December 04, 2008
In which I discuss the conflict of interest in Henry Louis Gates's recent New Yorker piece and praise Chuck Turner's crisis-management skills.
December 03, 2008
If you thought that the recent decision by Boston Globe drivers to accept a wage cut and fewer holidays meant that Globe management was successfully making the case for austerity to the paper's employees, think again.
Yesterday--in advance of a December 9 meeting on the possible re-opening of the contract of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the paper's largest union--BNG head Dan Totten sent a memo to Globe management that excoriated management's approach to employee relations.
As Totten himself notes, 500 BNG employees have lost their jobs
over the last eight years, so the union isn't exactly working from a
position of strength. Be that as it may--and allowing for the fact that there may be some brinksmanship involved--his memo suggests that the BNG isn't quite ready to follow the drivers' lead.
Here's the full text.
------
December 2, 2008
To: P. Stephen Ainsley
Harriet Gould
Greg Thornton
FROM: Daniel Totten, President BNG
RE: New York Times Labor Relations at The Boston Globe
The Boston Newspaper Guild is extremely concerned about the actions, focus and direction the NYT has taken in its leadership of The Boston Globe, particularly the last several years.
For the last several years (including the last round of BNG-2006, Globe CBA negotiations) the BNG had requested comprehensive financial information relative to BNG covered units of New England Media Group.
The NYT/Globe has chosen to not provide the requested information.
On June 3, 2008, Globe management along with a representative of NYT, met with union leadership. At this meeting the Globe quickly showed some revenue figures on an overhead screen, featuring the tiniest of font sizes, making readability virtually impossible. The Globe did not provide anything in writing on the information provided.
The Globe continues to refuse to provide financials to the BNG, citing its need for a confidentiality agreement that would eliminate the BNG Executive Committee from communicating financials to its members.
The BNG is fine with signing a confidentiality agreement, and we have offered a confidentiality agreement, which the Globe refuses to discuss.
The NYT/Globe in the June 3, 2008 meeting with union leaders stressed the need for ‘collaboration’. The word collaboration has appeared several more times in various messages from NYT/Globe leadership to employees.
We question:
• Is ‘collaboration’ providing only financials that the company wishes to show and nothing more?
• Is ‘collaboration’ imposing a gag on BNG leadership as a condition of The Globe’s offer for the union to review financial information?
• Is ‘collaboration’ The Globe’s failure to provide, as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement, appropriate 30 day notice to layoff BNG members?
• Is ‘collaboration’ blindsiding BNG members with layoffs three weeks before Thanksgiving?
• Is ‘collaboration’ refusing to meet with the BNG, citing negotiations with other unions as a priority a reasonable foundation for labor relations?
• Is ‘collaboration’ the layoff of longtime Guild members from Living Arts Department, while The Globe acknowledges the quality will be lost by such a move? The Globe’s response, “We have to make some tough decisions”? Is ‘collaboration’ when ‘tough decisions’ constantly eliminate BNG members and erode Globe quality?
• Is ‘collaboration’ when senior management informs its sales staff that they should feel guilty about recent layoffs?
• Is ‘collaboration’ when NYT/Globe Labor Relations managers chose to violate the contract and would rather arbitrate matters than negotiate?
• Is ‘collaboration when the Globe’s top 20 executives are paid approximately $4.9 million in base salary for 2007, not to mention another $4 million in bonuses?
• Is ‘collaboration’ when the NYT moves into a lavish billion dollar Manhattan corporate office while the BNG is now moving into the 4th year of a wage freeze?
• Is ‘collaboration’ when the Globe’s Business Financial Operations and Home Delivery operations are outsourced to Bangalore, India and Manilla, respectively, with dramatic negative results, lost customers, lost revenues, incorrect billing, frustrated and irate customers who drop their subscriptions out of an inefficient business process, and when this is pointed out to the Globe, it falls on deaf ears?
• Is ‘collaboration’ putting forth items for a contract reopener that are not agreed upon as reopener issues?
• Is ‘collaboration’ using the elimination of some 31 management positions to influence other unions into ratifying their contracts?
• Is ‘collaboration’ $120 million in a computer system (SAP) while Globe attempts to move the Guild related work?
• Is ‘collaboration’ when the company ignores the BNG’s request for proper training on new technology as negotiated, and the Globe fails to supply such training?
The BNG has lost some 500 members; talented, quality human beings, over the last 8 years through various reduction programs.
The NYT seems not to focus on The Boston Globe, its superior workforce and quality product.
The only goal of the New York Times is to take from it’s most vital resource – The Boston Newspaper Guild members.
The Boston Newspaper Guild is always ready, willing and able to collaborate.
Any such efforts begin with the New York Times grasping the two-dimensional aspect of the word collaboration, and with the NYT showing greater respect toward the Boston Newspaper Guild.
We’ve given more than our share and seen our paychecks diminish while NYT continues to TAKE at the expense of BNG members.
cc: D. Wanger
December 03, 2008
With the film "Frost/Nixon" coming to a theater near you, it's worth taking a look at this BU Today interview with BU journalism professor Bob Zelnick, who had a big role in the original Frost/Nixon standoff. A sampling:
Nixon was a tough adversary. The interviews show how tough a core Nixon
had and how strategic his every move was. Nixon thought one step, two
steps, three steps ahead. He had an objective firmly in mind. He was
his own best lawyer. At the same time, he had this dark streak and he
was his own worst enemy. Everything that people noticed about him that
was good — his strategic thinking, his patriotism, his analytical
abilities, his recognition of the character traits of others — all of
that deserted him in the moment when it counted the most.
And there's lots more good stuff therein--including a hint that the Frost/Nixon interview prep helped change Zelnick's own politics. Take a look.
December 02, 2008
The Boston Herald reports that owner/publisher Pat Purcell has a new gig as executive chairman of the News Corp.-owned Ottaway Newspapers. This is a big job; in the words of the Herald's Frank Quaratiello, Purcell "will be responsible for the eight Ottaway daily newspapers, 15 weekly newspapers, magazines and Internet sites."
As they say in my home state, Uff da. But here's the big question: what does Purcell's decision to accept this role mean, exactly? Might it portend the future purchase of the Herald by News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch, as Universal Hub's Adam Gaffin suggests? Or is it, instead, a sign that Purcell's interest in/dedication to the Herald is ebbing, and that he's laying the groundwork for the next stage of his career?
One point worth considering: in the Herald write-up, Quaratiello talks of Ottaway's Massachusetts papers "work[ing] more closely with the Herald in the future." Such collaboration wouldn't require shared ownership. But it could make things easier.
December 02, 2008
I never met Karen Gelzinis, the wife of Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis. But judging from the obituaries in today's Globe and Sunday's Herald, she was a remarkable woman who touched a lot of lives. Here's a representative anecdote from the Globe piece:
[Peter Gelzinis] said his wife's standing sometimes helped his own career.
He remembered trying to interview gang members in the early 1990s on
Intervale Street. "The biggest of the four guys steps out, walks over,
and gives me a once-over, looks me straight in the eye, and says, 'You
Mrs. Gelzinis's husband? Say hello. She was my best teacher,' " he
recalled.
My condoloences to Peter and his family.
December 01, 2008
In an LA Times article that was reprinted in today's Globe, reporter Richard Fausset speculates on the implications of the use of "ain't" by Anh Cao, a Vietnamese-American challenger to Congressman William Jefferson, who's black:
Anh "Joseph" Cao, who hopes to be the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, was helping a TV interviewer with the pronunciation of his name It's not "cow" but "gow," he explained recently, with a hard G.
"You know, 'Cao' means 'tall,' " added the Republican candidate, who stands 5 feet 2 inches. "And if you notice, I ain't that tall."
The "ain't" was a departure for an otherwise formal man - a playful, deliberate shift into the local vernacular and an acknowledgment, perhaps, that this rising star in New Orleans's Vietnamese community will have to charm black voters if he hopes to defeat the scandal-plagued but resilient incumbent, Representative William J. Jefferson.
Fausset goes on to note that Louisiana's Second Congressional District is majority black. In fact, black voters greatly outnumber whites, 64 percent to 30 percent.
That said, I wonder: Did Cao use "ain't" to cater to black voters, or to try to sound Southern? Or, more precisely, to sound like a Southerner from a specific socioeconomic background--and not like a Vietnamese immigrant?
Personally, I've always thought of the usage of "ain't" as a class-based thing, not a race-based one. And I'm not alone: consider this overview from the 1996 American Heritage Book of English Usage:
[A]in't was to receive a barrage of criticism in the 19th century for having no set sequence of words from which it can be contracted and for being “a vulgarism,” that is, a term used by the lower classes. At the same time ain’t’s uses were multiplying to include is not, has not, and have not. It may be that these extended uses helped provoke the negative reaction. Whatever the case, the criticism of ain’t by usage commentators and teachers has not subsided, and the use of ain’t has come to be regarded as a mark of ignorance. Use it at your peril.
But despite all the attempts to ban it, ain’t continues to appear in the speech of ordinary folks. Even educated and upper-class speakers see that ain’t has no substitute in fixed expressions like Say it ain’t so, You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie, and You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Now that I've bloviated, let's cut to the chase: did Fausset screw up or not?
November 26, 2008
--"That means, 'Shut up. Don't lie.'"
That would be Wendy Murphy, co-host of WRKO's Finneran's Forum, explaining that the right to remain silent is actually an obligation limiting the right of alleged criminals (like Chuck Turner) to try to sway public opinion in their favor.
Interesting, especially given Murphy's volubility as a pro-prosecution commentator during the Duke lacrosse rape case.
November 25, 2008
Bad news coming out of Horticultural Hall: Boston Daily blogger Amy Derjue is now a casualty of the ongoing financial meltdown.
The good news, such as it is, is that Derjue will continue blogging here. Of course, DIY blogging tends not to pay the bills. But given the talent Derjue demonstrated during her BoMag stint, I'm guessing she'll catch on somewhere soon, shitty economic conditions notwithstanding. (How about it, Boston.com?)
November 24, 2008
Sarah Palin and Boston city councilor Chuck Turner probably don't agree on much, but they're definitely united in their low regard for the Fourth Estate.
At a press conference this afternoon on City Hall Plaza, Turner--who was recently arrested on a federal bribery charge--seemed angrier at the press than at law enforcement or City Council president Maureen Feeney, who stripped Turner of his committee chairmanships last week and then scheduled a meeting today at which Turner's fate on the council was going to be decided. (The meeting was ultimately canceled.)
By way of example, here's the heart of a press statement Turner distributed this afternoon and read aloud (with frequent embellishments) at his press conference:
My main concern is that I am not being tried by a jury of my peers, I am being tried by the Globe, the Herald, Fox News, Channel 7, Channel 5, etc., etc. etc. News outlets that would not cover my work as a City Councilor are now knocking at my door almost every hour demanding that I speak to them as if I have some responsibility to serve their bosses....
Obviously, the press is working to publicly destroy my reputation before I even have an opportunity to have a day in court. Since I am being tried by the media and my fellow Councilors, I have made the decision to publicly defend myself. That is I will act as my own lawyer in this media trial in which I find myself.
There are a couple points worth noting here. First, it's not just Turner's work that the local media don't cover; it's pretty much every city councilor's work, and city poltics in general. Turner's statement makes me wonder if he gets this.
Second, Turner seems to think that the press actively wants to bring him down--when in fact, those of us who are covering Turner's situation are responding to a federal charge. Unlike House Speaker Sal DiMasi's ongoing travails, for example, which have become news thanks to the Globe's investigative reporting, this is a reactive media situation.
Turner should bear this stuff in mind--especially because he clearly hopes, a la Palin, that the press will now stop misbehaving and do its job. (Among other things, he urged the media to press Feeney on why she'd concluded Turner was guilty before he'd been given his day in court, and suggested that we drop by his Roxbury district office on Wednesday for his next press conference.) I may be wrong, but I think Turner will get a more sympathetic hearing from the press as a whole if he doesn't overreach with the media criticism.
P.S.--I forgot to include Turner's most extreme bit of media-crit hyperbole, but Universal Hub's Adam Gaffin didn't. Here it is:
I will not sit back silently and allow my reputation that I struggled
to build for 45 years to be ripped to shreds by employees of rich media
corporation owners who have one desire and that is to silence anybody
who is willing to speak up about oppression in this city, in this
state, in this country.
Again: probably not the best tack to take if you're trying to win over the press.
November 23, 2008
Today's New York Times Magazine story on "screen literacy," written by Kevin Kelly, begins with a brief synopsis of technology's effect on human thought. Basically, Kelly seems to believe that today's image-centric culture challenges authority in a way that the text-centric culture of the past never did:
When technology shifts, it bends the culture. Once, long ago,
culture revolved around the spoken word. The oral skills of
memorization, recitation and rhetoric instilled in societies a
reverence for the past, the ambiguous, the ornate and the subjective. Then,
about 500 years ago, orality was overthrown by technology. Gutenberg’s
invention of metallic movable type elevated writing into a central
position in the culture. By the means of cheap and perfect copies, text
became the engine of change and the foundation of stability. From
printing came journalism, science and the mathematics of libraries and
law. The distribution-and-display device that we call printing
instilled in society a reverence for precision (of black ink on white
paper), an appreciation for linear logic (in a sentence), a passion for
objectivity (of printed fact) and an allegiance to authority (via
authors), whose truth was as fixed and final as a book. In the West, we
became people of the book.
Now invention is again overthrowing
the dominant media. A new distribution-and-display technology is
nudging the book aside and catapulting images, and especially moving
images, to the center of the culture. We are becoming people of the
screen. The fluid and fleeting symbols on a screen pull us away from
the classical notions of monumental authors and authority. On the
screen, the subjective again trumps the objective. The past is a rush
of data streams cut and rearranged into a new mashup, while truth is
something you assemble yourself on your own screen as you jump from
link to link. We are now in the middle of a second Gutenberg shift —
from book fluency to screen fluency, from literacy to visuality. [emph. added]
Now, Kelly is "senior maverick" at Wired, so it's no surprise he's something of a tech triumphalist. But that's no excuse for ignoring the fact that print packed a hefty revolutionary punch of its own.
Here, for example, is how Robert Wright describes the relationship between the printing press and the Reformation in his book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny:
There are two basic stories about how the printing press fostered the Reformation. The first is that it brought Bibles within reach of laypeople, allowing them to get their religious instruction from the source and thus form their own opinions about church doctrine, with no coaching from the pope. This story is especially popular among Protestants, and there is some truth to it.
But the more generally important story is the one hidden in the word "Protestant." The printing press lubricated protest. It did so by lowering the cost of reaching and mobilizing a large audience. Before the invention of printing, publishing en masse had been hard unless you could afford the upkeep on, say, a few dozen monasteries full of scribes. (For a student in Lombardy during the fifteenth century, justbefore the coming of movable type, the price of a law book was more than a year’s living costs.) Now, with printing cheap, an eloquent agitator with a catchy idea could occupy center stage.
Martin Luther, a theologian of modest prominence, affixed his critique of Catholic doctrine to the door of Wittenberg’s All Saints Church on October 31, 1517, and within weeks three separate editions were rolling off the presses in three cities. A sixteenth-century writer observed: "It almost appeared as if the angels themselves had been their messengers and brought them before the eyes of all the people."
As Wright notes, this doesn't mean that print is inherently anti-authoritarian; the rise of print culture also paved the way for nationalism, for example. Still, it's unfortunate that the NYT Magazine allowed Kelly's overly tidy account to make it to (ahem) print.
November 21, 2008
Readers of this blog know that I'm more than happy to rip on Sarah Palin when just cause exists. And it usually does.
But mocking her for "pardoning" a turkey, and then ignoring that other turkeys are being killed?
For the love of God, what's she supposed to do? Order the workers to stop the slaughter? Fall into a feminine faint? C'mon, people.
P.S.--What is laughable is the delicate fuzzing-out of the image of the turkey being killed. Like if we don't see the actual moment of death, we can all pretend that the Meat Fairy brings the Thanksgiving bird.
November 21, 2008
The Herald's Hillary Chabot reports that--according to US Att'y Michael Sullivan--the corruption investigation that's already snagged state senator Dianne Wilkerson and Boston city councilor Chuck Turner won't be implicating the governor, Boston mayor Tom Menino, or any members of the state legislature. But Sullivan seems to leave the door open for more city councilors taking a hit.
November 21, 2008
Boston.com is currently hyping an interview with recently arrested Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner on its front page. This is an exceedingly smart move, since the Q-and-A (conducted by former city councilor Tom Keane for a piece in next Sunday's Globe Magazine) has Turner arguing--passionately and at great length--that politics and ethics don't go together:
From an ethical standpoint, I don’t think the vast
majority of Congress should be allowed to sit. Ethics should include a
commitment to the needs of the people of this country which the
Congress has not displayed. Given the fact that all our state
governments and the federal government is controlled by money, I think
it is hypocritical to talk about ethics when you talk about our
political leaders or our business leaders, religious leaders, etc.
Its time for Americans to admit that ethics never have had a
significant influence on American politics. If Americans cared about
ethical behavior, why did slavery last for two hundred years and neo
slavery last for another two hundred? Why does America have the weakest
laws in the Western World to protect a working person right to have a
fair return on their labor. Why were the Irish treated as animals when
they were driven to America by the politics of the English ancestors of
the Yankees who treated them as if they were black when they were
driven here. I’m surprised Tom. I didn’t think you were in denial of
the reality of the moral depravity of this country.
If you're trying to figure out why a smart guy like Turner would put himself in the situation he's in, this is a damn good place to start. (I'd also suggest my 2004 Phoenix profile of the councilor.)
November 21, 2008
In the wake of Mitt Romney's Times column on how to fix Detroit, Blue Mass. Group's David Kravitz suggests that Mitt Romney take over as GM's CEO:
It's perfect. GM needs new management; Romney's free; he's a
turnaround guy; he's from Detroit; his dad ran a car company; he's
already got a national profile, which would really help GM; he's
already filthy rich, so he could take the job for a pittance. It's
totally perfect.
Plus, it's a brilliant political move for him. High risk, sure --
but if he can pull it off, what a feather in his cap. His political
career needs a turnaround of its own, and nothing would be better than
jump-starting GM. (Ha! Get it? Jump-starting?)
The current management of GM is surely not long for the job. After today's debacle over the corporate jets
(seriously -- did you hear about this? these idiots flew their
corporate jets from Detroit to DC to beg for a bailout), there's no way
this Wagoner dude is going to hang on.
What do you say, Mitt? Put your money and your effort where your mouth
is. If the job opens up (which it surely will, one way or another --
there eventually will be some sort of federal aid, and one of the
conditions will almost surely be to force out current management), step
up and save the industry you grew up in, and that you say you love.
Wouldn't it be nice to have the whole country rooting for you, for a
change?
Excellent idea, David! Yet another benefit: running GM would allow Mitt to move to Michigan, thereby becoming a "Heartland" figure and distancing himself from wacky liberal Massachusetts.
Last time I posted on Romney's political present and future, a boatload of Romney fans weighed in. If you're out still out there, Mittheads, I'm curious: how would you feel about your guy taking the GM CEO's post?
November 20, 2008
Bad, bad day for the Boston Globe's parent company. From the New York Times's own write-up:
The New York Times Company sharply reduced its dividend on Thursday, just a year and a half after a major increase, as the company seeks to conserve cash amid concern about dwindling profit.
Directors cut the quarterly dividend to 6 cents from 23 cents, which would save the company $97.8 million over a full year.
The cut reverses a years-long pattern of regular increases, even as the share price fell. In the spring of 2007, the board raised the dividend to 23 cents, from 17.5 cents, a move that many analysts said was unwise in light of the sharp downturn in the newspaper industry.
Shares in The New York Times Company closed down 63 cents on Thursday, to $5.72, its lowest point since the early 1980s. The dividend reduction was announced after the close of trading.
The stock has lost more than half its value in the last month, dragging the market capitalization of the company below $900 million. It is down 67 percent this year, compared with 49 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and 89 percent since its peak in 2002.
Reporter Richard Perez-Pena goes on to discuss the possibility of the Sulzburger family selling the NY Times, or taking the company private. Here in Boston, though, the more pressing subject is what this nosedive means for the Globe.
Those are devastating numbers, and I have to think Times Co. management would gladly sell the Globe right now if it could. But with the paper reportedly losing $1 million a week, and recently undergoing its second big writedown, who'd want to buy it?
Problem is, if the Times Co. can't unload the Globe, it'll have to do even more to cut costs. So don't be surprised if the paper's work force--including the editorial department, which the Times Co. has protected compared to other newspaper owners--takes a serious hit in the near future
