenesko.

Not talkin' 'bout my generation

Jon Keller gives props to Barack Obama for admitting that he inhaled. "Finally," Keller writes, "a baby-boomer political candidate who tells the truth!"

But alas — Obama is just 45 years old, which makes him more GenX than Baby Boom. And, as Jon knows, the Xers have always hated us Boomers for our arrogance and dissembling.

This just in

Kerry Healey's got Deval Patrick right where she wants him. According to a new poll by Suffolk University and WHDH-TV (Channel 7), Healey now trails Patrick by 27 points. Healey's unfavorable rating is up to 53 percent.

Obviously Healey's strategy of buying boneheadedly offensive attack ads is working: Patrick's folks are now likely to become overconfident, thus increasing the chance that he'll blow it down the stretch.

Via Blue Mass. Group, which also has poll results showing Patrick ahead by 25 points and 24 points.

Patrick should ask his Internet supporters to send money to Healey so that she can buy some more ads.

Two things

I should be grading papers, so just two quick observations.

— Is Kerry Healey's gubernatorial campaign now the dirtiest in state history? Oh, I suppose those orange-jumpsuit-clad demonstrators have nothing to do with her campaign. (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.) I'm especially impressed with a new wrinkle: terrorizing the 12-year-old son of Deval Patrick's campaign manager.

— Former Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoff, now a Boston University professor, is right on the mark in his letter to Romenesko, in which he says that the Boston Newspaper Guild's request that politicians write to the New York Times Co. on its behalf is "a textbook case of seeking favors from sources and subjects."

The Globe reports on Zuckoff's letter here, and quotes Guild president Dan Totten as saying that Zuckoff's scenario is "an extreme stretch." The article also quotes my colleague Steve Burgard, director of Northeastern's School of Journalism.

Question: Is it relevant that Totten has an advertising background rather than one in news? Perhaps the potential conflict of interest never occurred to him. Granted, he doesn't govern alone. But still.

Gee whiz

Former Boston Herald (and Phoenix) sports columnist Michael Gee today absolutely unloads on the Globe. Gee's a good enough writer that it doesn't seem completely out of context or gratuitous when the F-bombs start flying. But whoa!

In particular, Gee sees Brian McGrory's suggestion that Green Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross get out of the governor's race as evidence of the Globe's institutional arrogance — an arrogance that's now as laughable as it is irritating, given the paper's declining readership and advertising revenue. Only that's not, ahem, how Gee puts it.

Via Universal Hub.

And speaking of the governor's race, I finally got to hear last night's debate. Let me try to make amends for being so late to the scene by giving you my Official Generic David Gergen Question, good for any debate and all occasions: I'd like to ask you an incredibly complex question about a troubling social problem that experts have been struggling with for decades. You each have 20 seconds.

Update: Kevin has a similar observation about Gergen, except that he cuts him more slack than I'm willing to.

Thinking about a locally owned Globe

What would a locally owned Boston Globe look like? How would it differ from the New York Times Co.-owned version?

It may be too soon to answer those questions, but it's certainly not too soon to ask them. The Globe continues to be a drain on Times Co. revenues. Company executives respond by cutting the Globe still further. It's an endless cycle, and one that is getting increasingly nasty.

Today's Boston Herald reports that some 20 politicians and union officials, including Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. Stephen Lynch, have signed letters urging the Times Co. to ease up on the slice-o-matic. And check out this toxic quote from Dan Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, in today's New York Post: "It seems to us they've ruined the paper and are guilty of gutting it." This goes far beyond the rhetoric of previous Globe union heads, such as Robert Jordan and Steve Richards.

Let's be honest: Local ownership would not save the Globe from advertising and circulation pressures. You hear a lot of talk in newspaper circles about local owners' being willing to accept lower profit margins, such as 5 or 10 percent, as opposed to the 20 percent or more demanded by corporate owners such as Gannett, the former Knight Ridder and the Times Co. But as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, the Globe right now isn't making any money at all.

Whether locally owned or not, large regional dailies such as the Globe are going to keep getting smaller and more focused on covering their region rather than the entire world. When the Times, the Washington Post, the BBC et al. are just a click away, the mission statement of a paper such as the Globe has to change.

Nevertheless, the corporate-ownership model may be reaching the end of its useful life in the newspaper business. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News have been sold to a local group. The Chicago-based Tribune Co. is under pressure to sell the Los Angeles Times to L.A. investors. Why not here?

What's missing is an identifiable group of Boston-based investors who'd be interested in buying the Globe. I would love to see such a group step forward so we could all have a look. A locally owned Globe might be a better Globe — but it all depends on who those owners might be.

Update: Romenesko's got PDFs of the letters. And the Times reports that its parent company isn't selling the Globe. Not yet!

Coloring the debate

Here's a pretty amazing detail that Kimberly Atkins includes in her account of last night's debate: "Healey ... stationed supporters outside the debate posing in orange jumpsuits with signs reading 'Inmates for Deval Patrick' ..."

Healey's nonexistent narrative

A disadvantage to recording the gubernatorial debates for later listening in the Media Nationmobile is that I still don't know what happened, except second-hand. Seth Gitell's take strikes me as characteristically sharp. Check out what he says about Kerry Healey:

My only interpretation of this unprecedented campaign: that is, a candidacy where the candidate never introduces herself, never runs an ad telling the public about her background, gives voters no "story" or "narrative" to latch on about who she is. That is always my first question in writing political profiles. All candidates need to lay this positive foundation so they can weather the difficulties of a political campaign — and give voters a reason to vote for them. Either Healey's advisers are unaware of this basic fact or something is blocking the Healey campaign — or the candidate herself — from telling this story. I have a couple theories about this. One is that her campaign team has no confidence in any story Healey would tell pro-actively. Another is that Healey has difficulty talking about herself.

OK, that's more about Healey's stunningly negative ads than about the debate, but there you go.

What Healey's doing isn't working. Adam Reilly was among those who pointed to a new Wall Street Journal poll showing that Deval Patrick's actually gaining again following a rocky couple of weeks. His lead is now more than 22 points. Another round of attack ads isn't going to do it for Healey.

Earlier today I was talking with a fellow political junkie. Her take was that Healey should have differentiated herself from Mitt Romney early on — come out foursquare for same-sex marriage and made it clear that she's a moderate Republican in the Bill Weld mold. That's who we all suspect she really is. Yet she spends 99 percent of her energy pandering to the tiny number of people who call radio talk shows.

If I'd been advising Healey, I'd have told her that she was probably going to lose, but that she should do everything she could to establish herself as a likable, moderate, competent alternative should Patrick self-destruct. And if he cruised to victory — well, there are worse things than losing.

Like destroying your own reputation, as Healey is doing right now.

Net loss at the Globe

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Boston Globe is en route to its first unprofitable year in a long time. It's the same old story — circulation is plummeting; Web readership is skyrocketing; but online advertising revenues aren't nearly enough to offset the decline in print ads.

The Journal story adds perspective to last week's news that Globe management doesn't want the union to share in the growth of online revenues. The Boston Herald today carries a story that the Newspaper Guild has rejected the proposed contract.

Shaw's, Allen Ginsberg and obscenity

It looks like Shaw's may have violated its own policy in banishing copies of the Portland Phoenix, which carries an inside-the-paper nude photo of the late Allen Ginsberg and his lover, Peter Orlovsky, to accompany this article. In a statement reported by the Portland Press Herald, Shaw's spokeswoman Judy Chong says:

"It's not our policy to censor material produced by an independent publisher if the material falls within the guidelines of the law and is not considered patently obscene or offensive. Shaw's reviewed the content of this publication and decided to remove the paper based on the nude images."

If you want to parse this legally, you've got to put a lot of weight on the word "offensive." Because something that is obscene under the Supreme Court's Miller v. California standard is, by definition, illegal — not that there's always any sure way of knowing in advance whether it's obscene. But there is no way that this particular image could be considered obscene. It doesn't depict sexual acts, and it obviously has artistic merit.

Shaw's clearly has the right to ban anything it wishes. I'm just pointing out how far off Shaw's is in invoking obscenity as a reason for removing the paper.

After all, the photo is freely available on photographer Elsa Dorfman's Web site (that's her at the top of this item) and, as Phoenix editor Peter Kadzis tells the Press Herald, is on permanent display at the Museum of Fine Arts. So far, the anti-obscenity cops at the FBI have not descended on either Dorfman's studio or the MFA.

A setback for Lydon

Christopher Lydon's year-and-a-half-old radio program, "Open Source," has been dealt a blow, but apparently not a fatal one. Since its inception, "Open Source" has been ostensibly based at WUML Radio (91.5 FM), the UMass Lowell radio station. Now, according to this post by Lydon, interim chancellor David MacKenzie has decided to end the relationship.

The Lowell Sun editorializes that "Open Source" was just too expensive, noting that Lydon is paid $12,500 a month.

The UMass Lowell connection has been an odd one from the beginning. As I reported in March 2005, the move was highly unpopular with the students and community activists who were involved in WUML.

Still, it sounded like it could be a good deal for UMass. At the time, there was talk of building a new state-of-the-art studio at the university, and of Lydon hosting a Lowell-only show on Fridays with the help of students. That never came to pass, and Lydon is still only on the air four evenings a week — from Boston.

Lydon's partnership with PRI is intact, and he continues to broadcast from 7 to 8 p.m. at WGBH Radio (89.7 FM).

Lydon writes:

It's not easy to get a radio show off the ground, and UMass Lowell supported us through a year and a half of a then untested concept that debuted on three stations. Support from UMass Lowell gave us time to build an audience of more than 150,000 listeners a night on thirty-one stations. Around 80,000 different people come to our website each month, from more than 150 different countries. 8,000 people download our podcasts.

"Open Source" is excellent, and Lydon was off the air for too long before his return. Let's hope this is no more than a temporary setback.

No fingerprints

It looks like we might never know who tipped off the media about Deval Patrick's brother-in-law Bernard Sigh. In today's Boston Globe, Andrea Estes reports:

The Globe received an anonymous two-page document last week describing the criminal case. The Globe immediately verified the rape conviction and Sigh's residence in Massachusetts and then checked with the sex offender registry to determine if Sigh had fulfilled a requirement to register.

The Globe inquiry prompted state officials to notify Sigh that he had failed to register, but the editors decided against publishing a story after finding no relevance to Patrick's record or qualifications. Responding to inquiries from the Globe, the campaign said Patrick had never intervened on Sigh's behalf and the Globe found nothing to contradict that assertion.

This expands slightly on the statement that the Globe reportedly posted on its Web site yesterday and then removed. And it looks like the perfect political crime: Dump the documents anonymously, and then sit back and watch what happens. From this, I would have to assume that the Herald doesn't know where the documents came from either.

The culprit is almost certainly a Kerry Healey supporter who works in a state agency that has access to such documents. But Patrick may have gone too far yesterday when he blamed it on the Healey campaign. She immediately denied having anything to do with it, and demanded an apology from Patrick.

Finally, a word to Patrick-bashers who've been posting here and here: You seem to assume that those of us who are appalled by what's happened believe Sigh should have been left alone. No. He is a convicted rapist. If someone learned that he's unregistered, there's absolutely nothing wrong with notifying the Sex Offender Registry Board.

What's slimy about this is the fact that the press was tipped off. Sigh is not a public figure, and this would not have been news if it weren't for his family ties.

As for who leaked the documents, it looks like this is going to be a tough one to crack. But I hope that our political press at least makes the attempt.

Update: I endorse Anonymous 8:59's theory of a California connection. As for the national Republican involvement that he suspects, we'll have to wait and see.

Update II: Sorry, but if Patrick is parsing his language as finely as David of Blue Mass. Group thinks he is, then he deserves to be criticized, not praised.

As David notes, Patrick said yesterday of his brother-in-law and sister: "By no rules of common decency should their private struggles become a public issue. But this is the politics of Kerry Healey."

If that doesn't mean Patrick's blaming the Healey campaign, then he worked for Bill Clinton way too long.

Will the Globe lower the boom?

Odd goings-on over the fallout from the story about Deval Patrick's brother-in-law Bernard Sigh, who was outed in the Herald today as an unregistered sex offender.

Dave Wedge, who wrote the first story, has done a follow-up in which the Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB) claims that the initial inquiry about Sigh came from the Globe. Wedge writes:

The SORB originally investigated Sigh's criminal record after an inquiry from a Boston Globe reporter, said Kelly Nantel, spokeswoman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety. The letter was sent after the SORB confirmed his record and determined he is required to register, she said.

So who tipped off the Globe? Obviously someone has been shopping this around. Presumably this slime artist turned to the Herald after having been jilted on Morrissey Boulevard.

More intrigue: Blue Mass. Group claims that the Globe posted this statement on its Web site earlier today, and then later removed it:

The Globe learned about Patrick's brother-in-law last Friday. After assurances from his campaign that Patrick did not intervene on Sigh's behalf, the paper decided not to write about the issue because it had no bearing on Patrick's candidacy for governor.

A responsible decision, I'd say. As I wrote earlier today, I'm not going to claim this isn't a story; but if I were playing editor, I'd rather not run it than run it. Sigh is a convicted rapist, and it's his responsibility to register as a sex offender. But he's not seeking office, and Patrick is not responsible for his brother-in-law's actions. Moreover, the circumstances of Sigh's crime are such that this story would be entirely unnewsworthy were it not for the Patrick connection.

Here's what Globe editors are dealing with this evening. The political community is in an uproar over this incredibly sleazy maneuver against Patrick. Everyone wants to know who's behind it. The Herald, no doubt having gotten the tip on a promise of anonymity, can't say. Maybe the Globe can — although its editors may be laboring under the same promise.

Is there someone who can get to the bottom of this ugly smear?

Good news on Paul Sullivan

The Lowell Sun reports that he's recovering from brain surgery and should be back to work soon.

Who dropped the dime?

I won't say this Herald article about Deval Patrick's brother-in-law's being an unregistered sex offender isn't a story. It is what it is. But by far the most interesting part is the question that isn't answered. Dave Wedge writes:

The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board sent [Bernard] Sigh [the brother-in-law] a letter this week alerting him that he is required to register. The letter informed him he has 10 days to comply or he will face criminal prosecution, according to Kelly Nantel, spokeswoman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety.

Nantel said the board recently learned of Sigh's rape conviction and after reviewing his record, "determined he is required to register."

"Recently learned," huh? Rape is an incredibly serious crime, and if Sigh's got to register, then he's got to register. By the Herald's account, though, it does seem that there are some nuances worth considering. Sigh was convicted 13 years ago of raping his wife; they later reconciled, and they've lived quietly in Milton since 1997. Or at least they were.

The real story here is who tipped off the Sex Offender Registry and then leaked it to the Herald. This is really sordid stuff.

Meanwhile, the Globe's Andrea Estes reports today that back when Patrick's running mate, Tim Murray, was a low-paid public defender, he took cases. Some of those cases involved suspected sex offenders.

Is this what the election is really going to turn on? Incredible.

A tale of two photos

I come to this with clean hands: I didn't think it was a big deal when the Boston Globe caught Kerry Healey using a photo from the wrong signing ceremony in one of her TV ads*. It was truthful, even if it wasn't 100 percent accurate — not good enough for journalism (or at least it shouldn't be), but plenty good enough for political advertising.

Now, then. On to Scott Allen Miller's latest, in which he claims that Deval Patrick did the same thing and no one's calling him on it.

Scott's evidence is a Patrick ad in which Romney's signing something and Healey's looking over his shoulder with a tight little smile on her face. The "something," according to the ad, is a $682 million cut in local aid. In fact, Miller points out, the photo was actually taken at the signing of the sex-offender-reform bill. Miller writes:

Let's not hold our breath that the Globe will report, let alone run on the front page of section B, that the latest Deval Patrick ad is using a picture to make the same kind of distortion in reverse.

Trouble is, Miller's lament is based on two suppositions, both ludicrous. They are:

1. That Romney and Healey would hold a public signing ceremony so the cameras could click away as they slashed nearly $700 million for local police officers, firefighters and teachers. Rest assured, that one was signed in the office, with the door closed.
   
2. That Patrick campaign officials hold the public in such contempt that they think viewers would actually believe Romney signed those cuts in public.

The shot used in the Patrick ad was clearly intended as stock footage, and was understood as such by 99 percent of those who saw it. The shot used in the Healey ad was not — viewers were deliberately led to believe Romney was signing the health-care bill when in fact he was signing the sex-offender bill.

Again, not a big deal. But to the extent that anyone was being deceived, it was by Healey, not Patrick.

*Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ad was bought for her, not by her.

"The Nietzsche Family Circus"

Click here and enjoy. Thanks to Rachel Slajda.

3,000 miles from home

Given that the Los Angeles Times has a reputation for being out of touch with its home base, I find it somehow hilarious that a new project to reinvent the newspaper has become known internally as the "Manhattan Project." Kevin Roderick has more.

Visions of nuclear armaggedon aside, the "Los Angeles Project" would definitely be a more promising name.

Surgery for Sullivan

Media Nation extends its best wishes to WBZ (AM 1030) talk-show host and Lowell Sun columnist Paul Sullivan, who's undergoing another round of brain surgery in his battle with melanoma.

More Healey hypocrisy

While the Herald slams Deval Patrick for the second day in a row with what essentially is the same story about hot tuna and squishy basketballs, the Globe offers two striking examples of Kerry Healey's hypocrisy. They're on the front page, but you have to go to the jump to grasp the extent of it.

First, Andrea Estes reports that Patrick raised about $20,000 at a fundraiser hosted by O'Neill and Associates, which lobbies on behalf of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the Big Dig project manager. It appears that Patrick guaranteed himself the worst of both worlds in agreeing to this event. He asked that no Big Dig contractors be invited, lest he soil himself with their tainted money. But by letting O'Neill organize it, he gets the bad headlines anyway.

But let me call your attention to this striking passage:

O'Neill and Associates raises money for many political candidates, mostly Democrats. Earlier this year, firm officials said, O'Neill and Associates held a fund-raiser for Patrick's Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. According to Ann Murphy, a former aide to Governor Mitt Romney who now works at O'Neill and Associates, about two-dozen people attended the February fund-raiser....

Healey's campaign slammed Patrick yesterday for using O'Neill and Associates.

Asked about Healey's fund-raiser at the O'Neill firm, a Healey spokesman refused to address her event.

"It's another example where Deval Patrick claims he's an outsider, but is following the insider playbook to a tee," said Tim O'Brien, Healey's campaign manager.

My next example is a story by Frank Phillips on Healey's half-dozen or so votes to limit access to criminal records in 2000 to 2002, when she served on the Criminal History Systems Board. Healey, of course, has been attacking Patrick for taking exactly the same position. Thus Phillips' reporting exposes a top layer of hypocrisy that should be clear to everyone.

But it's worse than that, because, underneath the hypocritical crust is a gooey filling of still more hypocrisy:

Late yesterday, Healey's campaign released a statement to the Globe saying her "experience on the board gave her a firsthand look at how the CORI [Criminal Offender Record Information] system does not serve the best interests of employers."

"Based on the nature of her position to uphold CORI laws, the lieutenant governor became aware of the need for change within the system and that criminal records must be made more available to employers," said Laura Nicoll, her campaign spokesperson. "Deval Patrick still doesn't get it. He wants to hide this information from employers."

But her actions on the board appear to contradict her public statements.

Deval Patrick? Hmmm ... Kerry Healey actually voted to hide information from employers. Now we are to believe that she wouldn't.

So she changed her mind? That seems to be what Nicoll is saying, but she doesn't come right out and say it. It wouldn't do for Healey to admit that she was for keeping the records of criminals secret before she was against it. Meanwhile, she attacks Patrick for holding precisely the same position that she did — a position that she actually got a chance to act on, at least when she bothered to show up to board meetings. (Phillips also reports that her attendance was spotty.)

Thus does Healey demonstrate her deep understanding of how the news media work. If you're prominent enough, and a major-party candidate for governor surely is, then you can say literally anything and the media will report it.

The better reporters, such as Phillips and Estes, will make some attempt to put your statements in context, but it doesn't matter. The key to success is to keep those sound bites coming. Those are far more likely to penetrate the public consciousness than the hedges and qualifications. That's B4 stuff, and who reads that?

Tussling over online revenues

Romenesko's already got this, but in case you haven't seen it, Editor & Publisher reports that Boston Globe management wants salary increases for Newspaper Guild employees to be contingent on revenues.

And print revenues only, please. Under management's proposal, increased online revenues would not count. Given that print revenues are huge but declining and Web revenues are small but rising, that sounds like an offer the Guild will refuse.

Patrick's latest woes

Here's one good thing that will likely come out of the latest revelation about Deval Patrick: If he hangs on and wins the governor's race, he's not going to begin his 2012 presidential campaign the next day.

The Boston Herald's Dave Wedge reports today that Patrick spent at least part of his time in the Clinton administration sending letters to prison officials around the country telling them to stop serving meals to inmates that were too hot or too cold, and to make sure their sheets were cleaned three times a week.

Now, I don't want to get sucked into the Herald's faux-populist inmate-bashing. Criminals are sent to prison to do time — not to be shackled in airless closets 24 hours a day and fed nothing but bread and water. There is supposed to be a rehabilitative aspect to being locked up, after all.

But, at least on the face of it, the Herald's reporting suggests that Patrick's values are out of whack with those of most people. I'm glad he was looking out for the legitimate rights of prison inmates, but this does seem to go quite a bit too far, no?

The next poll is going to be pretty interesting. Patrick was ahead by 25 points a couple of weeks ago, but that was before Kerry Healey and her supporters started blasting him as a criminal-coddling weenie.

In today's Boston Globe, Frank Phillips writes, unsurprisingly, that the Patrick campaign believes Healey's attacks aren't working, and that the Healey campaign believes they are.

Might we be getting the results of another poll this Sunday?

Update: Patrick's lead has shrunk considerably, according to the latest "fast track" poll from WBZ-TV (Channel 4).

Little people, wee hours

I finally had a chance to see Steven Delano's documentary about coming to terms with his dwarfism, "No Bigger Than a Minute."

It's excellent (disclosure: Delano includes part of an interview he conducted with me in 2003); and Delano, a longtime filmmaker, includes a number of unusual artistic touches. In that respect, it's quite different from the TLC series "Little People, Big World," a straightforward reality series starring Matt and Amy Roloff and their family.

Unfortunately, "No Bigger Than a Minute" is not getting much play locally. I got it by setting the VCR to turn on at 4 a.m. on Sunday and tape Channel 44. But catch it if you can.

With God on their side

The New York Times and the Boston Globe are in the midst of major series this week on the preferential treatment that religion — and especially evangelical Christianity — are receiving during the Bush years. The Times series, by Diana Henriques, is online here. The latest installment of the Globe series, a team effort, is here.

Of the two, I think the Globe's is more timely and more disturbing, dealing as it does with White House support of Christian organizations that provide foreign aid. The image is that of the ugly American, overtly attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity, and making more enemies for the United States through their blundering arrogance.

The Times series details an entirely different phenomenon — how religious organizations are wrapping themselves in the First Amendment to run roughshod over local zoning laws, to violate protections for sick employees, and to extend their tax breaks to profitable ventures such as housing.

Yes, I'm a big fan of the First Amendment, but it would be as if a newspaper publisher claimed that freedom of the press exempted him from having to follow OSHA guidelines.

We tend to be so focused on the disaster in Iraq that we often forget that George W. Bush and the Republican Congress are obliterating the separation of church and state. The Globe and Times series are useful reminders of that.

Unfortunate juxtaposition

Media Nation reader B.C. sends along this screen shot from the Salem News Web site:

What would make this even funnier is if it turned out that the News uses a content-management system that automatically pulled in a Salem State College ad to accompany the story.

Not the Craw, the Craw!

From today's New York Times corrections:

An entry on the hardcover best-seller list on Page 34 of the Book Review today, for "The Greatest Story Ever Sold," by Frank Rich, omitted part of the name of the publishing imprint. It is Penguin Press, not Penguin.

Don't you feel better now?

And if you don't get the headline, click here.

The joys of user content

Media Nation reader M.G. sends along word that the Boston.com entertainment message board is promoting a "Blow Job Workshop for Women in Oct." I hightailed over to see for myself, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it hadn't been taken down yet. Click here and scroll down (it's under "New Message Boards"), although it will probably be gone by the time you get there. At least at this moment, as the screen capture shows, it's also getting prominent billing on the main Arts & Entertainment page.

This is neither the result of a massive brain cramp nor a prank. Drill down and you'll see a detailed description of a "Fellatio Workshop," along with this helpful syllabus: "This is NOT simply a 'blow job' workshop. Anyone can learn tips and skills to use when performing oral sex. What makes you GREAT at it is having the desire and the confidence to do it." You can also sign up for a striptease class, or for "Sexology 101: Ladies, Get More Pleasure in Bed."

Now, I have no problem with such content, and except for the "Blow Job" come-on, it's not actually on Boston.com. As far as I can tell, these are legitimate offerings, and how else are people supposed to find out about them? Somehow, though, I don't think the folks at Boston.com would agree.

Update: It's 2:52 p.m., and the notice is still up on both pages. So I guess a new era has dawned at Boston.com.

Update II: It's 10:01 p.m. now, and it's gone.

Learning and listening

One of the exhilarating — and intimidating — things about teaching a course on Web journalism is that my students invariably know things that I don't. There's no way to keep up with everything. I've got an RSS aggregator, NewsFire, that dings every time one of them has posted something new. These days, it's dinging a lot.

I've just spent the last half-hour reading updates, and though there were a lot of terrific posts, I was particularly taken by this, from Rajashree Joshi, on a new feature being offered by the Washington Times: Click on a story, and a female-voiced robot (or maybe it's a robotic-sounding female) will read it to you.

I find audio innovations to be inherently interesting because it's the ultimate medium for multitasking. You can't read or watch video while you're driving, raking leaves or doing the laundry, but you can certainly listen. That's why, amid all of the technological advances of recent years, the greatest news success story is public radio. It's not that it's so wonderful (although it often is); it's because it reaches people where they are: stuck in traffic, on their way to or from work.

But radio news stories — even serious radio news stories, such as NPR's offerings — are a lot shorter than text-based news. The two media are not alike, and one doesn't translate well to the other. Consider this story in today's Washington Times on the House ethics committee's investigation into who knew what about former congressman Mark Foley, the Capitol Hill king of instant messaging. It's only 1,060 words long — about average for an important news story.

Click on it, though, and you'll find that it takes seven minutes and 14 seconds to hear the whole thing. Assuming you could port this over to your iPod and play it over your car stereo (it looks doable but not easy), that would take up a significant portion of your commute.

By contrast, a similar story on NPR's "Morning Edition" today checks in at just 3:51.

The Washington Times deserves credit for experimenting with different ways of delivering its content. But as media analyst Barry Parr is quoted as saying in the Times' own article introducing the feature, "I don't understand what they are trying to do here."

Gastronomic Gitell

Seth Gitell blogs on food. And let me tell you, Seth knows his food. We've had some memorable eating experiences on the political trail over the years. Perhaps the most memorable: stopping at R.B. and Big Daddy's Rib Shack in Waterbury, Conn., on the way home from the Republican National Convention in Philadephia in 2000.

Patrick's problems

The Boston Globe's pro-Deval Patrick editorial page and moderately liberal Globe columnist Scot Lehigh both put their finger on the real problems raised by the way Patrick has handled his past support for convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer.

From the editorial:

His failure to disclose at an earlier point his contribution to the DNA test might have been just a memory glitch. In that case, his error was in not doing a more thorough review before describing his involvement with LaGuer. Or, more seriously, he might have not mentioned the contribution initially because he wanted to hide this deeper connection to LaGuer.

The editorialist, not being a mind-reader, refrained from saying the obvious: It seems pretty unlikely that Patrick's memory is as bad as he claims.

From Lehigh's column:

Further, Patrick's own account of the role he played leaves one wondering about his judgment. In a Wednesday interview, Patrick said that he didn't know LaGuer, adding that "I can't say I studied the record with care."

"The issue that came to my attention at the time was the fairness of his trial and particularly the fairness of the jury deliberations," he told me.

Legitimate concerns, certainly, but why, then, had he pushed for parole for LaGuer and not a new trial? Because he wasn't representing LaGuer, and anyway, "you don't address that to the parole board," Patrick said. "The only thing you can address to the parole board is his readiness for parole."

But if he didn't know LaGuer, it's difficult to see how he could make a responsible assessment of that readiness.

"I had corresponded with him," Patrick noted later. "You get an impression of him from that correspondence."

What can you say, other than, "Oof"?

To repeat, there was nothing wrong with Patrick's pushing for a DNA test for LaGuer, who was widely believed to be innocent until he flunked said test in 2002. Nor was there anything wrong with Patrick's legal work on behalf of a cop-killer facing the death penalty. But his correspondence with LaGuer was way too supportive, and the way he's handling the fallout has been wretched.

And Jon Keller reports that it's about to get worse.

Patrick is very lucky that Kerry Healey's only positive themes are that she's going to do in her next four years what she and Mitt Romney failed to do in the previous four.

Carr talk

There's a torrent rushing by, and I've only got a thimble. But here are a few drops:

Howie Carr yesterday took a call on his WRKO (AM 680) talk show from a woman in Maine who was very, very upset about Deval Patrick's proposal to allow illegal immigrants who've gone to high school in Massachusetts to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities. (Howie also seems to think there's a loophole that would allow anyone who manages to swim ashore to be eligible for in-state tuition the next day, but that's another matter.)

The woman then complained that her daughter has to pay $40,000 a year to attend Northeastern University. Northeastern, of course, is a private school, and there is absolutely nothing that Patrick or any government official could do to lower tuition at NU for illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, nonimmigrants or anyone else.

Carr not only didn't correct her, but he egged her on, bringing up the $40,000 figure several times before bringing the conversation to a close.

But what does Howie care? He's already been promoting the false notion that Patrick supports "free" tuition for illegal immigrants. His Sept. 20 Boston Herald column contains just one of several examples I've found: "Deval doesn't just want to give them in-state (i.e., free) tuition, he wants to give them drivers' licenses, too."

What's with the parenthetical "i.e., free"? In fact, the in-state tuition rate is not zero, as any parent of a kid who goes to UMass knows. (Indeed, as Howie himself knows.) For the real figures, read this.

Prague spring ends

The tanks roll in from Chicago, and Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey Johnson is out. Will editor Dean Baquet now be sent to re-education camp?

Healey's hypocrisy

If Deval Patrick proves incapable of defending himself, he's got Blue Mass. Group to do it for him. Still, there's so much rank hypocrisy surrounding the mini-crisis in which he finds himself that I've got to point out a few of the seamier examples. First, read the round-up by Boston Globe reporter Andrea Estes. Now consider:

1. Kerry Healey's new ad. Watch it here. If this isn't an attempt at "Willie Horton II," I don't know what is. Attempting to trash a lawyer for ethically defending a client is just vile. Attempting to trash a lawyer who was merely trying to spare his client the death penalty is beyond vile.

2. The LaGuer connection. Patrick appears to have dissembled on how much help he'd given to convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer, and now Patrick is paying the price. He should. But it can't be emphasized enough the extent to which LaGuer's supposedly wrongful conviction was a cause célèbre in this state until 2002, when DNA tests proved beyond any reasonable doubt that he was, in fact, guilty.

Particularly laughable is a column in the Boston Herald today by Virginia Buckingham, who writes: "When I got a couple of letters from convicted rapist Ben LaGuer at the Herald, I filed them — in the circular file. I'm sure I'm not the only one." What Buckingham fails to say is that she went to work at the Herald in 2003, a year after LaGuer failed the DNA test.

You'll have to take my word for it, but I always believed LaGuer was guilty. Still, I knew plenty of smart people who thought otherwise. And, guilty or not, there are questions to this day as to whether he received a fair trial.

Globe columnist Adrian Walker writes, "In 1998, many thoughtful people had serious doubts about LaGuer's conviction. Some still do. It is ridiculous to equate examining questions in a case with being procriminal. Yet that's just the leap that's being made in this campaign." No kidding.

3. Do as I say (I). Michele McPhee reports in today's Herald that the Department of Correction, under Romney and Healey, approved a light-duty clean-up assignment for Terrill Walker, convicted in the notorious murder of Boston police officer John Schroeder in 1973. Maybe it was the right thing to do, but what do you suppose Healey would say if Patrick could somehow be linked to such a decision?

4. Do as I say (II). Ditto for Healey's running mate, Reed Hillman, who once sought a pardon for a man who'd been convicted of drunken driving three times as well as of assault on a police officer. Can you imagine what a big issue this would be if anyone had ever actually heard of Hillman?

Patrick's got a huge lead, and maybe he's going to coast into the governor's office as long as he doesn't make some monumental blunder. Still, he's got some vulnerabilities — his election would eliminate any Republican check on the Democratic majority, and he hasn't exactly been reassuring on whether he'd raise taxes. Healey's been going at him hard on those issues, and she should.

But the soft-on-crime angle is an insult to the public's intelligence.

More: Jon Keller has a good post and video commentary on Patrick's fumbling response to Healey's attacks.

Still more: Matt Margolis is pretty convincing in arguing that there's less to the Herald's Terrill Walker story than meets the eye. I should have read it more carefully.

Thoughts on the debate

As I did with the first gubernatorial debate, I listened (transcript here) on my way to work this morning and did not see it. Obviously the visuals are important, but I'll trade that for being able to do more than one thing at a time. (And thanks to WBUR Radio, 90.9 FM, for providing a nice, clear online feed.)

Besides, it's not as though the exchanges were all that gripping. Kerry Healey's performance struck me as improved: She managed to get off a few shots at Deval Patrick, especially on taxes and the potential dangers of one-party government, without getting bogged down by Christy Mihos.

Patrick, once again, was OK — good enough, perhaps, to sit on his commanding lead. But even though he was a little more fiesty in going after Healey, one thing hadn't changed: He was largely able to float above the fray, letting Mihos pound away at Healey.

Green-Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross acquitted herself well, but she's got two problems. Four years ago, Green Party candidate Jill Stein won over a number of progressives who were not exactly enamored of the insider Democratic candidate, Shannon O'Brien. This time, Patrick seems to have nailed down the progressive wing for the Democrats.

The other problem is that voters want to hear candidates tell stories about themselves, to connect with their lives. Yet Ross has kept her status as an out lesbian under wraps in the two debates, even though she was tossed a softball on same-sex marriage last night. "Come on Grace, represent," writes Laura Kiritsy in Bay Windows. (Thanks to Adam Reilly for the link.) Apparently Ross is more comfortable as an issues wonk.

Finally, a word about last night's moderator, television newsman James Maddigan. There's an old saying that no one pays to see the umpire. I know the moderator's job can be difficult. But his incessant interruptions, cutting people off for going over their time limit even when they were obviously seconds away from wrapping up, were an annoying distraction.

No doubt the rules were set by the campaigns, not by Maddigan. But what would best serve the public is a single moderator whose job is not to enforce time limits, but who uses his or her judgment to go with the flow, to poke and prod when needed, and to make sure everyone gets roughly equal treatment.

Is there any chance of that happening in the remaining debates?

Who won?

This could be nothing more than the enthusiasm of Deval Patrick's Net-savvy supporters, but — as of this moment — nearly 59 percent of the more than 4,000 people responding to a Boston.com survey say that Patrick won last night's debate.

Slightly more than 30 percent awarded it to Kerry Healey, while Christy Mihos and Grace Ross both came in at less than 6 percent.

Driving into the ditch

How foolish is state Sen. Steven Baddour? Baddour is one of four Democratic legislators who've demanded that Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, a Republican, stop showing a commercial that makes it look like they've endorsed her campaign for governor.

"It's been twisted to appear as though I am endorsing Kerry Healey, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth," Baddour was quoted as saying in the Boston Globe yesterday.

Today the Boston Herald's Kimberly Atkins, citing unnamed sources, reports that Baddour "secretly pledged to help Healey’s GOP campaign for governor after the Democratic primary." Atkins follows up on her blog:

When I arrived at my office this morning, I had no less than three voicemail massages from people claiming to have heard Sen. Steven Baddour say at various times over the summer and fall that he planned to back Kerry Healey for governor if Deval Patrick won the Democratic primary.

Baddour has guaranteed himself the worst of both worlds: outcast status no matter who wins. Good going, Senator.

Koppel gets weird

Count yourself lucky this morning if you're not a TimesSelect customer — you don't have to read Ted Koppel's column on Iran and ask yourself, What was that all about?

Koppel is a great interviewer, but his overall skill set may be more limited than anyone had realized. Because, in a rambling piece in which he cites Vito Corleone as his authority (it's got something to do with not seeking vengeance for Sonny's death so that he can protect Michael), Koppel argues for (a) letting Iran develop nuclear weapons while (b) subsequently holding Iran responsible for any nuclear-tinged terrorism anywhere. Koppel writes:

But this should also be made clear to Tehran: If a dirty bomb explodes in Milwaukee, or some other nuclear device detonates in Baltimore or Wichita, if Israel or Egypt or Saudi Arabia should fall victim to a nuclear "accident," Iran should understand that the United States government will not search around for the perpetrator. The return address will be predetermined, and it will be somewhere in Iran.

Now, it seems self-evident that Koppel is wrong about (a). It could be that we can't stop Iran from developing nukes without paying an unacceptable price — but it would be incredibly irresponsible not to try.

But (b)? You've got to be kidding. Koppel is quite plainly saying that we should invade Iran in retaliation for a nuclear incident somewhere in the world regardless of the evidence. Thus does he manage to get it wrong on both prevention and punishment. Quite a feat.

Pitch out

If Roger Clemens was/is using steroids, he's got to be one of the few professional athletes who hasn't paid a price — no exploding tendons, no deteriorating joints, no weirdly unexplainable injuries. Which leads me to believe he's clean.

And say a word of thanks for Pedro Martínez's time in a Red Sox uniform. When he was healthy, he was the best pitcher in Sox history. But unless he can come back from rotator-cuff surgery, it looks like he's through.