Northeastern students on NewsTrust

Click on photo for Flickr slideshow

Earlier this week, I said I would post on my students' experience in using NewsTrust, a social-networking tool that lets you share and rate news stories on qualities such as accuracy, sourcing and bias.

Well, I did — but not here. My oversight. Instead, I posted a roundup on the class Web site. And here, in a bit of post-post-modernism, is what NewsTrust had to say about what my students had to say.

A laugh-out-loud take on Chuck Turner

Adam Gaffin presents "Quite possibly the worst column that will ever be written about Chuck Turner." Which can only mean one thing: Joe Fitzgerald is writing again. You've got to love Fitz's shoutout to Louis Farrakhan.

Tracing Blogger links

Recently I turned on the Blogger feature "Links to this post." You can see it at the bottom, right next to comments.

It would be a whole lot more useful, though, if I could somehow be notified every time something pops up there. Any thoughts?

Bait, switch and lose a customer

This morning I brought the Media Nationmobile, a 2007 Corolla LE, to the dealership for its 30,000-mile maintenance. I will omit the name of the dealer in order to protect the guilty.*

Anyway, on the dealer's Web site the price for the 30,000-mile pit stop is $230. But once I arrived, the guy I handed my keys to told me it would be $575.

I canceled, and told him I'd have to think about it. I also told him that the online price was only $230. It must be a mistake, he informed me, to which I replied that it appeared to be a mistake aimed at fooling people into thinking they could actually afford to have their car worked on there.

He then made me a copy of the "Corolla Maintenance Schedule" the place uses in order to show me that I must be wrong. Well, guess what? The price was listed at $390 — $160 more than the online price, but $185 less than the price he'd quoted me. Then again, he'd also told me the dealership recommends an alignment at 30,000 miles, which wasn't on either the online or the printed price list. So I guess that's what brought it up to $575.

I am done with the dealer. I called Direct Tire of Peabody, which has done some pretty amazing work on our 1993 Volvo 240 station wagon, and was quoted a price of less than $200. And the dealership has lost another customer.

*Update: OK, I've been shamed into it by Ron and Adam. The dealership is Ira Toyota of Danvers. But let me offer a few caveats: (1) the guy I dealt with was completely upfront about the price once I got there, so I was in no danger of being ripped off; (2) there are probably more goodies on the $390 printed list than on the $230 online list, but I didn't bother to do a comparison; (3) I should have printed out the online list, gone back and demanded to see a manager. But I didn't.

Photo (cc) by Tracy O and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

When I'm (one of) 64

Michael Prager singles out Media Nation as one of 64 notable Boston Web sites in this Sunday's Boston Globe Magazine. There are a lot of terrific local bloggers in his roundup, and a few I don't know about, so I've got some checking out to do.

Prager somehow finds the space to poke fun at my prediction that the Red Sox would fall short in the postseason this year, in large measure because of Josh Beckett's injury. Even though they, uh, fell short, in large measure because of Beckett's injury.

(Expletive deleted) genius

What am I giving thanks for today? Fake Rahm Emanuel.

Talking swaptions on NECN

And no, I don't know what they are. But here's last night's "NewsNight" segment from NECN in which former Boston Globe reporter-turned-communications consultant Tom Palmer, host Jim Braude and I discuss tolls, gas hikes and investigations.

Media Nation on NECN tonight

I'll be on NECN's "NewsNight" today at 8 p.m. to discuss the Big Dig and the toll-hike/gas-tax conundrum.

Jeff Jarvis and the future of media

I took a pass on the recent dust-up between Slate columnist Ron Rosenbaum and new-media advocate Jeff Jarvis. Jarvis can drive me up a wall, and I thought Rosenbaum made some good points about Jarvis' Web triumphalism. At the same time, Jarvis is a valuable source of ideas, and, frankly, I have no interest in pissing him off.

But I can't recommend strongly enough a long profile of Jarvis that appears in the current New York Observer. Written by the Observer's media columnist, John Koblin, the piece is deep as well as sympathetic to Jarvis' point of view — yet Jarvis' critics have their say, too.

If you are looking for a good overview on the state of the news business — and especially the struggling newspaper business — then you need to read Koblin's article.

And by the way, I can't help but observe, Jarvis-style, that Koblin's article would be better still if he and his editors had made the extra effort to link to what he was writing about.

Engage with Grace

This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage with Grace team. To learn more, please go to www.engagewithgrace.org, and see this story in today's Boston Globe.

We make choices throughout our lives — where we want to live, what types of activities will fill our days, with whom we spend our time. These choices are often a balance between our desires and our means, but at the end of the day, they are decisions made with intent. But when it comes to how we want to be treated at the end our lives, often we don't express our intent or tell our loved ones about it.

This has real consequences. Seventy-three percent of Americans would prefer to die at home, but up to 50 percent die in hospital. More than 80 percent of Californians say their loved ones "know exactly" or have a "good idea" of what their wishes would be if they were in a persistent coma, but only 50 percent say they've talked to them about their preferences.

But our end-of-life experiences are about a lot more than statistics. They're about all of us. So the first thing we need to do is start talking.

"Engage with Grace: The One Slide Project" was designed with one simple goal: to help get the conversation about end of life experience started. The idea is simple: Create a tool to help get people talking. One slide, with just five questions on it. Five questions designed to help get us talking with each other, with our loved ones, about our preferences. And we're asking people to share this one slide wherever and whenever they can — at a presentation, at dinner, at their book club. Just one slide, just five questions.

Lets start a global discussion that, until now, most of us haven't had.

Here is what we are asking you: Download the One Slide (PowerPoint) and share it at any opportunity — with colleagues, family, friends. Think of the slide as currency and donate just two minutes whenever you can. Commit to being able to answer these five questions about end of life experience for yourself, and for your loved ones. Then commit to helping others do the same. Get this conversation started.

Let's start a viral movement driven by the change we as individuals can effect, and the incredibly positive impact we could have collectively. Help ensure that all of us — and the people we care for — can end our lives in the same purposeful way we live them.

Just One Slide, just one goal. Think of the enormous difference we can make together.

Taking photos in a public place

The man at the center of an alleged bribery case in Methuen wants the Eagle-Tribune to be punished for photographing him as he was leaving a hearing.

It seems that Michael Neve had managed to persuade the Civil Service Commission that no one should be allowed to photograph him during or after a hearing at which he testified to having offered a $15,000 bribe to Mayor William Manzi. (Neve says Manzi refused the bribe; Manzi says no bribe was offered. The case actually involves someone else. Never mind.)

But Neves miscalculated in his definition of the word "after." The newspaper, logically enough, decided "after" did not pertain to taking pictures of Neve after he'd left the building.

"The press can take photographs from a public place," Eagle-Tribune lawyer and friend of Media Nation Robert Bertsche is quoted as saying.

Chuck Turner, open government advocate

I explain how at the First Amendment Blog.

Chuck Turner goes live tonight

Man, oh man, do I wish Comcast carried the Boston Neighborhood Network out in the suburbs. Among Joe Heisler's guests today on "Talk of the Neighborhoods" will be none other than Boston city councilor Chuck Turner. If you live in Boston, tune in to Channel 9 at 7 p.m.

The fourth letter in "originality"

I would have thought the Boston Globe got the letter "g" from the ancient Romans. But the Winchester Star reports that the head of the Griffin Museum of Photography believes the Globe was inspired by the logo it uses on its own promotional material.

Even though the museum has trademarked its own "g," the Star's item is refreshingly free of lawsuit threats.

William Ayers reconsidered

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that the McCain-Palin campaign's careless, ugly lies about Barack Obama and William Ayers did not merely smear Obama — they also smeared Ayers, a founder of the radical Weather Underground movement in the 1960s.

There is no evidence that the Weather Underground ever killed or injured anyone other than themselves. For instance, despite what you may have heard, Katherine Ann Power and Susan Saxe, the radicals who were responsible for the 1970 death of Boston police officer Walter Schroeder, were not affiliated with the group.

Now, despite his McCarthyite tactics, John McCain has been welcomed back into polite society, while the Ayers family must content with death threats that Ayers himself says have only escalated since Election Day.

Give it up, Chuck

Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker unleashes a high, hard one today destroying any pretense that Boston city councilor Chuck Turner and former state senator Dianne Wilkerson were set up by racists at the FBI.

Walker has a page-one interview with Ron Wilburn, better known as "Cooperating Witness," the guy who lured Wilkerson and Turner into posing for those can't-get-enough photos of them taking cash, allegedly in return for their help in getting Wilburn a liquor license for a bar he was trying to open.

Wilburn is not a racist FBI agent. Nor is he in trouble himself. Rather, he is a well-known, 69-year-old African-American businessman and longtime Wilkerson supporter who tells Walker that he'd had enough, and that he expects more city officials will be arrested before this is over.

I'd say he'd be in a position to know, wouldn't you? After all, he knows who smiled for the camera. This excerpt from Walker's piece is priceless:

"People do things," Wilburn said. "There are decisions, there are choices, and there are consequences." Asked if he was surprised that public officials would allegedly take money to help push a liquor license, he responded quickly. "Hell, no," and let out a hearty laugh....

"You're dealing with favoritism, cronyism, classism, and if you don't have the right connections it's very difficult to make things happen," Wilburn said. "The average person that works hard and has a plan to get a license, it's very hard for them to move through that system. And you find out if you have the right people pushing the buttons, things can happen fast."

So much for Turner's media-bashing performance yesterday outside City Hall.

Wilburn does say that the FBI remains its usual bumbling self. For one thing, he says he never told the FBI that he was tired of being shaken down by Wilkerson, as the FBI claims in its affidavit (PDF). For another, he's upset that the FBI gave him so little cover that his identity quickly became known.

But, he adds, "I was not forced or coerced."

And now Wilburn finds himself at the center of the biggest corruption scandal Massachusetts has seen in several decades.

File photo of Turner (cc) by stand4security and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Let the Pike go bankrupt

This story in today's Boston Globe, reporting that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority will face bone-crushing additional debt payments if the Legislature tries to repeal the absurd toll increases the authority's board recently approved, has me wondering why we shouldn't just let the Pike go into bankruptcy.

Regardless of why and how all this happened, the idea that the Legislature can't replace something stupid (toll hikes) with something smart (a higher gas tax) because of deals that the Pike negotiated in the credit market smacks of extortion. I hope legislators will seriously consider doing what they think is right for the public, and let the Pike stew in its own mess.

Weirdly enough, some of this has to do with the bankrupt financial firm with which the Pike did much of its business, Lehman Brothers.

And by the way, I think my credentials as a good-government liberal are pretty much indisputable. If I'm taking a Howie Carr-like position on all this, then I think it's likely these hacks have lost virtually all the support they ever had.

The Outraged Liberal has some additional thoughts.

Coming attractions

Looking toward the Northern Presidentials from the Mount Washington Observatory. Right now it's 12.2 degrees on the summit, with a wind chill of 4 below zero.

A NewsTrust news hunt on the global economy

Following a presentation on NewsTrust by editor and frequent reviewer Mike LaBonte, my students in Reinventing the News have been finding, submitting and analyzing stories on the global economy. NewsTrust is a social-networking tool aimed at identifying and promoting quality journalism.

I asked each of my students to submit, rate and write a short critique of three different stories on the global economy — part of a "news hunt" that NewsTrust is conducting this week. I thought I'd do the assignment, too, so here are my choices.

The first, from the Christian Science Monitor, is something of a disappointment: an article about pressures on the International Monetary Fund that is so bureaucratic and top-down in its orientation that it's impossible to understand the effect of those pressures on ordinary people. Even if you grant that we shouldn't expect much from a brief overview, it's hard to know what we are supposed to take away from this story.

Moving right along, we come to a roundup in the Guardian on how plummeting oil prices are affecting four major oil-producing states — Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. As with the Monitor story, there is a top-down quality to this that leaves me a little cold. Nevertheless, it is well-executed, and provides some interesting insights into the changing fortunes of regimes that were riding high just a few months ago.

Finally, CNN offers a story on world hunger that, like the Monitor and the Guardian, is too short to get much beyond the superficial but which, unlike the Monitor and the Guardian, grabs us with the riveting, heartbreaking testimony of an aid worker who frequently travels to Haiti.

"It's horrible. They have to choose among their children," Patricia Wolff tells CNN. "They try to keep them alive by feeding them, but sometimes they make the decision that this one has to go." The story demonstrates a key point about good journalism: even a brief report about global developments can be conveyed in human terms.

NewsTrust, which I've been following since its founding a couple of years ago (disclosure: I'm a volunteer editor), is one of the more interesting experiments in building a community around the news. If you haven't checked it out before, you should give it a look.

I'll post on what my students have been up to later this week.

New questions about the Roxbury mosque

Just finished reading David Bernstein's excellent piece in this week's Boston Phoenix on the long-controversial mosque that's been built in Roxbury, known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. Among other things, Bernstein reports the following:

• Originally intended as a spiritual center primarily for U.S.-born African-American Muslims, the center's control shifted long ago to conservative Muslims primarily from the Middle East, some of whom have espoused homophobic and anti-Semitic views.
  
• Despite numerous financial difficulties, the project was pushed along at key moments by Mayor Tom Menino and a staff member at the Boston Redevelopment Authority who had a conflict of interest that almost certainly should have led him to recuse himself.
• Promised benefits to the community have not materialized, and are unlikely to any time soon given the mosque's ongoing financial problems.
• Former state senator Dianne Wilkerson and Boston city councilor Chuck Turner, charged by federal authorities with taking bribes, have showed an unusual degree of interest in the mosque.

The mosque has been 20 years in the making, and is still incomplete. A fascinating story, even though there are more questions in Bernstein's story than there are answers.

Chuck Turner (allegedly) joins the 90 percent

Best stretch of Howie Carr I've heard since — oh, since Dianne Wilkerson was arrested. I haven't had a chance to read the affidavit yet, but Amy Derjue offers highlights at Boston Daily.

Most outstanding quote from the soon-to-be-ex-councilor: "If you took out all corrupt politicians, you'd take out 90 percent and be left with us 10 percent."

Us? Well, he is innocent unless proven guilty.

Here's what I don't understand. I always thought Turner was one of those hard-core ideologues who would never take a dime. The only way this would make sense is if we learned he donated the money to the North Korean government, or to Cynthia McKinney's presidential campaign.

Chuck Turner, too

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner is a major-league goofball, but he always struck me as honest. And perhaps he is.

But his reputation took a big hit this morning when he was arrested by the FBI in connection with the Dianne Wilkerson bribery case.

Oh, and there's a Wilkerson-style photo, too. At least Turner keeps his shirt on.

Let's hear it for DiMasi (again)

I shouldn't be blogging, because I've got an interview to prepare for. But I didn't want the shift away from a toll hike and toward an increase in the gasoline tax to get by me without saying anything.

This could turn out to have been choreographed. But assuming everything is as it appears on the surface, it's hard not to notice that, for the second time, House Speaker Sal DiMasi — invariably described as "embattled" these days — has stood up on the right side of a major public policy issue, and Gov. Deval Patrick hasn't.

Without DiMasi, we might very well be sliding toward Patrick's disastrous proposal to build three gambling casinos. And Patrick is reportedly still reluctant to support "broad-based tax increases," as his spokesman, Kyle Sullivan, puts it.

If DiMasi's enemies succeed in driving him from office, where is that going to leave us?

How the right went wrong

Brilliant essay in the Wall Street Journal on how conservatives squandered their authority by embracing know-nothing populism — culminating in their fatal embrace of Sarah Palin. Mark Lilla says of the right's anti-intellectual intellectuals:

They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.

You should definitely read the whole thing. (Via Hub Blog.)

Linking and journalistic credibility

One of the great journalistic advances enabled by the Internet is that reporters can now link to the background information that underlies their work. All too often, though, news organizations don't take advantage of it. They should, because it would enhance their credibility.

Case in point this morning is Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham's call for an increased gasoline tax. (She's right on the merits, by the way.) She bolsters her call, in part, with several statistical assertions, including this: "that whole 'Taxachusetts' thing is so 1978. Our state currently ranks 35th in the nation for taxes as a proportion of income."

Columnists can't attribute every fact, or their 600- to 700-word essays would double in size, and we'd all fall into a stupor from boredom. But they could link. There are no links in the online version of Abraham's column, though.

The most widely circulated number I've seen is the Tax Foundation's estimate that Massachusetts' state and local tax burden as a percentage of personal income is 23rd. That's the difference between Massachusetts being a low-tax state, as Abraham claims, or somewhere in the middle of the pack. And it's something we'd all have to think about before pushing a gas-tax hike, or in deciding how large that hike should be.

Abraham, a former Boston Phoenix colleague of mine, is a fine reporter, and I know she could back up her assertion that Massachusetts is 35th, at least by someone's measure. But the Internet enables all of us to show our work. The practice should be more routine than it is.

And kudos to Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby and the editorial-page crew. Jacoby's column has been fully linked for quite some time. Whether you agree with him or not, linking makes him more a part of the online, multi-level conversation into which journalism is evolving.

The ghosts of James Michael Curley

In my latest for the Guardian, I report that Massachusetts has returned to normal since Election Day. Which is to say that corrupt politicians are running wild, tolls are going up and the traffic jams the Big Dig were supposed to alleviate are now worse than ever. James Michael Curley's statues — yes, both of them — are laughing at us.

Thoughts on the Globe's Newton project

The battle between the Boston Globe and GateHouse Media over the Globe's hyperlocal Newton site isn't really about the possibility that the Globe will grab more content from the Newton Tab than fair use — or fair play — should allow.

Rather, it's over a more fundamental issue that will likely be a key to survival as struggling news organizations seek to reinvent themselves: Who will control the virtual front door to Newton, as well as to other cities and towns?

At first glance, Boston.com Newton strikes me as attractive, well-organized and generous. By generous, I mean the blog-like feature that fills the center well is a nice mix of content from the Globe, the Tab and local blogs. Just as important, the items give you just a bare taste of the story — if you have any interest at all, you'll click through. So it seems likely that Boston.com will drive some traffic to the Tab, not to mention the blogs.

By combining content from different sources so seamlessly, Boston.com, at least for the moment, has leapfrogged ahead of the Tab's Wicked Local Newton site. GateHouse's Wicked Local sites, which debuted in Plymouth a few years ago, before there even was a GateHouse, were supposed to combine content from the local GateHouse paper with blogs and citizen journalism in order to be a one-stop community guide. That never quite panned out, although Wicked Local is stronger in some towns than in others.

Probably the least generous item on Boston.com Newton right now involves my friends at the Boston Phoenix. There's a big photo of a plate of food, along with a headline that says, "Foodies: Phoenix reviews Hotel Indigo." Follow the link, though, and you find a Globe blog item that summarizes the Phoenix review. You have to click again to get to the actual Phoenix review.

There's a lot more to Boston.com Newton than the news blog. Readers can contribute to a wiki, discuss issues and send in photos. There's a calendar of events, real-estate listings and local school data.

At the moment, at least, there is no RSS feed. That may change, though the site strikes me as ill-suited to reading via RSS, as it consists of many little items that require you to go off-site if you want to learn more. (Boston.com's director of community publishing, Teresa Hanafin, makes exactly that point in a comment to the Garden City blog. And don't miss GateHouse editor Greg Reibman's hilarious retort.)

The Globe and GateHouse face different challenges.

The Globe, like all big regional papers, is caught in a squeeze. People who are interested mainly in national and international news are now getting it elsewhere, online. And though it's often said that local is the future, it's difficult for a big paper that covers all of Eastern Massachusetts to become local enough. Boston.com Newton, which is clearly intended as a prototype (note the "yourtown" in the URL), is an interesting way of overcoming the disadvantage of being a regional paper — and of attracting local advertisers who could never afford to buy space in the paper.

GateHouse, which publishes about 100 papers in Eastern Massachusetts, is all about local, so it doesn't have to reorient its mission. But its natural advantage in print doesn't necessarily hold up online, because players as large as the Globe and as small as a few passionate activists can play on the same turf.

What's going on in Newton will tell us a lot about the future of the newspaper business over the next few years. I hope both sides find a way to win.

Boston.com versus GateHouse redux

Boston.com's Newton site debuted today. I'll try to offer at least a quick assessment tomorrow. At first glance, it strikes me as an attractive mix of content from the Boston Globe, GateHouse Media's Newton Tab, the Boston Phoenix and local bloggers.

Meanwhile, take a look at this video, posted on Boston.com's Green Blog. Be sure to watch the closing credits. Pretty aggressive, don't you think?

More: It's only fair to point out it's virtually impossible to learn that the video is from the GateHouse's Belmont Citizen-Herald unless you watch all the way to the end. Even if you go directly to the YouTube site, you'll find nothing unless you click on "more info." And even then, it's pretty cryptic.

So I can believe it's an innocent mistake — but one that should be corrected soon.

Still more: Now fixed — see fourth paragraph.

Obama job-seekers beware

Ari Herzog, who'd like to work for the Obama administration, is put off by the 63-question, privacy-invading survey that all applicants must fill out.

That, at least, you might have already heard about. But Herzog also discovers that the data you provide to Team Obama's Change.gov site is stored not on a government server, but with a private contractor, Cluen Corp.

Here we go again

Doesn't President-elect Obama have a problem on his hands if Sen. Hillary Clinton turns him down for the secretary of state's post? Wouldn't anyone else now be seen as second-best?

Obama got lucky with Rahm Emanuel. But the name-floating that's going on right now strikes me as a significant breakdown in discipline on the part of the Obama camp.

For whom the toll tolls

What, are they insane?

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority yesterday didn't just kill the goose that lays the golden eggs — that would be us. In raising tolls through the roof, as Noah Bierman reports in the Boston Globe, the authority buried the goose's carcass somewhere beneath a cash-stuffed toll booth, never to be seen again. "I'm already mapping out, in my mind, alternative routes," writes Jay Fitzgerald at Hub Blog.

Let me say right up front that the proposed toll increases would have little effect on me. I come in from the North Shore, and maybe a couple of times a year I'll swing over to the Ted Williams Tunnel because something has gone wrong on Route 1. So I'm not looking at a $7 daily toll. But this is just nuts.

Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr is his usual irresponsible self today, writing a damn-them-all screed that doesn't leave room for any reasonable approach to what has become a huge problem. But on his WRKO Radio (AM 680) program yesterday, he was making more sense, admitting that the state somehow has to pay off the Big Dig fiasco — and that it would be much fairer to spread the pain with an increased gas tax than with toll hikes that, in the case of MetroWest, are paid by those who don't even use the Big Dig.

Then again, both he and Herald reporter Hillary Chabot raise the specter that we'll get a gas-tax hike on top of the toll hike. They could be right, even though the Globe's Bierman reports that Gov. Deval Patrick remains opposed to a gas tax.

On the other hand, the Outraged Liberal thinks yesterday's announcement is a ruse that will lead not to a toll increase but to a boost in the gas tax. He writes:

But there is a method to this planned madness.

The Globe notes the increases will go into place after another hearing by the Turnpike Authority in February or March. I personally would book Fenway Park as a location that could handle the crowd of angry people.

Presumably, that would be enough time for Deval Patrick and legislators to get off their, um, sidelines, and approve a comprehensive plan to tackle the transportation nightmare (hey, throw in the disaster known as the MBTA while you are at it.)

I hope he's right. As a Globe editorial noted earlier this week, a 4-cent increase in the state gas tax would bring in $100 million a year — exactly the amount to be raised by the toll hike.

Photo taken inside Ted Williams Tunnel (cc) by Mark Danielson and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Waiting for Boston.com's Newton site

It's a little after 11:30 a.m. So I guess we can now officially say that the Boston Globe has delayed the unveiling of its hyperlocal Newton site, the subject of much speculation and angst this week.

I would imagine the delay is due to some tech snafu, though it's possible it's being retooled in response to the concerns raised by GateHouse Media, owner of the Newton Tab.

Though I've been among those who've been wondering if the Globe's plans might unfairly make use of the Tab's content, I also expect that the Globe folks are smart enough not to go too far. If there's a blog on the Globe site that links to some Tab content, well, you can't stop the Globe from blogging. Nor should you.

If the Globe refrains from linking to every story in the Tab; and if, when it does, it does so in such a way that you feel as though you need to click on through, then everyone should be happy.

Update: Media Nation reader G.R. tells me that the the site now says the Newton page will debut on Monday.

Globe losing nearly $1m a week?

That's what Boston Globe executives have been telling union members, according to this story by Boston Business Journal reporter Craig Douglas. That number comes from the summer, before the paper reorganized its sections and saved itself some money. On the other hand, the economy is much worse now than it was then.

As for the possibility that the Globe will soon be sold, Douglas offers this:

"Who wants to catch a falling safe?" said a source familiar with the Globe's financials. "Nobody's going to fund a $50 million hole in the ground."

A falling safe with no money in it, apparently.

Bad as things may be, so far the New York Times Co. has spared Boston the chaos that has rocked other large regional papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. At some point, though, something's got to give. (Via Universal Hub.)

Really, folks, the campaign's over

Maybe it's because I have no memory, but I can't recall a time when there has been this much speculation right after a presidential election concerning who might run in four years. No doubt we can expect Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney to form exploratory committees any minute now.

And we're already down to people I've never heard of.

I suspect it's a consequence of the expansion of the political press (the aforementioned item is from the Politico, which really does have nothing better to do) and the intense interest in politics generated by an unusually dramatic campaign.

Hoax doesn't affect Palin story

A number of observers seem to misunderstand the meaning of the revelation that a man who claimed to be Carl Cameron's source for some of his Sarah Palin dish has turned out to be a fraud.

Citing unnamed sources, Cameron reported on Fox News last week that Palin, among other things, didn't know that Africa was a continent and couldn't name the countries in NAFTA — or, for that matter, in North America.

Now I'm hearing that the exposure of the fake Martin Eisenstadt shows that Palin really isn't that stupid. Except that this AP story, posted on the Fox News Web site, reports that Eisenstadt — or "Eisenstadt" — was not Cameron's source, and that Fox is standing by Cameron's story.

For what it's worth, I never believed Palin didn't know Africa was a continent. But if you want to believe it, there's no reason to stop now.

Serving coffee with Google Maps

I've asked my students in Reinventing the News to file brief reports on coffee shops on and near (and in some cases not so near) the Northeastern University campus so that we can compile them all into a Google Maps presentation. I figured it was only fair that I do it, too. So here is my report on Cappy's II, a small, storefront-style eatery located at 309 Huntington Ave.

When you think of Cappy's II, you think of pizza, subs and big salads. My only previous visit had been to pick up a Caesar salad to go. It was quite good. But I'd never thought about Cappy's for my morning coffee run. It's a bit too far up Huntington, and I've become accustomed to Au Bon Pain, which is closer to my office.

I arrived at Cappy's at about 8:45 a.m. Before walking inside, I took some photos. That elicited a few suspicious questions when I approached the counter. But once I explained what I was doing, I was greeted in a friendly manner.

It was after the breakfast rush but long before lunch, so I had the place pretty much to myself. A medium coffee set me back a reasonable $1.50 plus tax. I asked for half-and-half, and my server, Eleni Athanasiou (in photo), added it for me before handing it to me. Though I prefer self-serve (it's why I like Starbucks better than Dunkin' Donuts, even though the coffee at Dunks is pretty good), she got the mix just about right.

Though Cappy's mainly caters to the takeout crowd, there are some tables, including a few that are out of the way enough to enjoy a relaxing meal. It's got a full breakfast menu, which would make it a pretty good spot for a morning meeting. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience.

Cappy's II is open seven days from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

A brewing media battle in Newton

A potential battle is shaping up over the Boston Globe's plans to start a hyperlocal Newton site on Boston.com that could feature, among other things, content from the weekly Newton Tab.

"This is just the latest move from the 800-pound gorilla in the market, which is currently weighing in at 200 pounds," GateHouse Media New England publisher Kirk Davis tells Amy Derjue at Boston Daily. GateHouse, a national chain based in suburban Rochester, N.Y., owns about 100 newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts, including the Tab.

Davis adds: "We're not surprised the Globe would like to play in our sandbox."

Although it's not entirely clear what the Globe's got planned for Newton, a report by Chuck Tanowitz suggests that the paper will display headlines and summaries from Newton blogs and from the Tab.

It's possible that the Globe will make everyone a winner by driving traffic to those sites. But it's also possible that, for some stories, the headline and summary is all most people are looking for, which means they'll stay at Boston.com. The stakes are high: both the Globe and GateHouse are trying to sell advertising on their local Web sites.

Depending on how the Globe proceeds, it could find itself facing copyright-infringement issues on two grounds:

• GateHouse publishes its online content under a Creative Commons license, which allows other Web sites to republish stories as they see fit — a boon to bloggers. But GateHouse's license specifically prohibits commercial use, which would seem to rule out the Globe.
• Copyright law allows anyone to publish small snippets of someone's content under the doctrine of fair use. A good example of that would be Google News. But the Globe might find itself challenged on the grounds that though it's only taking a little bit, it's nevertheless taking the most important and marketable part.

When I wrote about this over the weekend, GateHouse's director of digital publishing, Howard Owens, posted a comment in which he said, "I think we need to have a little chat with Bob Kempf." Kempf, now a top executive with Boston.com, was a key player in developing GateHouse's Wicked Local sites.

While the GateHouse folks appear to be gearing up for battle, we haven't heard much from Boston.com. On Sunday the Globe's regional editor, David Dahl, sent an e-mail to let me know the Globe would be making an official announcement later this week. I told him I'd welcome comments from him and other Globe executives. So far, though, they're maintaining their silence.

For those of us who care about local journalism, it's painful to watch two financially challenged giants battling over a shrinking advertising base. On Monday the Globe's parent company, the New York Times Co., reported that the value of its New England holdings continues to plummet. GateHouse was recently delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, although its revenues appear to be holding up reasonably well.

It's possible that once the Globe announces its plans, we'll see that this is much ado about nothing. But this bears watching.

Photo of Newton City Hall and the Newton Free Library (cc) by the Newton Free Library and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Friends like Sarah Palin's

In my latest for the Guardian, I salute John McCain for flying one last mission on behalf of his country. The McCain campaign-fueled orgy of anonymous recriminations over Sarah Palin has proved in a way nothing else could that the media had little to do with bringing down the Republican ticket.

O, the injustice of it all

From today's New York Times story on the town of Mountain View, House, Calif., which has the highest percentage of underwater mortgages in the nation:

He has cut his DVD buying from 50 a month to perhaps one, and is waiting until the Christmas sales to buy a high-definition television. He does not indulge much anymore in his hobbies of scuba diving and flying. "Best to wait for a better price, or do without," Mr. Rogers, 52, said.

I'm sure there is real pain in Mountain House. Let's just say this is not a compelling example of that pain.

Fighting at the end of the world

You must read C.J. Chivers and Tyler Hicks' account in the New York Times of U.S. soldiers defending a remote, dangerous outpost in Afghanistan. It is horrifying and heartbreaking, and you can't help but be filled with admiration for the soldiers' courage.

According to the Times, more soldiers will soon be arriving — a trend that may accelerate given President-elect Obama's goal of shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan.

A nuke in every town

This could be the most important story of the year, if not the decade. According to the Guardian, scientists at Los Alamos have developed technology to build small, cheap, safe nuclear power plants that can power 20,000 homes.

According to reporters John Vidal and Nick Rosen:

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The article is a bit superficial. There's no mention of what happens to the waste, and no explanation of why the lack of moving parts ensures that it's safe.

As for why we shouldn't worry about terrorists making use of these, we get this quote from John Deal, head of the company that plans to manufacture these mini-nukes: "Temperature-wise it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands."

I'm not impressed.

Still, if the safety and terrorism concerns can be properly addressed, this sounds like one of the great technological leaps forward we need to solve both the energy and the global-warming crises. It's very exciting, and I hope the sudden re-emergence of cheap oil doesn't make such advances too financially risky. (Via Howard Owens' Twitter feed.)

The view atop Moon Hill

I didn't feel like running today, so I stomped around Bradley Palmer State Park. I took this at the top of Moon Hill. Click on photo for higher resolution.

Boston.com's hyperlocal experiment

Chuck Tanowitz reports that the Boston Globe's Boston.com affiliate is about to unveil a series of hyperlocal Web sites, including one for Newton.

The Globe doesn't intend to provide any original content. Rather, each hyperlocal site will serve as a guide to existing material. In the case of Newton, that means, among other things, stories from GateHouse Media's Newton Tab.

This strikes me as hyperlocal journalism on the ultracheap. I understand the purpose: to come up with a more affordable advertising platform for local businesses. And I understand that the Globe is hurting financially; Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix detailed the latest round of cuts on Thursday.

But think of the value that Boston.com could add by hiring a mobile journalist to cover three or four towns, uploading blog posts, photos and videos throughout the day.

Tanowitz notes that there may be an intellectual-property issue that needs to be resolved, too. Indeed. Yes, the Globe could drive traffic to the Tab by publishing a headline, a summary and a link. But what if that's all some readers are looking for, so they never follow the link? GateHouse publishes its content online under a Creative Commons license that allows for noncommercial re-use. But that certainly wouldn't cover the Globe.

Financially challenged news organizations are exploring new ways to survive. My own sense is the ones that will pay off are those that aren't solely about making money, but that provide a real service for readers as well. At least based on Tanowitz's account, this sounds rather more cynical than that. But we'll see. (Via Universal Hub.)

Student videoblogging at Northeastern

I just finished watching videos made by my students in Reinventing the News. All of them have good points; some are quite strong from beginning to end.

A few technical notes:

• The videos were shot with low-end digital cameras, several of which created file compatibility problems. Two students who used Flip cameras had to edit their work on their Windows laptops using Windows Movie Maker, as iMovie '08 for Macintosh wouldn't accept their clips. I'm sure there's a converter, but I'd have to track it down.
• Another student tried two different cameras — a Sony and a Casio, if I'm not mistaken — and couldn't pull either into iMovie. She ended up having to skip the assignment.
• I have mixed feelings about iMovie '08 (also known, weirdly enough, as iMovie 7). Although it's easy to use in some respects, and I figured out how to do B-roll despite a lack of documentation, it's not as precise as iMovie 6. One student used iMovie 6 on her own Mac laptop. She and those using Windows Movie Maker seemed to have an easier time.

Video for the Web is a skill well worth teaching journalism students today. I'm glad we tried it, and I've got some ideas for how to do a better job of teaching it the next time.

We could see that one coming

From the New York Times:

A few hours later, Mr. Obama was on the telephone with Mrs. Reagan to "apologize for the careless and offhanded remark."

Defending Sarah Palin (really!)

Can you name all the countries in North America? I'm the sort of geek who always chooses geography questions in Trivial Pursuit, but I'm not sure I could do it off the top of my head. Let's see:

• Canada
• United States
• Mexico
• El Salvador
• Honduras
• Belize
• Nicaragua
• Costa Rica
• Panama

How did I do? (Whoops — I just looked at a map, and I missed Guatemala.)

Since Carl Cameron reported on Sarah Palin's ignorance, the media have been having a field day with this. Trouble is, we don't know whether she committed the equivalent of missing Guatemala or if she told Steve Schmidt that Antarctica is the capital of Siberia.

I'm more interested to know who's leaking this stuff, and why.

Fact-free speculation

At CommonWealth Unbound, Michael Jonas observes that media speculation over Ian Bowles' being named to head the Environmental Protection Agency would be a whole lot more interesting if there was even a shred of evidence to support it.

Beating the press

I'll be on "Beat the Press" tonight (WGBH-TV, Channel 2, 7 p.m.) talking about — among other things — President-elect Obama's first post-election news conference, which will take place today at 2:30 p.m.

This will be my last "BTP" update. Given that I've been erratic about posting these, they're not of much value. I'm on most of the time. And even when I'm not, I don't want to imply that you shouldn't watch.

Tanked and in the tank

Even though I'm 52, I'm just a bit too young to have experienced the (ahem) golden era of newspapering, when reporters drank like fish and didn't just cover politicians but worked for them in their spare time.

Good thing we've got the Brits to keep that tradition alive. (Obligatory forelock-tugging: I'm sure no one at the Guardian would ever engage in such disgraceful behavior!) Thanks, Brian, even though you're taking this too seriously. If this clown was doing anything other than costing Obama votes, I'd be surprised.

Sarah Palin's real enemies

If nothing else, I hope Sarah Palin's partisans come to realize that her supposed enemies in the media were a bunch of wimps compared to her supposed friends in the McCain campaign.

"Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast" ... going after William Ayers before the campaign had made a final decision on whether to do so (how'd that work out?) ... didn't know Africa was a continent ... "so nasty and angry at staff that they would virtually be reduced to tears."

Stay tuned. I think we're going to hear a lot more.

P.S. Robert is skeptical. Frankly, I am, too. The only thing this stuff proves for sure is that elements of the McCain campaign despise her.

Emanuel's forced Hamlet act

Am I missing something? Or has the vaunted Obama team suffered a breakdown in discipline regarding U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., who's been offered the job of White House chief of staff? Why is Emanuel publicly pondering whether to take it or not? What does this do to the eventual chief of staff if Emanuel turns it down?

I know there's a lot of speculation out there about many of the positions President-elect Obama will be filling, including the possibility that John Kerry will be given the secretary of state's job. But the way the Emanuel appointment is being handled is clunky, to say the least. If he turns it down, whoever winds up in the job will be seen as second-rate.

An endangered New England species

The moderate New England Republican is all but extinct following yesterday's defeat of New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu and Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays. In the long run, this won't be good for the country.

How can you have bipartisanship when the Democratic and Republican parties are hardening into exclusively liberal and conservative camps? Answer: You can't. Ironically, the conservative Democrat has made something of a comeback in recent years, exemplified by the rise of Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. But they need counterparts on the other side of the aisle.

Which is why I'm glad that Maine Sen. Susan Collins won re-election. Collins and Maine's other Republican senator, Olympia Snowe, are the last of what was once a pretty common species.

A day to savor the symbolism

I've got a new piece up at the Guardian about the symbolism of our race-haunted country electing an African-American to the highest office in the land.

Obama wins, a bit later than expected

In an instant-reaction piece for the Guardian, I look at Barack Obama's victory - which came somewhat later than might have been expected based on the pre-election polls, but which proved to be decisive enough.

Nice speech by John McCain. Obama's up in a few minutes.

Students document the vote (II)

More from my Reinventing the News students:

• Firuzeh Shokooh-Valle: LBJ Apartments, Cambridge
• Michaela Stanelun: Morville House, Boston
• Marc Larocque: Kennedy School, Boston

That will be it for tonight, as I need to file with the Guardian soon. Sooner than I can manage, probably.

If exit polls were votes

Then Obama would be headed for a huge victory. Actually, he wouldn't, as President Kerry would be standing for re-election. So let's wait and see.

Students document the vote

My Reinventing the News students are hitting the polls today. Some early returns:

• Chaz Miller checks in at Wentworth Institute, where he finds a multilingual welcome sign.
• Liz Stitt asks New Hampshire residents what they think of negative campaigning.
• Matt Collette interviews two opponents of Question One outside a Boston polling place.

I'll try to link to more student posts as I find them.

Twittering the vote

WBUR Radio has a Twitter feed going to which anyone with a Twitter account can contribute. The idea is to tell folks what your voting experience was like today. Just stick a #wburvote into whatever you write.

Election Day in Danvers

For a Flickr slideshow, click here or on photo

Mrs. Media Nation and I timed our voting perfectly. I'm working at home today, so we walked to Danvers High School a little after 10 a.m. With the morning rush over and the evening a long way off, we figured we wouldn't have to wait too long.

Although there were longish lines of cars heading up and down Cabot Road, and though the parking lot was nearly full, we were right — once we were inside the gym, we breezed right through.

A poll worker told me that more than 500 people had voted in our precinct, way more than the typical number. I would imagine the explosion will come after work.

I also posted a few photos to the Polling Place Photo Project. Please have a look.

McCain's misleading 401(k) accusation

I nearly choked on my cereal when I read in the Boston Globe this morning that John McCain had accused Barack Obama [Note: McCain may not have been specifically referring to Obama; see update below] of proposing to tax individual retirement accounts. Scott Helman and Sasha Issenberg write:

"Watch out, they're even talking about taxing your 401(k) contributions," McCain said at Pittsburgh International Airport. "I'm going to protect people's retirement, not tax it. I'm going to protect Social Security. I'm going to protect Medicare."

I've done some quick research, and, as best as I can tell, McCain's charge is not true. The slightly longer version is that he's building assumptions upon assumptions, based in part on a mistake, and accepting the rhetoric of an anti-tax think tank as to what theoretical effect Obama's tax proposals might have on 401(k)s.

According to the nonpartisan watchdog site FactCheck.org, McCain has been making this accusation off and on since last spring. I have to confess that I hadn't been aware of it until now. FactCheck says McCain is staking his claim on a "giant blunder," latching on to Obama's proposal to raise the capital-gains tax. But 401(k) accounts allow you to invest your money tax-free, and are taxed as ordinary income when you reach retirement age and begin to withdraw money. The capital-gains tax has nothing to do with 401(k)s.

Some on the right argue that raising taxes the capital-gains tax and corporate income taxes will hurt 401(k)s because low taxes are always good for business and high taxes are always bad. That's the case made by Deroy Murdock at Human Events, who points to a calculator on the Web site of Americans for Tax Reform that shows the value of your 401(k) rising under McCain and shrinking under Obama. I haven't tried it, but it is transparently based on the assumption that the economy will do better with McCain as president than Obama.

Americans for Tax Reform, by the way, is a vehicle for anti-tax radical Grover Norquist, famous for once having said, "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Bottom line: McCain's accusation is false through and through misleading. We're all familiar with the trickle-down arguments on which it is based. But if you're McCain, it sounds so much better to say that Obama wants to tax the 401(k)s of "policemen, firefighters, nurses," as he did last April, than it does to say ordinary people might suffer some theoretical harm if Obama raises taxes on ExxonMobil.

Update: Mike from Norwell reports that there are some congressional Democrats who are proposing a tax on 401(k) accounts. Not Obama's proposal, and, needless to say, he would be insane to go along with it. He is not insane. But I've toned down the headline.

The gap widens

Every time I go to the Real Clear Politics composite poll average, the gap widens. It's now Obama 51.2 percent, McCain 44.2 percent.

Jumping ugly with Joe the Plumber

Joe the Plumber: "There's too many questions with Barack Obama and his loyalty to our country, and I question that greatly.... His ideology is completely different than what democracy stands for."

Pretty nasty stuff. Is the McCain campaign going to say anything?

What starts with the letter "M"?

From CNN:

POLK CITY, Florida (CNN) — At a boisterous Sarah Palin rally in Polk City, Florida on Saturday afternoon, one name was surprisingly absent from the campaign décor — John McCain's.... [T]he GOP nominee's name was literally nowhere to be found on any of the official campaign signage distributed to supporters at the event.

Literally! Oh, wait — never mind. (Via Jay Rosen's Twitter feed.)

Obama and his aunt

Wonkette explains everything you need to know about the story involving Barack Obama's aunt.

If you insist on taking it seriously, try this.