As best I can tell today the Newton Tab published just the second ever editorial published since Julie Cohen became editor. This one is not on line yet and it’s more cryptic than the first.
I’d like to say that I’m glad Julie is taking more positions, but I’m not sure just what position she’s taking. Any thoughts?
As I said above, I’m glad to see the paper taking more positions. Although I frequently disagreed with his positions, Andy Levin used to write opinion pieces frequently. Gail Spector was a gifted editorial writer (but notoriously bad at deadlines, but I digress!)
But this one has be scratching my head. Why cite anonymous councilors or anonymous incidents? Seems like it was written for an audience to one. But why?
Better yet, what would have been appropriate this week would have been something on the Northland election date, or even Councilor Norton’s seemingly-failed “charter privilege” action.
Greg,
I think between the lines, Julie Cohen, as a career journalist, bemoans the demise of traditional news sources and newspapers in the age of social media and the internet generally (nor does she like Donald Trump or agree there is news bias against him which he claims exist).
This piece shouldn’t be characterized as an editorial because no opinions are expressed just accusations that an anonymous councilor used the term “fake news” to discredit a story s/he didn’t like even though it was factually correct.
Waste of space.
Greg — Isn’t what you’ve done with the photo above the same as cut/pasting content behind a paywall? You are distributing Tab content without the associated print ads…
@Jack: I agree, except the editorial isn’t behind a paywall. Or at least it wasn’t as of 7:15 today. I asked Julie if she would post it at 1 pm today. She said it would go live at 5 pm. I waited until 5:30 or so before publishing with the screen shot instead.
Which city councilor is the person who made this remark?
@greg . Julie Cohen needs to do her job, better. And this cryptic editorial comes off as petty and silly. I for one am starting to think sloppy reporting is worse than no reporting.
@Greg — Even something that isn’t behind a paywall, the site is getting credit for ads served up next to it, either in print or online, right? Now I’ve done the same thing with letters to the editor on occasion, but if you want to throw stones, best not to live in a glass house…
@Jack: I’m as consistent about advocating for journalists and not violating pay walls as anyone you’ll meet. But if they don’t post it, then it’s not violating any paywall.
If and when it shows up, I’ll gladly link to it.
(btw, I suspect I’m one of a very small handful of Newton residents who actually PAY for an online Wicked Local subscription. Do you? Does anyone reading this?)
So can you can clip the complete articles from a print-only publication and publish online, without the print ads that funded the text or pull it off the ad-supported portion of a site? I’m guessing this is not fair use and is a copyright violation.
I subscribed to Tab online for awhile starting in 2017 but found they didn’t publish the LTEs for weeks, which is what I was interested in. For some reason, our street doesn’t get the hard copy delivered anymore so I have to go to CVS or city hall to grab one.
I’d subscribe online again to Tab if they would limit their content to Newton and not try to fill the page with junk from across the state and astrology. It shouldn’t be that hard for the reader to easily find the local content. I’d pay as much or more for the Globe’s “Newton Report” by email.
And with regard to the subject of the editorial, she’s right. The substance/gist of the reporting you labeled as “fake news” was correct. Councilor Noel intervened with Whole Foods (threatening to leave them as a customer) to have them put a stop to canvassing against Northland that she thought was illegal. She later learned it wasn’t.
Labeling that reporting as fake news for some small unidentified nuance/nit-pick in this day and age is to normalize a dangerous Trump tactic.
Jack, Ive disagreed with you at different times but have always at least understood where you were coming from. For the life of me, I have no idea what your point is here.
UPDATE: Just found the editorial online and have removed the readable image. It wasn’t on the same page as the first editorial so I might have missed it earlier.
But Jack I’m still confused by your comment above. Reads like you’re saying I called it “fake news” but the editorial says the comment came from a city councilor. You realize I’m not a city councilor, right?
It is a bizarre editorial. Even if the councilor who mentioned fake news is the same one who complained about her treatment in by the Tab, I’d guess that these incidents are unrelated, and that the councilor’s “fake news” comment relates to Alex Jones, counterfactual Facebook ads, etc. I do not find it surprising that politicians complain to newspapers about what they consider mischaracterizations. A dog-bites-man story if ever there was one.
On the plus side, there were some stories of genuine interest to me in the Tab this week.
@Greg — I’m referring to your comments under this post where you and Rhanna labeled the Tab's reporting as fake news.
"There were no witnesses. No comment from Whole Foods. If this isn’t fake news, it is certainly unsubstantiated news. All we know for certain is that we don’t know jack about what happened."
and implied it had no basis, when the Councilor email to the Tab with a quote admitting her misunderstanding of law provided more than enough basis for the reporting.
@Jack: Thanks for excerpting my quote above so folks can see that you’ve clearly taken me out of context. I may have wondered if it was “fake news” but said it was “unsubstantiated news.” BIG difference.
Why? Because we just don’t know what happened.
There was no independent verification anywhere in that article to back up two individual’s different stories. No store manager. No witnesses. No one. That’s sloppy journalism at best. No editor with any proper training or editorial ethics would have allowed that article to be published. Same with this most recent editorial.