Herald reporter charged in alleged assault

Boston Herald reporter O'Ryan Johnson has been charged with assault and battery following an altercation with a 74-year-old man in a Groveland laundromat, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

The story is leading Romenesko at the moment.

More: It turns out that Johnson was part of an Eagle-Tribune team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The Tribune story mentions that Johnson is an alumnus but omits the Pulitzer. Odd oversight.

Johnson's byline appears on only one of the Pulitzer-winning stories, but it was the first -- an account of a tragic accident that claimed the lives of four boys who fell through the ice on the Merrimack River.

Journalism still legal in Massachusetts

Not that this was going anywhere, but the state's Civil Service Commission has declined to punish the Eagle-Tribune of North Andover for committing journalism.

Michael Neve filed a complaint against the Tribune after the paper photographed him leaving a hearing at which he testified to having offered a $15,000 bribe to Methuen Mayor William Manzi. (Manzi reportedly did not accept the bribe, and the case is actually about something else.)

Neve's lawyer had persuaded the commission to bar anyone from taking a photo during and after the hearing, held Oct. 30 in Boston. The Tribune responded by snapping Neve's picture outside, after he'd left the building. Neve's lawyer, James Krasnoo, tried to argue that "after" encompassed his client's perambulations outdoors, in a public place, which is quite a stretch. By that definition, it's still "after."

"I think it's a good result for the paper and I think it's the right result for the paper's readers as well," the Tribune's lawyer, friend of Media Nation Rob Bertsche, is quoted as saying.

My only quibble: the Tribune should have posted the photo online.

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.

At newspapers, the slashing continues

Budget-slashing at newspapers continues, both locally and nationally.

At the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 36 positions are being cut and zoned local editions are being eliminated, according to the Daily Worcesteria, which adds: "This is the journalistic equivalent of bunkering in at the last, strongest point and abandoning the outposts."

Ironically, the Daily Worcesteria is part of Worcester Magazine, which is shedding positions following an ownership change, reports the, uh, Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The T&G, as you probably know, is owned by the New York Times Co., whose New England Newspaper Group (the T&G, the Boston Globe and Boston.com) suffered a 24.5 percent loss in advertising revenue in July as compared to the same month in 2007.

Things are at least as grim on the North Shore and in the Merrimack Valley, as CNHI, the corporate owner of the Eagle-Tribune papers, announced this week that it is eliminating 52 jobs, writes Boston Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam. The chain comprises the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, the Daily News of Newburyport, the Salem News and the Gloucester Daily Times.

And it's no better elsewhere. Alan Mutter, who writes the Newsosaur blog, tells us today that newspaper revenues are down $3 billion over the first six months of 2008, bringing revenues to their lowest level in a dozen years.

Even online revenues are slipping, Mutter says, which shows that what's happening now has as much to do with the economic recession as it does with the stampede from print to the Web.

Paper blows pol's cover

Now here's an interesting ethical dilemma. James Donahue, a Haverhill city councilor, apparently posted comments on the Eagle-Tribune's Web site under perhaps as many as 38 different screen names. How do we know this? Because the Eagle-Tribune exposed him last Saturday.

Donahue acknowledged using multiple screen names, but said that at least some of the 38 names traced to his computer were those of supporters hanging around his house. The city's mayor, James Fiorentini, a frequent recipient of Donahue's barbs, admitted that he, too, has been known to respond to his critics without revealing his identity.

Here's the question. Even if you grant that what Donahue did was stupid, was it ethical for the Eagle-Tribune to expose him? There is nothing in the comment box telling you to use your real name. (I've posted a few pseudonymous comments at the Salem News' site — part of the same chain as the Tribune.) It seems to me that the Tribune used proprietary information to embarrass Donahue, and without giving him fair warning that he was doing anything wrong.

It's not clear exactly how the Tribune tracked Donahue down. The comment box does ask for a valid e-mail address. But the story says the posts were tracked to "Donahue's personal computer," which makes me think someone traced the messages to his IP address. If Google had done this, there would be an uproar.

The paper defends its outing in an editorial, saying in part:

It is not the general practice of this newspaper to seek the identity of those who comment on stories, although there is no explicit guarantee of anonymity. Virtually all the management of the comments section of the online edition is aimed at removing posts that are profane, racist or personal attacks.

However, one of the forum moderators noticed a pattern of posts under dozens of different names, and then discovered that they had all come from the same computer address. When it became clear that they were coming from the computer of an elected public official, it became our obligation to let the public know.

The average citizen does not take an oath to serve the public. An elected official does. An attempt to deceive the public is clearly not serving it, and a public official who does so is not only undeserving of the protection of confidentiality, but deserves public criticism.

Now Donahue's in trouble with his fellow councilors. And I would imagine there's going to be some awkwardness, at the very least, over his job as a teacher at a public school. ("What kind of an example ... ?")

I'm not sure I buy the Eagle-Tribune's argument. It seems to me that the paper has chosen to humiliate Donahue for doing something the paper itself implicitly invited him to do, and that it used information available to no one else. If the Tribune had caught Donahue doing the same thing on, say, a non-Tribune blog, that would be fine. But this comes pretty close to entrapment, does it not?

I'm still pondering this, though, and would be curious to hear from Media Nation readers what you think. I promise not to trace your IP addresses. I guarantee you that I wouldn't know how.