The Dodge Retort

Given its precarious state, there’s been more written about the Boston Globe in the past 10 days as in as many years. Three pieces jumped out at me during the past couple of days.

Wade Roush wrote a lengthy piece in Xconomy.com saying Boston can do just fine without the Globe because the web is already “teeming with great journalism.” But he gives too little attention to what the Globe does best – keeping its eye  on politics and government day in and day out. I agree with many of his points including the fact we know print is going away, an oft-asked question whose answer is now clear.

But the who’s going to do the reporting on the State House, Massport, the Big Dig, street crime, cops, fires, The T, the metro region, business, the City of Boston and lord knows who and what else? TV? Haha. No Way. Blogs? They don’t really report the facts. Online news organizations like Xconomy? They have  the professionalism, but no where near enough feet on the street to replace what the Globe does .

Roush doesn’t completely discount the Globe’s watchdog role, but I think he underestimates its importance. Greater Boston with its six million inhabitants deserves and needs hundreds of reporters scrutinzing public institutions by developing sources, breaking stories and exposing misbehavior.

What’s more, the Globe brand stands for professionalism and objective reporting. Should its demise become reality, blogs and web sites with their handful of `reporters’ simply just to not have the sweep to cover everything that needs to be scrutinized.  Seattlepi.com, he writes, will be an interesting experiment now that the once mighty Seattle Post Intelligencer has given up on print. Then again, the Seattle Times is there to pick up the slack from the print side, something I do see not the Boston Herald doing as comprehensively or as well as the Globe.

John Carroll did a terrific commentary yesterday on WBUR entitled “The Globe Documents its own Dismantling.” His point was the Globe’s own coverage about itself only highlight’s the newspaper’s weakened state. What else can it do? It has to cover itself, but Carroll argues that emotion got the better of its editors in their over eagerness to expose the paper’s warts.

He has a great line about how the Globe’s cutbacks have only made page B5 is the N.Y. Times mothership. “You can’t get more buried than that unless you’re Jimmy Hoffa,” he intones.

Finally, the Globe had a small story today about the concessions management is trying to extract from the unionized “mailers.” Mailers! That sounds like a profession a from the 1940s? Didn’t they go out with the Linotype? No, mailers do not sort mail in rail cars. That ended with Postal Service terminating its decades-long contract with railroads in the late 1960s.

Mailers apparently stick the inserts inside the newspaper, a process that begs for automation.

When I was at the Haverhill Gazette which has been publishing since 1821 and retrenched from a daily to a weekly a few years ago, inserts were put into the paper by a machine operated by contractors who delivered the paper in their own cars. That was the late 1970s.

While in my last post I waxed sentimental about the Boston Globe, the desperate situation is causing much dissension between Globe staffers and union leaders, several of whom have jobs for life under present agreements. Staffers also accuse the union leaders of keeping them in the dark about Globe owner NYT’s threats to shutter the newspaper, according to the Globe’s crosstown rival, The Boston Herald.

Whoever would have imagined that the Herald which has experienced financial problems for decades would stand a chance to outlive the Globe? Read the comments (72) to this story…..some anti-liberal Globe (and newspaper) sentiment which one would expect from Boston’s conservative rag.

The Herald also reported that the daily Globe newsstand price will climb a half buck to $1.50 while Sunday goes from $3.50 to $4.00. The irony is readers are paying more for less given the Globe’s anorexic size these days. That is unlikely to go over well with the Globe’s readership. In February, I locked in for a year.

Clearly, the Herald has become a major source of Globe rumors and disenchantment. And it could come out on top as Boston’ s only major print daily.

My relationship with the Boston Globe is long and varied so it was with shock I read the news that the NYT Co  was threatening to shut it down unless the unions give back $20 million this year.  An empty threat it wasn’t.  The Globe is forecast to lose $85 million this year and lost $50 million of the NYT Co.’s $57 million loss for 2008. The Globe is hurting badly.

The Globe and I go back a half century so it is with disbelief that the Globe newspaper could go away. New England (NE) without the Globe?! Take away clam chowdah, but not the Globe.  A Globe-less Boston would be  a colossal tragedy on so many levels for the region. Who’d keep politicians in check? Who’d campaign for fairness day in and out? Who’d report the good news? Who’d provide that wonderful paper edition for reading and 24 hours later, my wood stove? Who’d? Who’d? Who’d? The Globe is Boston and Boston is the Globe.

I was 8 or 9 when I started reading the comics in the Globe also known as the funnies. At the time, both the Globe and Herald had a.m. and p.m. editions. The papers bore colored stripes (dark pink and blue) to signify which edition they were (or political leanings…I forget…seems like the Herald had a blue strip). I guesstimate the Globe gave up on the p.m. in the mid-seventies.

I delivered a local newspaper and my mother was a high school English teacher so journalism was in my blood. My interests quickly expanded from comics Steve Roper & Mike Nomad, Mary Worth and Mutt and Jeff to the sports section and into the Globe at large which carried a terrific investigative pieces and a international reputation (after all, it’s called the Globe). After college, I drove a cab for several years and my day started with an exceptionally strong cup of coffee from Mull’s breakfast joint in South Boston and a copy of the Globe to read sports columnist Ray Fitzgerald, my all-time favorite.

My independent streak steered me into journalism in the mid-70s. Even then,  newspaper jobs were scarce, but if you wanted a newspaper career bad enough, you could land a job. The Globe was the paragon of NE newspapering and many waited until their fifties to work there. I was 40 when I started writing for the Globe in the long since dropped Sunday Hobbies section.

On Feb. 18, 1990, my first Globe story which was on  model railroad show in W. Springfield appeared and was followed by one in July on book collecting at the Old Corner Bookstore. They constituted The Odd Corner which was overseen by auto writer John R. White, a crusty editor who I once made the mistake of asking how long my stories should be. “When you get the end, stop,” he growled. So I went long and he ran half the story.

In 1995, I started writing a bi-weekly column called TechEdge on the Globe’s Emerging Business page. It was a column explaining new technology to business which back then wasn’t as big a deal it is today.  The Business section was growing and Larry Edelman ran the section (Larry and I had both broke into tech writing at an IT trade rag called MIS Week…RIP). I wrote about 100 columns before I was lured away by the Wall Street Journal in late 1998.

Then, in 2000, I got a call from Edelman’s successor Peter Mancusi asking if I was interested in a new position called Technology Editor. I was wary of the long commute from my home to the Globe and was still writing for the WSJ, but went through four hours of interviewing which included time with Globe editor Matt Storin, exec. editor Helen Donovan and several others all since gone from the paper. Alas, I pulled out of the running given my commitments at the time and the specter of late nights helping to put out the the business section.

Rob Weisman, who has become a good friend, got the position of technology editor and has done well at the Globe.  He’s given me a bunch of freelance assignments over the years and has become one of the lead writers following the Globe’s problems. Hopefully, he or no one will not write the paper’s obituary. He came to the Globe via the Seattle Times whose rival the Post Intelligencer just gave up on print and before that, the Hartford Courant.

My guess it’s just a matter of time before all newspapers give up on print given the huge expense and declining ad revenue.  Boston.com is a decent site (I wish it were newsier) , but could not sustain the 300 reporters and editors still occupying the Globe newsroom still has. I suspect a small fraction of that large staff would endure.

Many think the Globe needs benevolent local ownership who cares more about the newspaper than profits. Expecting such a savior to suddenly appear might well be naive given the Globe’s mounting losses and grim prospects. Hopefully within what was once a bloated organization is a viable Boston Globe that can carry on the mission.

So I will cherish those remaining walks down the driveway every morning to grab my copy of the Globe.

You mean it was National Buy a Newspaper Day and I missed it!? Apparently it was and no one knew. How pathetic is that? I suppose if newspapers had promoted the idea, it would have looked these once powerful institutions turned dinosaurs  would looked like they had their hands out.

Newseum.org, Washington’s terrific news museum, doesn’t say a word about National Buy a Newspaper Day. It should know! Newspapers will soon be a museum staple, after all.

It’s hard to tell who organized it and apparently no one seemed to know about it except Guardian writer Maura Kelly whose  column today decries the deplorable state of U.S. newspapers.  She evens floats the idea of endowments for newspaper. And she mentions National Buy a Newspaper Day!

On Feb. 17, I pay my annual subscription to the Boston Globe, which like other U.S newspaper is hurting. I’ll re-up for sure. I love newspapers and have worked for a bunch of them. But National Buy a Newspaper Day makes their plight feel that much worse.