Jim Boyd, 1942-2026

Jim Boyd harked back to the golden age of local television news, when it seemed like everyone gathered around the TV at 6 or (sometimes and) 11 p.m. to catch up on the day’s events. The leader was WCVB-TV (Channel 5), and Boyd, who died Tuesday at 84, was one of the most visible journalists at that station.

I was shocked to learn that he was in his 80s. We didn’t really know each other, but we were Facebook friends, and I had followed his long, active retirement. I’d also worked with his wife, Linda Polach, at GBH News.

My friend Emily Rooney, host of “Beat the Press,” who was the assistant news director and news director at WCVB during the glory days, tells Bryan Marquard of The Boston Globe that Boyd was someone “every manager would like to clone — loyal, dedicated, didn’t call in sick, and never complained about an assignment,” as well as “movie-star handsome [with] that elusive journalistic credibility.”

Best wishes to Linda and her family.

Anonymous unto death? Bob Woodward names names, raising questions about his ethics.

Bob Woodward. Photo (cc) 2016 by Hillel Steinberg.

Does a reporter’s promise of anonymity follow a source to the grave? That’s what a lot of people are wondering given that investigative journalist Bob Woodward is naming names in his new memoir, “Secrets,” which will be published on Nov. 24.

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In an excerpt in The New Yorker, the legendary Washington Post reporter goes into great detail about his friendship with one source, Richard Darman, a powerful official in several Republican administrations. But there are more, including several Supreme Court justices, top aides to Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon’s lawyers. And, of course, there’s Mark Felt, who identified himself years ago as “Deep Throat,” Woodward’s celebrated source during the Watergate scandal.

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Why a lawsuit against The Belmont Voice is likely to run afoul of the First Amendment right not to publish

Last Thursday I was taking part in an event at Belmont Books when several members of The Belmont Voice’s board walked in. The bookstore was hosting a conversation with Endicott College journalism professor Lara Salahi and me to mark the publication of her new book, “News-Academic Partnerships: The Great Experiment Powering Local Journalism’s Comeback.”

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The folks from the Voice had hoped to be there at the start; instead, they were meeting to discuss what to do about a lawsuit filed against the Voice by an independent U.S. Senate candidate who was demanding that the nonprofit weekly cover his campaign. The lawsuit, filed by Belmont resident Shiva Ayyadurai, claims that the Voice is discriminating against him because he is a “Brown-skinned, ‘Low-Caste’ Indian immigrant,” and that the editor, Jesse Floyd, failed to make good on a promise to cover his bid to defeat Democratic Sen. Ed Markey.

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Longtime Boston political analyst Jon Keller tells us about the art of moderating debates

Jon Keller analyzes the recent gubernatorial debate that he moderated. Photo via YouTube.

On the brand-new “What Works” podcast, I talk with Jon Keller, who has been explaining Massachusetts politics to Boston broadcast audiences for nearly half a century. Co-host Ellen Clegg couldn’t make it on air for this episode, but she handled the editing and will be back soon.

Jon returned to WBZ-TV just in time to cover a contentious governor’s election. He brought his trademark quick thinking and level-headed approach to the recent debate between Democratic incumbent Maura Healey and her Republican challenger, Mike Minogue. Jon was a colleague of mine at The Boston Phoenix, where he wrote a political column. His “Keller @ Large” show remains one of the longest-running political franchises in local television.

Boston magazine twice named him “Best TV Political Analyst,” and he’s won a boatload of New England Emmys. In the Jurassic era, Jon wrote an opinion column for Ellen at The Boston Globe, and today he writes a column for the MASSterlist political newsletter.

Jon has also been caught in the Paramount media swirl as well. WBZ-TV laid him off in October 2025 as part of Paramount’s cuts, but WBZ brought him back as a special contributor in March of this year.

I’ve got a Quick Take about turmoil at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. Executive editor Rob Curley, who’s leading an effort to take the paper nonprofit, was placed on administrative leave recently for unspecified inappropriate behavior. Now a deeply reported article by two nonprofit news outlets tells devastating story about what went wrong.

You can listen here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

New on ‘Beat the Press’: Katie, we hardly knew you; plus, covering executions, and AI news sites

Click here or on image to watch on Contrarian Boston (scroll down).

On the all-new “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we analyze the microscopically brief tenure of White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, who lasted just 0.45 Scaramuccis before she was unceremoniously tossed overboard.

In other topics, we look at the debate over whether television should be allowed to cover executions following Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s on-again, off-again plan to livestream the death of the Fort Hood shooter by firing squad; and we check in on two very different AI projects — Mass Daily News, a right-wing propaganda site whose anonymous author recently revealed himself (sub. req.) in a Boston Globe story, and South Shore News, which covers local government in nearly 20 communities. Plus our panel’s Rants and Raves.

Emily was joined by Scott Van Voorhis, the publisher of Contrarian Boston as well as our host; Cosmo Macero, a partner at Seven Letter and a former columnist and editor at the Boston Herald; and me. Our producer extraordinaire is Tonia Magras of Hull Bay Productions.

Boston.com shifts to mostly paid as Globe Media CEO Linda Henry says free news no longer works

Linda Henry

Boston.com has been a free news site from the time that The Boston Globe launched it in 1995. Today, after experimenting with a soft paywall for the past year, the site will be converting to a mostly paid outlet. The change is indicative of how digital advertising has lost much of its value and of how the rise of AI search has deprived news organizations of click-throughs.

“It’s going to be a lower-price option,” Boston Globe Media chief executive Linda Henry told me in an interview. “It [Boston.com] is a much smaller newsroom than the Globe, but we still think it provides an important service to our community, and we want to continue providing it. And without consumer revenue, the numbers don’t work.”

Current Globe subscribers will be charged $32 a month if they opt for digital access to the Globe, Boston.com and Boston magazine, which Globe Media acquired in January 2025. Boston.com will cost $10 a month as a standalone product. And if readers are looking only for digital access to BoMag, the price will be $24 a year, although that’s in the process of being raised to $30.

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Join Lara Salahi and me this Thursday for a talk about her new book, ‘News-Academic Partnerships’

Lara Salahi. Photo via Endicott College.

I hope you’ll join Lara Salahi and me this Thursday, Oct. 22, for a conversation about her new book, “News-Academic Partnerships: The Great Experiment Powering Local Journalism’s Comeback.” The 7 p.m. event will take place at Belmont Books, which is located in downtown Belmont at 79 Leonard St.

Salahi, an associate professor of broadcast and digital journalism at Endicott College, has been on our “What Works” podcast about the future of local news. In she was named the New England Journalism Educator of the Year by the New England Newspaper and Press Association and the Journalism Education Foundation of New England.

Here’s the announcement for Thursday’s event.

Drawing on a political economy framework, Salahi examines the power dynamics between media, academia, and the public. She shows how these partnerships emerged as a strategic response to the collapse of community news ecosystems.

Grounded in case studies, research, and her own practical experience, Salahi offers a nuanced analysis of how these collaborations work. She demonstrates how they supplement dwindling local news coverage, bridge gaps in civic information, andserve as vital training grounds for aspiring journalists. At the same time, she does not she away from its challenges. Salahi also exposes the economic, technological, and ethical tensions that can challenge the long-term sustainability of these efforts.

Ultimately, Salahi argues that news–academic partnerships are more than temporary fixes. They are transformative experiments with the potential to revitalize community-centered journalism, strengthen democracy, and empower the next generation of storytellers.

Is polling reliable? A better question: Why are the media so obsessed with the horse race?

From E. Benjamin Andrews’ “History of the United States” (1912), via Wikimedia Commons.

Tanner Stening of Northeastern Global News asked me Friday whether we could still trust the polls. I talked instead about why the media should move on from its obsession with polling and horse-race coverage. As Jay Rosen says, “Not the odds, but the stakes.”

Northeastern journalism professor Dan Kennedy said the media has become too attached to polling and the political “horse race” it attempts to forecast — often at the expense of reporting on the issues and the candidates themselves….

“We should be reporting on the genuine desires of the public and which candidate is speaking best to those desires — or, rather than making that value judgment, how candidates are responding to those desires,” Kennedy said.

MassINC’s board votes to recognize CommonWealth Beacon’s new union

Just a day after CommonWealth Beacon employees announced they were forming a union, the board of MassINC — the nonprofit that publishes CommonWealth — has voted in favor of recognition.

“We respect the rights of members of the newsroom to unionize and we look forward to working with the CommonWealth Beacon Guild and the entire CommonWealth Beacon team to build an impactful and sustainable public service news organization,” according to a statement by Joe Kriesberg, MassINC’s CEO, who serves as CommonWealth’s publisher.

CommonWealth Beacon is a nonprofit digital news outlet that was launched in 1996 as a quarterly print magazine and that now publishes news about state politics and public policy on a daily basis.

“This is the exact outcome for which we were hoping,” according to Chris Lisinski, a senior reporter at CommonWealth Beacon, who was quoted in a release issued by the union. “We’re honored that MassINC recognizes the hard work of our newsroom and our desire to collectively bargain to make it an even better place, both for ourselves and for all future employees.”

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MassINC’s board chair issues response to CommonWealth Beacon union drive

Eileen O’Connor, who is chair of the MassINC board, has passed along a statement about the union organizing drive that employees of CommonWealth Beacon have announced. MassINC, the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, is the nonprofit group that publishes CommonWealth Beacon. (Note: This is not the board that I’m on; rather, I’m on the CommonWealth Beacon editorial advisory board.)

We believe CommonWealth Beacon, the nonprofit journalism arm of MassINC, is a core part of our organization and we appreciate the outstanding work done by a small team of reporters. Their work covers complex policy issues facing Massachusetts and is central to the broader nonprofit mission. MassINC management was informed on Wednesday of their intention to unionize and needs time to engage the full Board of Directors before responding. Both MassINC management and the Board take this process seriously and look forward to working together with the staff to advance CommonWealth Beacon’s mission of public service journalism.