Media Nation

It’s NewsMatch time once again. This year, please consider donating to CommonWealth Beacon.

*CommonWealth Beacon recently sponsored a debate on Question 3, which would institute all-party primaries. Photo (cc) 2026 by Leise Jones / CommonWealth Beacon.*

For nonprofit news organizations, it’s the most wonderful time of the year — the beginning of a two-month sprint when their fundraising will be partially matched by the Institute for Nonprofit Journalism through its NewsMatch program. The campaign began on Sunday and extends through the end of December.

That’s why I’m asking you today to consider a donation to CommonWealth Beacon, a 30-year-old digital news outlet that covers Massachusetts politics and public policy. I’m a member of the editorial advisory board and an occasional contributor to its opinion section. CommonWealth puts it this way:

If you’re not already familiar, CommonWealth Beacon has been a trusted source of reporting in Massachusetts for 30 years, helping readers connect the dots between decisions made on Beacon Hill and their impact on everyday life. At a time when fewer resources are devoted to covering state government, their reporting is more important than ever. A great example is their ballot question explainers, which have been receiving great feedback from the vast majority who have engaged with it.

According to INN:

This year, 437 newsrooms will leverage over $7 million in funding from a network of 19 local and national funders to spark community giving, building a base of donors who sustain fact-based reporting….

Over the past 10 years, NewsMatch has secured $45 million in matching gifts to help drive $432 million in community support to newsrooms. But NewsMatch is more than just a match. INN’s NewsMatch includes fundraising training and resources that help participating newsrooms attract donations while strengthening their long-term fundraising strategies to ensure sustainability.

If your community is served by a nonprofit news organization, then it’s probably taking part in NewsMatch as well. You can search here to find out.

Just like public television and radio, nonprofit local news depends on the support of individual donors in order to sustain itself. This is a time of year when your gift can go further. If you’re not a CommonWealth reader (or listener), I hope you’ll check it out. And if you like what you see and hear, please consider making a gift.

Please use this link to donate.

How The New York Times’ coverage of Alaska’s Senate race failed the test of proportionality

*Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan with Sen. Lisa Murkowski. 2017 photo in the public domain.*

I wasn’t planning to write yet another post about The New York Times’ coverage of Mary Peltola and the two Dan Sullivans. But the Times keeps running follow-ups, so here I am.

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On Sunday, the paper published a remarkably calm page-one story headlined “Will Spoilers Actually Matter in Midterms?” The digital headline: “Third-Party Spoilers, Long Fueled by Both Parties, Could Matter This Year.” Here’s how it opens:

Sly maneuvering around third-party candidates is a time-honored, bipartisan tradition in politics.

Democrats and Republicans alike have long stealthily tried to help little-known names on the ballot who might siphon votes away from the opposing party’s nominees.

My first thought was that this would have made a good lead for last Wednesday’s story, by Kellen Browning, on how the Peltola campaign recruited a ringer in an attempt to siphon votes away from incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan. Instead, the Times went DEFCON 1, portraying the story as a significant scandal and burying the context. You have to read more than 30 paragarphs before you come to this:

Republicans have also taken advantage of this system. When Ms. Peltola ran for re-election to the House two years ago, the state Republican Party backed an effort to help a Democrat — an inmate who ran his campaign from a New York prison — stay on the ballot.

Peltola, a Democrat, has denied having anything to do with recruiting the other Dan Sullivan. Whether that’s true or not, the Times’ reporting shows convincingly that her campaign did. It’s kind of slimy, but it’s hardly unusual. It’s also not a crime unless money changed hands, something that absolutely no one has alleged.

In a summary of “The Elements of Journalism,” a classic work on ethics by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, we encounter this:

[Journalism] must keep the news comprehensive and proportional…. Keeping news in proportion is a cornerstone of truthfulness. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping, or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.

The Times failed to do that with the initial report by Browning, and it’s been softening its tone in several follow-ups since then, culminating with Epstein’s eminently rational take on the entire affair. You might surmise that the paper’s editors have been having second thoughts about how the story was played. But the damage had already been done.

The polls this morning show Peltola clinging to a narrow lead, with both her and Sullivan (that is, the Republican incumbent, not the ringer) ticking down in the last couple of days. If she loses, it might well be because of the Times.

It’s not journalism’s role to cover up for a candidate just because we’re in the final days of a campaign. But neither is it to take a routine instance of political gamesmanship and play it up like a major scandal, either.

Some needed perspective on Mary Peltola and the two Dan Sullivans

*Anchorage, Alaska. Photo (cc) 2026 by Quintin Soloviev*

Josh Marshall has weighed in with some smart commentary on Mary Peltola and the Dan Sullivans. You should read the whole thing, but here’s the heart of it:

I’ve heard a number of people say they’re “troubled” or “disturbed” or unhappy that this happened. All I can say is that I would really recommend that you toughen up because you simply won’t make it through the next few years, even under the best circumstances. There is no crime here and no possibility of a crime here. This is trolling….

Republicans have pulled this same name stunt countless times. No one has ever claimed that it’s a crime because it’s not.

Continue reading “Some needed perspective on Mary Peltola and the two Dan Sullivans”

Google Zero comes for Google as the tech giant’s own AI platform tanks its stock price

I took some grim satisfaction in Google’s very bad Thursday, a consequence of the same forces that the company is using to deprive news organizations of click-throughs to their websites. (And no, I will not refer to the company as Alphabet, although it is in the soup.)

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Google’s stock price declined by nearly 13%, costing it $500 billion in market value. A major part of the reason is that those AI summaries Google is posting at the top of search queries are doing exactly the same to the tech giant as they are to media companies: keeping users on site rather than clicking through to a page that would serve up some ads.

Continue reading “Google Zero comes for Google as the tech giant’s own AI platform tanks its stock price”

The New York Times’ latest overheated reporting about Mary Peltola raises some questions

*Mary Peltola. Photo is in the public domain.*

I want to make three points about The New York Times’ report that the campaign of Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola recruited a ringer named Dan Sullivan to take votes away from her rival, the incumbent Republican, who is also named Dan Sullivan.

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First, why did Elisa Rios, the Times’ main source, retract what she told them? “As discussed on our call earlier today, I am confirming that I have retracted all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate Race in connection with any article you may or may not be writing,” Rios wrote. “I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity.” I know the Times says they verified the story independently, but what was that all about?

Continue reading “The New York Times’ latest overheated reporting about Mary Peltola raises some questions”

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.

Continue reading “Anonymous unto death? Bob Woodward names names, raising questions about his ethics.”

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.

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

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.