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BoMag's outsider problem


 

I've never bought the notion that only Boston natives should cover Boston--which you'd expect, since I'm not a Boston native. But I do think that, when we journalistic outsiders are getting started--and even when we've been doing our jobs for a few years--we can benefit from colleagues and superiors who've spent decades here, if not their whole lives.

If so, where does that leave Boston magazine? As today's Globe story on BoMag's recent turmoil makes abundantly clear, the people running Boston really don't know the city. Owner Herb Lipson lives near Atlantic City. Larry Platt, BoMag's editorial director, is all about Philadelphia. And Andrew Putz, BoMag's new editor, is a Minnesotan who's also spent time in Philly.

True, James Burnett--Putz's recently ousted predecessor--came from New York. But he'd been at BoMag for seven years, and presumably has a richer sense of place than Putz, Platt, or Lipson. (For starters, I'm guessing he knows how to pronounce "DiMasi.")

Putz has a good reputation, and he'll be able to draw on the knowledge of those fortunate BoMag staffers (from Boston and elsewhere) who survived the recent bloodletting at Horticultural Hall. Still, given the intense competition and bleak prospects facing all print media today, I can't help thinking that BoMag will be handicapped by its dearth of deep local roots--particularly at the publication's highest levels. 

  • Terry Ann Knopf said:

    Hi Adam,

    Re: BoMag's Outsider Problem. I couldn’t agree with more with you.

    Indeed, I had my own negative experience with this  sassy and once-relevant magazine. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s,  I was a contributing editor to the magazine, basically functioning as its media critic.

    In addition to my day job as TV critic for The Patriot Ledger, I thoroughly enjoyed my association with the magazine. Kenny Hartnett, David Rosenbaum and John Strahanich were the savvy editors I was privileged to work with; and these guys really knew this town inside out.

    But with the magazine perpetually in turmoil, the powers-that be eventually hired a new editor—Mike So-and So—from Cleveland. [I honestly can’t remember his name.]  Despite my five-year track record, Mike sat on a newsworthy piece I had just written about John Hart, the brilliant, enigmatic anchor of "World Monitor," the national newscast out of Boston that ran on the Discovery Channel,  but was owned by the Christian Science Church here in Boston.

    Angered by his concern that the Church was intruding into his newscast, in violation of its own written policy,  Hart was giving serious thought to resigning.

    It was the kind of meaty story that journalists like myself thrived on. Hart had been a distinguished correspondent for “The CBS Evening News” and the “NBC’s Nightly News."  And the fact that the Church may have interfered with World Monitor’s news coverage of the infamous Twitchell case made this a potentially big news story.

    David and Ginger Twitchell were  the Christian Science couple from Massachusetts who relied on prayer rather than on doctors as their young son died of  a bowel obstruction. The court case drew national attention when the two were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

    Unfortunately, Mike from Cleveland was new to the city, was unfamiliar with my work and, for all I knew, may not even have been aware that the Christian Science Church was located next to the offices of Boston Magazine. And so, the editor simply sat on the story.

    Several months went by. Knowing that John Hart was close to resigning and that the story would not hold much longer, I finally approached the Globe Magazine editor Ande Zellman and told her about my dilemma.  Ande gave the article a quick read while I was in her office, then looked up and  said simpy “I want it.”

    I immediately withdrew the piece from Boston Magazine, and the piece ran shortly thereafter in The Globe Magazine. John Hart resigned the same week; and the Globe Magazine story not only made news in the Boston, but was also picked up by  The Washington Post,  USA Today and other papers around the country.

    I never did another piece for Boston Magazine, and within a year or two Mike from Cleveland was gone—presumably headed back to Cleveland.

    Terry Ann Knopf teaches courses in Arts Criticism and Media Criticism in Boston University’s Journalism Department.

    July 2, 2009 8:11 PM
  • wah? said:

    Did you just give yourself a third-person sign-off line in a blog comment box? Old media meets new, indeed.

    July 2, 2009 10:21 PM
  • Luciano said:

    Yikes Terry, maybe it's time to let that one go. It has been like 20 years.

    July 3, 2009 11:08 AM
  • Boston reportah said:

    This may explain why a recent magazine piece on the city's top 50 restaurants included one that had long since closed (Excelsior) and one that either recently closed or is about to be closed (Aujordui -- I haven't been in the four seasons for a while, so I admit I'm not sure of its current status). But I thought those two mistakes were pretty egregious and evidence of the magazine's turnover.

    July 6, 2009 1:57 PM

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