Unwarranted speculation

Speculation, the bane of political journalism, is even more out of place when it comes to covering religion. For instance: a piece by Jeff Israely about the late Ted Kennedy and the Catholic Church, posted on Time.com last Friday and revised as events proved Israely’s sources to be misguided.

Israely reported that, during the summer, President Obama delivered a letter from Kennedy to Pope Benedict XVI, the contents of which were secret, but which likely made the case for a papal blessing. Quoting conservative sources, Israely suggested that such a blessing was unlikely, given Kennedy’s pro-choice stand on abortion rights. Israely wrote:

One veteran official at the Vatican, of U.S. nationality, expressed the view of many conservatives about the Kennedy clan’s rapport with the Catholic Church: “Why would he even write a letter to the Pope? The Kennedys have always been defiantly in opposition to the Roman Catholic magisterium.”

As it turned out, the contents of Kennedy’s letter were revealed at a graveside service, as was the Vatican’s response. According to the Boston Globe:

The Vatican reply came two weeks [after Obama delivered Kennedy's letter]: “His Holiness prays that in the days ahead you may be sustained in faith and hope, and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God our merciful Father.”…

The Vatican response was strikingly pastoral in tone, expressing the pope’s “concern and his spiritual closeness’’ to Kennedy, and bestowing on the senator an apostolic blessing from the pope. That the Vatican responded at all is news — conservative bloggers have for days been claiming that the alleged lack of a response was evidence of the Vatican’s antipathy to Kennedy.

Israely also indulged in speculation as to whether Cardinal Seán O’Malley would decline to preside over Kennedy’s funeral because of the late senator’s pro-choice policies. O’Malley didn’t preside — but the prominent role he nevertheless played would seem to prove that bit of speculation wrong as well.

To be sure, Israely wasn’t predicting the future so much as he was reporting the speculation of conservative church officials as to what might happen. But he still managed to leave the mistaken impression that the church would use Kennedy’s death to send a stern message to pro-choice politicians.

(Thanks to Steve Burgard, director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern, for helping me think this item through.)

Globe’s Kennedy series drives Web traffic

The Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, received more than 8 million page views yesterday by 5 p.m., according to Zachary Seward of the Nieman Journalism Lab — a surge driven by the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

And though Seward doesn’t have specific numbers, he notes that Boston.com was (and still is) giving prominent play to its multimedia series on Kennedy’s life that was published last February. As I wrote then, the package was likely to serve as an important resource for some time to come, especially giving that Kennedy was nearing the end of his life.

Interestingly enough, Seward learns that the text had been taken down for a while at the request of Simon & Schuster, which published a book based on the series, and was only recently restored.

Inside story from the Globe

The Boston Globe is delivered to Media Nation at about 5:30 a.m. Ted Kennedy’s death became public shortly before 1:30 a.m. So how did the Globe manage to remake the front page so quickly?

According to Joe Strupp of the trade magazine Editor & Publisher, editor Marty Baron was awakened and gave the proverbial order to “stop the presses,” or words to that effect. The news made it into more than half of the day’s press run.

Tomorrow, Baron tells E&P, the paper will include a special 12-page section on Kennedy’s life. (Via Universal Hub.)

All Kennedy, all the time

I’ve got two more commentaries up on the legacy of the late Ted Kennedy:

• At Blast Magazine, I’ve got a piece on what Kennedy’s record means to the under-30 crowd. Blast, the way, was founded by a former student of mine, John Guilfoil, who’s been help me with Media Nation’s move to WordPress.
• At Forbes.com, I recall two emblematic moments in Kennedy’s career — his vendetta against Rupert Murdoch’s Boston Herald, which came to a head in 1988, and his Faneuil Hall debate against Mitt Romney in 1994, which launched a comeback and restored him to the good graces of the Massachusetts electorate.

Talking about Ted Kennedy

Sometime in the next hour I’ll be talking with old friend Charles Adler of CJOB Radio in Winnipeg about Ted Kennedy’s legacy. Some of you may remember Adler from his days at Channel 68 in Boston, back when Boston University was trying to turn it into a news and public-affairs station.

You can listen to us here.

Caught flat-footed

Word of Ted Kennedy’s death broke around 2 a.m. — too late for most of the Boston Herald’s print run. A friend of Media Nation reports that Kennedy is not on the front page in the news boxes he’s seen around the area.

Of course, the Herald rectifies that online. Presumably the boxes are being restocked as I write this.

Meanwhile, what is up with the folks who put together the mobile edition of Boston.com? It’s almost 9:30 a.m., and there’s not one word about Kennedy’s death on the front page of mobile.boston.com. (I’ve saved the page here.) Nice picture of Jacoby Ellsbury, though.

I thought breaking news was automatically pushed to the site. I guess not.

Update: It’s now 11:15 a.m., and Kennedy stories are finally migrating to Boston.com’s mobile edition.

Edward M. Kennedy, 1932-2009

To the nation, Ted Kennedy was a symbol — an icon of progressivism or an avatar of evil. To those of us lucky to be his constituents, he was a regular guy who went about the mundane business of representing his state with diligence, seriousness and joy. Or so I argue in the Guardian, in a piece I wrote over the weekend in anticipation of this sad moment.

Kennedy was a good senator and a fine but flawed man. He has been dying for more than a year, and I’m not sure there’s a lot more to say at this point. Unlike his brothers, Ted Kennedy had the good fortune to receive all his accolades while he was still alive — including, most recently, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Although word of the senator’s death was unwelcome, it was a pleasure to see Marty Nolan’s byline gracing the front of the Boston Globe today.

A minor aside: I wonder if WBZ-TV (Channel 4) will go ahead with its Boston mayoral debate, currently scheduled for today at 7 p.m.? Not only would no one be watching, but I can’t imagine WBZ wants to hold moderator Jon Keller out of its Kennedy coverage.

Note: This item has been corrected.

Update: The mayoral debate has been postponed, according to a statement by WBZ spokeswoman Ro Dooley-Webster. She writes: “Jon Keller is in touch with the campaigns, and they are working to find a date when the debate can be rescheduled.”

Update II: The debate will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 2, from 7 to 8 p.m. on WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WBZ Radio (AM 1030).

Photo taken from Kennedy’s Senate Web site, kennedy.senate.gov.

Democracy and the Senate (III)

Not a bad idea: the New York Times, in disparaging Ted Kennedy’s proposal that an interim senator be appointed who’d serve during the five months before a special election could be held, suggests instead that the special election be moved up.

Although I don’t have a problem with Kennedy’s idea, the Times’ solution sounds pretty good, too. Instead of five months, why not six weeks?

Democracy and the Senate (II)

The notion that the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald represent ideologically opposite editorial positions is overblown. The Herald and its editorial-page editor, Rachelle Cohen, aren’t really all that conservative. And the Globe, whose editorial page recently transitioned from longtime editor Renée Loth to former Washington-bureau chief Peter Canellos, is just contrarian enough on issues like charter schools to keep liberals agitated.

An exception is today. The Globe offers its full-throated endorsement to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s proposal that would allow Gov. Deval Patrick to name an interim senator in the event of a vacancy. The interim would serve until a special election could be held five months later. With Kennedy’s battle against brain cancer apparently entering its final stages, the matter has taken on special urgency.

In supporting Kennedy’s proposal, the Globe criticizes the Legislature for having taken the gubernatorial appointment away five years ago, when it appeared that Sen. John Kerry might be elected president and Democratic leaders at the Statehouse did not want then-governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, to name Kerry’s successor. The Globe calls the 2004 law “a partisan bill.”

Which, of course, it was. And which leads the Herald to invoke that same 2004 action as a reason to reject Kennedy’s current proposal, in an editorial headlined “Hypocrisy factor.” Read more »

Democracy and the Senate

Ted Kennedy, battling brain cancer, strikes exactly the right balance in his letter (pdf) to state officials on how his seat in the U.S. Senate should be filled.

In a story broken by the Boston Globe’s Frank Phillips, Kennedy endorses a 2004 law that took away the governor’s ability to fill a Senate vacancy and gave it to the voters instead. But Kennedy also calls for an amendment allowing the governor to appoint an interim senator who would serve during the five-month period preceding the special election. Finally, Kennedy suggests that the governor appoint someone who promises not to seek election.

The law was changed five years ago when it looked like Sen. John Kerry might be elected president. Legislative leaders wanted to make sure that then-governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, would not have the ability to choose Kerry’s successor. Once and future Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom refers to that on Twitter today:

Wishing Dems now calling for Gov to appt Kennedy replacement stood with Romney in 2004 when they took that power away from him.

(Fun random fact: I ran into Fehrnstrom on the summit of Mt. Monadnock recently.)

But Democrats did the right thing then, even if it was for partisan reasons. As Kennedy suggests, they should leave the law alone, but not let the seat go unfilled for five months.

The wisdom of the 2004 law was proved after President Obama’s election last fall. First, then-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich disgraced himself and his office by putting Obama’s Senate seat up for sale — an action that led to federal corruption charges against him. The appointment went to the supposedly incorruptible Roland Burris, who turned out to be highly tainted himself.

Then, after Obama named Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York as his secretary of state, Gov. Donald Paterson turned the appointment of a successor into a circus, using anonymous aides to smear Caroline Kennedy, who wanted the job but was clearly unprepared. The post eventually went to an obscure Albany-area congresswoman, Kirsten Gillenbrand.

No one is suggesting that Gov. Deval Patrick would pull a Blago or even a Paterson. But senators should be elected, not appointed, as has been the case since the 17th Amendment took effect in 1913. Kennedy’s proposal honors that proposition while plugging an unnecessary gap.

Photo of Kennedy (cc) by Will White and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.