Behind the face lift

(continued)

by Dan Kennedy

READER-FRIENDLY: editor Matt Storin is targeting affluent non-readers in the high-tech exurbs. But if the Globe prints is, will they come?

But if the new strategy helps improve the Globe's bottom line, it barely addresses a more fundamental matter: how to unite what has traditionally been a fractious, warring newsroom, and make a good paper even better.

As is the case with any newspaper editor, opinion is divided about Matt Storin, who began his second stint at the Globe in 1992, and who became the top editor less than a year later. (He had resigned as the paper's number-three editor in the mid 1980s after a falling-out with then-editor Michael Janeway.)

On the one hand, Storin is a strong newsman who has emphasized not letting the Boston Herald beat the Globe on local news -- not exactly a priority under the previous regime, and still a struggle today, given the Herald's aggressive coverage. Storin also gets high marks for toning down the long-time liberal bias in the paper's political coverage. On the other hand, Storin's reputation took a nasty hit for the way he and then-publisher Ben Taylor handled the departures of star columnists Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle two years ago. Smith, it was revealed, had secretly been given a second chance even though Storin had suspected her of fabricating columns several years previously. Barnicle, who refused to resign after getting caught plagiarizing, was allowed to negotiate his sentence down to a suspension -- until the Globe was hit with new charges that Barnicle had fabricated and plagiarized.

To his credit, Storin battled back; and in any case, the Barnicle fiasco was more Taylor's fault than Storin's. Still, it can take years to recover from the kind of turmoil the Globe went through that summer. Since Richard Gilman's arrival last July, Storin has been heavily involved in strategic planning, leaving the day-to-day operations of the paper increasingly in the hands of executive editor Helen Donovan -- who, in turn, has been central to planning the new sections and revitalizing the Sunday paper -- and managing editor Greg Moore.

The paper has also been beset by more than the usual number of departures of top talent. In recent months, people such as health-and-science reporters Richard Knox, Judy Foreman (who continues to write a column for the Globe on a freelance basis), and Alison Bass, arts editor Scott Powers (a strong Storin loyalist who wanted to go home to the Chicago Tribune), political reporters Jill Zuckman and Michael Crowley, education reporter Kate Zernike, and business reporters Peter Gosselin and Aaron Zitner have all departed. This is also the final week for associate editor Ande Zellman, a key player in planning the new sections, who's set to become an assistant managing editor at Newsweek.

Insiders say some of those people will be missed more than others. (One especially lamented departee, Dan Golden of the Wall Street Journal, was recently approached about coming back -- although Storin himself says he knows nothing about that overture.) Storin concedes that the revolving door is spinning faster than it should, although he says the hot economy has made it difficult for newspapers to hang on to good people. "There's no one who has accepted an offer from the Podunk Times," is the way he puts it -- and, indeed, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Internet start-ups are among the companies that have grabbed Globe reporters. But sources say that at least some of the better people who've left could have been retained if the Globe worked harder to nurture its most talented journalists.

If some people are jumping, others are being pushed. As a cost-cutting move, the Globe recently offered buyouts -- that is, early retirement on generous terms -- to about 17 management employees, two of them in the newsroom. One, long-time Spotlight Team editor Gerard O'Neill, appears likely to take it; although he says he hasn't made a final decision, he's leaving soon for a three-month stint at Oxford University, and has been replaced at Spotlight, Storin says, by assistant managing editor Walter Robinson. (Robinson filled in for O'Neill last year when O'Neill and Globe reporter Dick Lehr were finishing their best-selling book on Whitey Bulger and the FBI, Black Mass.) The other, political columnist and associate editor David Nyhan, has already said no. "I enjoy what I'm doing," says Nyhan. "My critics and those who don't enjoy old Dave's ravings will have to put up with me for a while longer."

The tumultuous heart of the paper has always been its local-news operation. The verdict is still out on Peter Canellos, the assistant managing editor for local news. Promoted a year and a half ago with a mandate to impose a smarter, more analytical edge, Canellos early on was too inclined to let breaking news slide -- a point Storin himself concedes, though he thinks that's improved in recent months. (Canellos declined to comment.) Some features strain too hard to appeal to hip young newcomers. "I think it's supposed to be sort of a café where delicious urban snacks are served," sneers a staff member. And Canellos's people skills are mixed: although some of his best young reporters are intensely devoted to him, sources say he has unnecessarily alienated veterans who aren't in tune with his big-think philosophy. Exhibit A: the memo he wrote right after he took the reins, in which he said that three-quarters of his reporters were "not capable of writing a marquee Sunday piece."

Yet Canellos's goal of offering depth and context can pay off. Take, for instance, three pieces out of the Canellos mold from the past week: a Francie Latour front-pager on the role of one gun in an urban crime wave, a well-executed chestnut; Stephanie Ebbert's Sunday piece on the real human beings in South Boston who fear the yuppification of their working-class neighborhood; and Joanna Weiss's Monday story on the suspiciously articulate confessions that police obtain from barely literate defendants.

It's a decidedly different vision from what animates the Herald, which -- despite occasional overreaching -- has as strong a local-news operation these days as it's had in years. Often out front in its coverage of local politics and breaking news, the Herald on many occasions seems to have a surer sense of the city than the Globe does. (The two publications sell roughly the same number of papers in the city, whereas the Globe is far ahead in the suburbs.) In just the past week, the Herald broke two important investigative stories: MBTA Retirement Board executive director John Gallahue's dealings with an admitted arsonist associated with Whitey Bulger, and local Teamsters boss (and Paul Cellucci supporter) George Cashman's alleged role in the beating of a rival union member.

Not that the Globe can be expected to have every story the Herald has -- especially of the investigative variety, in which both papers pursue their own agendas (in any case, it is deputy managing editor Ben Bradlee, not Canellos, who supervises the Globe's investigative units). But, in general, it makes sense for the Globe to counter the Herald's aggression with something smarter and more contextual -- that is, something that attempts to explain the news rather than just regurgitate the latest incremental developments.

If all goes according to plan, the Globe's local coverage could actually evolve into a fairly potent mix: analytical pieces, in-depth features, and big breaking-news stories on page one and in the City & Region section (as Metro/Region is now known), and more-routine coverage in Globe West and the other regional supplements. For that to happen, though, two crucial questions must first be answered: who exactly is a Globe reporter? And how much should he or she be paid?

Globe West has hired 16 full-time staffers -- mostly so-called staff correspondents who, in a controversial move, will be paid a lot less (between $28,600 and $33,800, depending on experience) than regular Globe staffers ($39,080 to $65,528). The Boston Globe Employees Association (BGEA) has filed a grievance with management and an unfair-labor-tactics charge with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that the differing salaries amount to a "two-tier system" that should have been the subject of negotiations. "The stories that the Globe is assigning to staff correspondents are the same stories covered by staff reporters who currently work in the zones and elsewhere at the Globe," says BGEA president Robert Jordan in a written statement. Responds Globe spokesman Rick Gulla: "The management's position is this is a new job classification."

In fact, management is probably justified in believing it shouldn't have to pay regular union wages to the relatively inexperienced reporters it plans to use in the suburbs. But there's a risk to attaching the Globe imprimatur to reporters in whom the paper lacks the confidence to pay accordingly.

Not that the two-tier system is anything new. Papers such as the Providence Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer have used it in order to throw cheap labor at suburban coverage. The Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning media critic, David Shaw, recently applauded when his paper shut down its "Our Towns" suburban supplements, arguing that its reporters were not up to LA Times quality. Matt Storin claims to have confidence in his Globe West fledglings, saying, "I've been very impressed by the caliber of people that we've gotten." But assistant managing editor for metropolitan news Ellen Clegg, who runs the regional supplements, will have to be on guard against slipping standards.

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | Next

---

Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www.dankennedy.net

---

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy@phx.com

---

Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

---