Contributor
Dan Kennedy
Panelist
Biography
A regular panelist on "Beat the Press" since 1998, Dan Kennedy is an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University and a nationally recognized media critic. Author of the popular blog Media Nation, Dan won the National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism in 2001 and was a finalist for a Syracuse University Mirror Award in media commentary in 2008. When he's not blogging, Dan is a contributing writer for The Guardian, CommonWealth magazine, and the Boston Phoenix. Dan is also the author of "Little People: A Father Reflects on his Daughter's Dwarfism - and What It Means to Be Different" and is currently researching a book on the intersection of journalism, technology, and community participation.
Dan's Posts
For the Herald, a long-term lease and lots of space
We already knew that the Boston Herald, having shut down its printing presses, was getting ready to leave its hulking South End plant. Now the other shoe has dropped, as Herald owner Pat Purcell announced yesterday that the paper will move to the Seaport District in early 2012.
Two pieces of information seem significant. First, the Herald signed a 10-year lease, which, if nothing else, ought to give pause to those who perpetually predict the tabloid's demise. Second, the paper will commandeer 51,000 square feet of space.
I'm not good at visualizing what that means, but it sounds like a lot for what has become a small operation. Is Purcell planning to expand? Or does he have additional ventures in mind? Don't forget that he moonlights as head of Rupert Murdoch's South Coast papers.
Memo to Tom Menino: Boston is not "a two-newspaper town" — it's a multiple-newspaper town, with excellent papers ranging from neighborhood outlets such as the Dorchester Reporter and the South End News to specialty publications like the Boston Phoenix and Bay Windows.
Boston is a two-daily town, and it looks like Purcell intends to keep it that way for as long as he can.
The Boston Globe covers the Herald's move as well.
Jay Severin returns to Boston's airwaves
Four months after being fired by WTKK Radio (96.9 FM), Jay Severin (photo) is returning to the air — this time with WXKS (AM 1200), a Clear Channel-owned station that has tried to build a talk-radio alternative around nationally syndicated right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. The Boston Herald reports today that Severin will helm afternoon drive (3 to 6 p.m.) starting this Thursday.
Severin, who has a long history of making incendiary racial and sexual remarks, was canned after a preening, offensive monologue about his alleged swordsmanship with interns. More to the point, I suspect, was that his ratings had plummeted, making it hard to justify his reported $1 million salary. No word in the Herald as to what Clear Channel is going to pay him.
Rob Eno wonders if Severin might actually beat his replacement at 'TKK, Doug Meehan, since Severin will be following Limbaugh — "gold in the talk radio game." (Meehan's lead-in is Michael Graham, so I can certainly understand Eno's reasoning.) Problem is, Boston has always been one of Limbaugh's weakest markets. Indeed, when Clear Channel converted 'XKS to a right-wing talk station a couple of years ago, it called itself "Rush Radio." Now it's just "Talk 1200," which suggests that executives don't see Limbaugh as much of a local asset.
A far bigger issue is WXKS's weak signal. Though promos tout its 50,000 watts of power, that doesn't translate into listenability. Driving in from the North Shore earlier today, it wasn't until I hit Revere that the static finally dropped to a tolerable level. Even liberal talk station WWZN (AM 1510), with its notoriously weak signal, came in more clearly.
As for Severin's return, it will be interesting to see if anyone cares. Somewhere, Scot Lehigh is quietly celebrating. But I've missed it if anyone has been pining for Severin's return to the Boston airwaves.
Creative Commons and the Senate campaign
The Bob Massie campaign is using a photo I took of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown on its Half-Term Senator website. I just want to be clear that all content on my blog, Media Nation, is published under a Creative Commons license, which means that anyone is free to use it for non-commercial purposes, with certain restrictions. I receive no compensation. The complete terms of the license are online here.
The Massie campaign neither sought nor needed my permission. A campaign official asked me if my Creative Commons license covers photos as well as text. I told her it did, and that was the end of it. Anyone else is free to use it as well — including, of course, the Brown campaign.
The photo, by the way, is from a debate involving Brown, Attorney General Martha Coakley and independent candidate Joseph Kennedy held at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in December 2009. The small headshot used by the Massie campaign was taken from the photo above.
To learn more about Creative Commons, click here.
Some free advice for Boston.com
Should a news site label the disappearance and death of an 11-year-old girl a "Hot Topic"?
Frankly, it's not something I had given any thought to until yesterday, when I heard from a "Beat the Press" viewer who complained that Boston.com had included "Celina Cass" in its "Hot Topics" menu bar near the top of the page. The story is still there as I write this, along with "Debt limit," "TSA," "Cash WinFall," "Boston public schools" and "Red Sox."
My caller told me that including such a tragic story involving a child as a "Hot Topic" was offensive, and said she had complained to Boston.com in the past over similar matters. I instantly understood what she meant, though I wasn't sure whether I agreed.
Last night I ran it by Mrs. Media Nation, who agreed with the caller: "Hot Topics" was just the wrong phrase for a catch-all category that includes everything from sports and politics to heartbreaking tragedies. So here's some free advice to Boston.com — call it something else, like "Top News," "Headlines" or whatever phrase you like that's succinct but also neutral.
Oh, and when you click on "Celina Cass," it would also be nice if you didn't encounter a story labeled "Our Pick."
A lackluster 2011 for the Globe's finances
Looks like it's been a pretty lackluster 2011 so far for the Boston Globe, according to the latest financial results from the New York Times Co. Revenues at the New England Media Group, which consists of the Globe, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Boston.com, were down 3.6 percent for the second quarter compared to 2010, and down 4.3 percent for the first six months.
That includes a 2.7 percent decline in advertising revenue for the quarter (3.8 percent for the first six months) and a 5.4 percent drop in circulation revenue for the quarter (6 percent for the first six months). Total revenue for the second quarter was reported at $102.5 million. The circulation decline suggests that the higher prices instituted for the print edition a couple of years ago have now worked their way through the system, and that revenues are sliding as the number of papers sold continues to shrink, as is the case at most daily newspapers.
Business has stabilized at the Globe — certainly compared to 2009, when the Times Co. was threatening to close the company if it couldn't extract painful union concessions in the face of huge operating losses. But neither the Globe nor the newspaper business in general is close to being out of the woods.
Next stop is the Globe's experiment in charging for online distribution, scheduled to be unveiled later this year. The Times itself has apparently had some success with its own pay model. The delicate state of the Globe's finances shows how important it is that its own experiment doesn't blow up in the lab.
Also: News business analyst Alan Mutter recently analyzed the unexpectedly steep drop in newspaper advertising revenue.
