Harvard Bucks Tide; Backs Coakley

Courtesy Boston Globe, Copyright 2010

Bucking the statewide surge that elected a Republican, Scott Brown, to the U.S. senate for the first time in 32 years, Harvard voters backed Democratic candidate Martha Coakley at the polls Tuesday, marking the town as an island of blue in a surrounding sea of red on vote tally maps published in the New York Times and Boston Globe.

With only a few absentee ballots remaining to be counted, Town Clerk Janet Vellante reported Tuesday evening that Coakley had received 54% of the Harvard vote, with 45% going to self-described “independent  Republican” Scott Brown and one percent to Libertarian candidate Joseph Kennedy. Coakley’s margin in Harvard represented a difference of only 250 votes out of a total of 2896 votes cast

The 71 percent turnout (2896) of Harvard registered voters (3878) was among the highest in the state and nearly twice the number who voted in the December state primary. As reported elsewhere, Brown drew much of his support from central Massachusetts towns to the west of Harvard, as well as from precincts on the north and south shores of the state. Harvard was among a small number of affluent communities between Rts. 128 and I495 who supported Coakley, though the vote for the Democrat was 10 percent lower than the vote Harvard cast for Obama in 2008. The adjacent towns of Bolton, Littleton, Ayer, Shirley and Lancaster all voted for Brown, with only Boxboro joining the cluster of metro west Coakley supporters.

Health care, the national deficit, and the Democratic-dominated Massachusetts state delegation were all on the minds of voters leaving the Harvard polls who stopped to talk with Press reporters. With nearly 60 percent of Harvard voters registered as independents (2306) and with registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans two-to one in town (979 to 580), it was clear that Brown’s opposition to the health care plans before Congress, his message of fiscal restraint, and his campaign “against the machine” drew many independents in town to his side and away from Coakley.

“I normally vote for the independent candidate,” said Terry Fitek, who said he was excited that for once someone of that persuasion had a chance to win. “Too much of one thing is a bad thing, and I think 12 Democrats [in the state’s delegation to the US Congress] is a bad thing,” said Michael Thornton, another independent.

The non-stop phone calls that kept Harvard phones ringing throughout the weekend and into Election Day annoyed everyone, regardless of political persuasion. “Bill Clinton at dinner time doesn’t do it for me,” said Pat Jennings. “I came out to vote because I was so sick of calls from the Brown camp,” said another. Others reported receiving calls from as far away as Texas and Pennsylvania. Jennings, along with other members of the municipal building planning committee, had planned a phone campaign for the weekend to encourage attendance at the upcoming Old Library design “charrette” on Jan. 30, but gave up, she said, when it became apparent she would just be adding to the din.

A light snow fell steadily throughout in the morning on Tuesday, as cars nosed in and out of the few spaces reserved for voters at the Bromfield School. Town residents on their way to work and ferrying their children to school filed steadily in and out of the Bromfield gym, sometimes mixing with students during class changes. Later in the evening there was a second surge of residents stopping by on their way home from work.

Outside more than a dozen Scott Brown supporters held signs and waved at passersby, as they had on Saturday at the dump. “I haven’t seen any Coakley signs in town, but I’ve seen Brown signs everywhere,” said Phillip Knoetter. Where are the Coakley signs?, someone asked town Democratic committee chairman Dennis Bradley, Tuesday morning as Brown supporters gathered in front of Bromfield to support their candidate.“They’re coming, they’re coming,” he said. And eventually they did.

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DEC Approves New Scheme for Monitoring Evergreen Noise

Neighbors Unhappy; No Word on Legal Action

By John Osborn

The Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) — over the objections of abutting neighbors — unanimously approved a new monitoring scheme today for determining whether noise from the Evergreen Solar factory on Barnum Road is within the limits allowed by commission regulations.

The vote by the 10-member commission follows weeks of data gathering at Harvard and Evergreen sound measurement sites, highly technical and public debates between contending sound specialists, and threats of future legal action by Harvard residents who feel Evergreen noise deprives them of their property without compensation. If Evergreen can show in coming weeks and months that noise from its factory is consistently at or below the levels set by the new protocol, DEC can decide that the company is in compliance and issue a permanent certificate of occupancy.

The Harvard property owners closest to Evergreen are clearly angry with the decision, which they view as favoring the company at their expense,  especially in DEC’s choice of a monitoring location in Harvard that is 190 feet from the Devens enterprise zone (DREZ) property line. Residents argue that because sound decreases with distance, a monitor further from the plant lets Evergreen make more noise than if the monitor were located on the boundary. “This is not the last of it,” said Laura McGovern, co-owner of Dunroven Farm on Old Mill Road.” Lawyers representing Janice and Charles Perry of Old Mill Road and the Berwind family of Ayer Road who have threatened legal action if the protocol were adopted either had no comment or could not be reached..

In prepared remarks outlining the DEC decision, DEC Administrator Peter Lowitt said his staff and sound consultant had carefully reviewed a “tremendous amount of data and information” before recommending the commission adapt the new long term protocol. “The DEC’s job is not to take sides on any issue, “he said, “but to take all information into consideration and apply the DEC rules and regulations in a fair and consistent manner.”

Since opening in late 2007, the Evergreen plant has been operating under a temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) and has been under a formal notice of noise violation since March 2009. In July, DEC approved a resolution that required Evergreen to meet a variety of conditions over the next several months. At present the only conditions that remain to be met from DEC’s point of view are installation of permanent sound monitors, including one at its “lease line” (effectively the DREZ line), followed by regular reports from Evergreen that show it can consistently stay below DEC sound limits 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Although choosing a protocol is a major step towards resolving the Evergreen sound violation, several observers said privately that Evergreen had yet to prove it could operate within the limits set by the new protocol. Plant officials have already conceded that they can’t comply unless factory cooling fans are operated at only 60% of capacity and Evergreen has submitted a plan to DEC describing how it will keep the fans in check.

Evergreen Director of Marketing Communications Chris Lawson said in a statement to the Harvard Press that the company is “pleased” with the decision. “[We’re committed] to keeping our factory in compliance on behalf of our neighbors and the Devens community and we would like all involved to know that we do not consider this the beginning of the end but rather the end of the beginning.”

Microsoft MIX09 Conference Showcases New Tools for Rich Internet Applications

As they headed home from Las Vegas last Friday, the roughly 2000 designers and developers — not to mention Microsoft employees — returning from the three-day MIX09 web conference in Las Vegas had plenty to consider. For O’Reilly author and Silverlight MVP John Papa, the big news was the support for “out of browser” and line of business applications announced for Silverlight 3. For Vertigo developer Jon Galloway, the SketchFlow designer planned for Expression Blend 3 and demoed for the first time at MIX, promises to revolutionize the way designers prototype their user interactions. Brad Merrill of InfoSpaces and a former member of the Microsoft CLR team was surprised by what he saw as a new emphasis on good industrial design in conference sessions.

As for Scott Guthrie, VP of the Microsoft’s Developer Division, reflecting on his keynote at an after hours reception, he was just pleased that MIX09 had come together without the “fire drill” of years past. And in his keynote he drew a big round of applause when he revealed that in spite of its “thousands of new APIs” and “hundreds of new features” the Silverlight 3 Beta download is 40K smaller than the one for Silverlight 2.0.

One of the notable departures of MIX09 from previous gatherings was a fresh emphasis on good industrial design, which could be seen even in keynote slides. On Day 1, Microsoft principal researcher and design expert Bill Buxton framed the talks that followed with his demonstrations of the rewards of giving customers the experience they crave in using a product. On Day 2, Designer Deborah Adler punctuated Buxton’s remarks with the story of how adoption by Target of her radically different drug containers and labels was winning the Company new pharmacy customers. On Tuesday night, attendees were treated to a private screening of “Objectify” a new documentary on, you guessed it, industrial design and its role in the success of new products (citing, ahem, Apple, among others). And there was little code or markup to be seen in either keynote.

In contrast to the excitement and applause that accompanied demos of the latest Silverlight 3 and Blend 3 features, the final release of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), while welcomed, seemed anti-climatic. Most of IE8’s features have been known for months and its developers have blogged frequently and in great detail as MIX approached. Reaction remains mixed, with a good review from Preston Gralla of Computerworld and a not so great review from Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal ($).

In three years, MIX has become Microsoft’s showcase for RIA (rich internet application) technologies. Unlike Tech Ed, a conference for professionals looking to get more out of their existing tools and systems, or the Professional Developers Conference, where new stuff is announced, MIX is a gathering where web designers and developers can mingle with key Microsoft teams to discuss their work. Silverlight 1.0 had its debut at MIX07, and Silverlight 2.0 was unveiled a year later at MIX08. This year, while the keynotes were not filled to capacity as in years past, and the attendee party at TAO was noticeably subdued, Silverlight once again took center stage. Of the more than 120 sessions offered, more than one third were devoted to Beta 1 of the next version of Microsoft’s RIA browser plug-in, while the next largest number featured demos of the just-released Preview for Expression Blend 3, Microsoft’s tool for designing rich UI for both the web and desktop.

In addition to new releases  of the “big three” — Silverlight, Blend and IE8 — there were dozens of announcements, each important to a segment of the developer community and ranging from BizSpark, a program to assist early stage web startups, to new Eclipse tools for building Silverlight RIAs on a Mac and RIAServices, a new .NET library that simplifies the building of n-tier Silverlight line of business applications.

And what about mobile, many wondered? Silverlight for Mobile is in “private beta,” said Guthrie during an informal Q&A at 3rd Place, the popular conference smoozing room. “We’re working hard on getting to a public beta,” he said, while suggesting that the carriers presented more obstacles than the software itself. One non-Microsoft insider who asked to remain unnamed, said in private that he had seen the beta and “it rocks.”

Taken together, the several announcements and hundreds of new features promise to take the Silverlight web platform to a new level. But final release is still months away. Silverlight 3 will release “later this year [2009]”, while an availability date for an Expression Blend 3.0 Beta was not given. The demo of the SketchFlow feature of Blend 3.0 was a runaway hit with everyone who saw it, but no bits are included in the Preview released for download at MIX.

Microsoft seemed to have two competitors in mind as it rolled out its new technologies. The first, clearly is Adobe with its Flex and AIR tools, not to mention Flash. “Don’t forget the ‘magic of three’ [in our release version numbers],” said Blend General Manager Douglas Olson during his “Future of Expression Blend” talk. It was a clear reference to Flex 3 and a claim that Microsoft has reached parity with its rival. There was little talk of the second, however: aside from demonstrations of compatibility with its Chrome browser, Google was hardly acknowledged.

Corruption in Afghanistan: A Story Built Block-by-Block

A man pulls a cart loaded with fire wood past a mansion owned by high-ranking government officials in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul. -- Danfung Dennis for The New York Times

Dexter Filkins has won praise for his war reporting in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as his recently published memoir, “The Forever War.” Now he’s back on the beat in Kabul with a page one story, “Bribes Corrode Afghans’ Trust In Government,” in the Friday, January 2 New England edition of the New York Times.

The piece is a case study in how report and write an effective story.

In their text, Writing and Reporting the News as Story, authors Robert Lloyd and Glenn Guzzo say that one way to create a news story is by viewing the reporting that is its basis as a “inventory” of building blocks, each consisting of one or more paragraphs.

The building blocks — facts, quotes, narratives, illuminating details, contextual background — are collected during the reporting process itself. Once the reporting is complete, “the story is constructed, section by section” from the “inventory” the reporter has created, held together by a compelling lead, given context by a strong nut graph, and wrapped-up with a memorable ending.

A close look at Mr. Filkins story, which asserts that the Afghan government is riddled with corruption, reveals a rich inventory of material (and no doubt much remains in his notebook and on his recordings). Here’s what he has chosen to use:

• “a raft of investigations,” unnamed or described, no doubt to spare the reader the details in favor of eyewitness interview that are decided more compelling.
• a German study of honesty in government which this year demoted Afghanistan to the rank of 176 out of 180 counties studied
• street prices of various bribes, from driving a truck through Kabul to securing a job as a provincial police chief
• a visit to the Kabul neighborhood of Sherper where government ministers and alleged opium traffickers have built expensive homes
• a November speech by Harmid Karzai decrying corruption in his government
• the salary of Harmid Karzai and the rents of two of the most lavish Sherper houses, which far exceed government salaries
• a myriad of interviews (one guesses) on the street and the steps of the Secondary Courthouse in Kabul, three of which are included in the story
• an interview with Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher
• an interview with a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, who resigned in protest
• an interview with a truck driver, Abdul Ghafar
• an interview with Mohammed Yosin Usmani, director general of a newly created anticorruption unit
• an interview with Farooq Fahani, a man trying to resolve a property dispute
• an interview with Amin Farhang, a minister of commerce recently voted out of Karzai’s cabinet
• a refusal to comment by Humayun Hamadizada, a spokesman for Mr. Karzai

Every building block in the article is fully attributed and every interviewee is named. The “raft of studies” cited at the beginning of the article are not named or described, but Mr. Filkins makes such a compelling case for his core theme that a reader like me is willing to take him at face value (though I would have appreciated a count of some kind, e.g., “half a dozen studies” and some idea of who did them). Perhaps if he’d had more words, Mr. Filkins would have worked this material into later paragraphs of his article (perhaps they were cut by his editor).

While the raw reporting is great, the story is made compelling by the ways Mr. Filkins has chosen to present it (and what he’s chosen to omit).

Here’s his lead:

When it comes to governing this violent, fractious land, everything, it seems, has its price.

Next, Mr. Filkins supports his lead, each brief paragraph a preview of a story to come in the main body of the report.

Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across the country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so the police will not tip off the Taliban.

Need to settle a lawsuit over the ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on the judge.

“It is very shameful, but probably I will pay the bribe,” Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher, said as he stood in front of the Secondary Courthouse in Kabul. His brother had been arrested a week before, and the police were demanding $4,000 for his release. “Everything is possible in this country now. Everything.”

Note how the supporting paragraphs build: from  petty bribery, to serious money, to a violation of ordinary justice, the last capped by an on-the-record testimony of a citizen, which sets up the nut graph that follows:

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.

A quote from the resigned minister sums up why all of this matters:

“This government has lost the capacity to govern because a shadow government has taken over,” said Ashraf Ghani, a former Afghan finance minister. He quit that job in 2004, he said, because the state had been taken over by drug traffickers. “The narco-mafia state is now completely consolidated,” he said.

Having made his opening argument in the six paragraphs, including his lead and nut graph, Mr. Filkins uses the rest of his article to build his case. The evidence — his “building blocks” — is a richly detailed tapestry of corruption that seemingly affects all aspects of life in Kabul. The tapestry is knitted together by the effective use of transitional sentences that lead the reader from one conclusion to the next:

• “The corruption…is contributing to the collapse of public confidence in the government [and Obama’s planned efforts to defeat the Taliban]:”  this sentence statement sets up quotes from a speech by Mr. Karzai, some background growth of the Taliban and implications for Mr. Obama, and a strong statement by former finance minister Ghani.
• “On the streets here, tales of corruption are as easy to find as a kebab stand:” now Mr. Filkins rattles off his findings on the nature and amounts of bribes commonplace in Kabul, showing that virtually no aspect of daily life is unaffected
• “…Afghans say the corruption they see now is without precedent:” here we get the news of the German goo-goo orgs’ ranking of Afghanistan at the bottom of its honesty in government list, adding authority to his case
• “Nowhere is the scent of corruption so strong as in the  Kabul neighborhood of Sherper:” this assertion sets up some eyewitness observations by Mr. Filkins of the Sherper neighborhood, quotes from Mr. Ghani and Mr. Usmani, and some reporting on Sherper rents and Mr. Karzid’s salary, proving that Afghan government officials are implicated
• “Often the corruption here is blatant:” time to tell the story,with quotes, of Farhooq Farani, the man who’sbeen told to pay someone $25,000, half the price of his house, if he wants to get it back
• “[Mr. Farani’s tale]makes one wonder if an honest man can make a difference:” here we get the story of a minister who tried and was unable to fire a subordinate who was taking bribes.
• “Many Afghans…place responsibility for the collapse of the state on Mr. Karzai: ” Now we hear from Mr. Ghani again on his two attempts to do something about the corruption he encountered and of Mr. Karzai’s orders to “back off.” Mr. Filkins also attempts to corroberate what Mr. Ghani has told him but gets no comment from Mr. Hamidzada. If even Karzai is complicit, is there any hope?

The article concludes with an ending that echoes the lead and looks for a silver lining:

The corruption may be endemic here, but if there is any hope in the future, it would seem to lie in the revulsion of average Afghans like Mr. Farani [the man who was asked to pay $25,000 to settle a claim on his house], who, after seven years, is still refusing to pay.

“I won’t do it,” Mr. Farani said outside the courthouse. “It’s a matter of principle. Never.”

“But,” he said, “I don’t have my house, either, and I don’t know that I ever will.”

On the Record versus Anonymous Sources: Angelina Jolie and People Magazine Redux

Last month, the New York Times published a  Page One story by Brooks Barnes reporting on how Angelina Jolie seeks to control her image in the press. As an instance of that control, the story left the impression — without stating it outright — that People magazine had agreed to a number of conditions in order to win the competition for the exclusive right to publish the sought-after photos of the twins born to Jolie and Brad Pitt last summer.

Today, Clark Hoyt, public editor at the Times, wondered if the facts of the Jolie story are right. “It is the most fundamental question in journalism,” he says.

Reporter Barnes and his editor Bruce Headlam claim the People story is solid, but Hoyt finds grounds to question their conclusions. The problem lies with the sources each side cites. Barnes based his story on two anonymous sources, and has recently reconfirmed the account, according to his editor, with a third source, also anonymous.

Hoyt, however, did his own reporting (perhaps in response to complaints from People) and  obtained a copy of the contract that People Magazine signed with Jolie’s and Pitt’s agents. He also spoke, on the record, with all of the principals involved in the photo negotiations, from the editor of People Magazine, Larry Hackett, and Mary Green, the People reporter who conducted the email interview with Jolie and Pitt, to Jonathan Klein, chief executive of Getty Images, which took the photos. All deny that conditions were ever demanded or set for the article, and that the negotiation was about price and how Jolie and Pitt would make themselves available for an interview. This claim is reinforced by the contract itself, which makes no mention of conditions, according to Hoyt.

The reporters are left with three sources who are unwilling to go on record to tell their side of the story, while Hoyt has identified five sources whose  accounts contradict the story and are on record in his column. Throw in a written and signed document for good measure — the contract — and the opposing thesis has a steep hill of verification to climb.

Hoyt concludes:

…unless one of [Barnes] sources is willing to come forward — on the record — and state firsthand knowledge contradicting Hackett, Green, Liebman, Kosinski, Klein and the written contract, the paper needs to correct the impression it left of a deal it cannot prove.

To do otherwise, says Hoyt:

… leaves The Times relying on anonymous sources to dispute on-the-record sources, a questionable position over a story of less than world-shaking import.

Perhaps the Times story needed more work before being published. Barnes and Headlam are no doubt red-faced that a Times ombudsman could get access to sources that were not available to them. Or perhaps they were too locked-in to the narrative they had chosen to allow an alternative point of view to emerge. It’s a lesson in the need for documents and on the record sources to verify a controversial report.

The Lucero Murder: A “Staged” Media Event Raises Ethical Reporting Issues

Interviewing sources under false pretenses is an editorial no-no, but a recent media event held Dec. 3 in Patchogue, N.Y., the town where an Ecuadorian immigrant named Marcelo Lucero was recently murdered by a group of roaming teenagers, seems to have encouraged a variety of ethical lapses by its leaders, and possibly one reporter.

It’s also a study in how two newspapers — Newsday and the Times — can differ dramatically in how they choose to cover the same story.

According the a Dec. 5 Times Editorial Observer column — A Hate-Crime Circus Comes to Patchogue: ‘Are You a Victim?’ — written by the member of the Times editorial board responsible for suburban reporting, Latino victims of hate crimes were invited to come to The Congregational Church of Patchogue to share their stories in the safety of its sanctuary. The event was arranged by its pastor, Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter, and Fernando Mateo, the leader of an advocacy group called Hispanics Across America.

The problem is that Wolter also invited “newspapers, wire services and TV stations” within a 60-mile radius to come listen, using an encouraging quote from Desmond Tutu, repeated in the Newsday article, as bait ( See Newsday’s story, Patchogue meeting to air alleged bias attacks).

“The news crews that descended fell for it and so did I,” wrote Lawrence Downes, author of the column.

As Downes tells it, however, when reporters arrived, they were not allowed into the sanctuary, and “wandered the vestibule looking for Latinos to interview.”

In the vestibule, volunteers kept the delivery system flowing, sending a stream of potential clients to Mr. Mateo’s lawyers. “Are you a victim? Are you a victim?” said a woman passing out fliers in Spanish. The fliers explained that testimonies would be recorded, but did not explain that the person doing the recording was a reporter for the public-radio station WSHU who had done a flattering story on Mr. Wolter two days earlier.

The Suffolk County Prosecutor Thomas Spota, was in and out, “hoping to glean a few useful accounts of unreported assaults.” The mayor complained that the event should have been held at the town library without reporters. Newsday later reported that about 20  people told of having been threatened or attacked.

At 9 p.m., Rev. Wolter held a news conference and announced several “grim stories” had been unearthed. Then he said the tapes would be made available to reporters.

Downes says he asked Wolter:

…whether the people who had come that night had known that their private stories of abuse were destined for mass public consumption.”

According to Downes:

It took him a while, but eventually Mr. Wolter said no, and added that he had not given it much thought. Then things got confused: Mr. Mateo told me that the tapes were meant to be turned over to the authorities. Mr. Wolter said that he was keeping the tapes himself. I waited by the radio reporter’s makeshift studio, hoping he could clear it up. Was he an audio technician, or a reporter working a story? He told me he was on deadline and angrily shut the door.

Did the public radio reporter later use the stories? I haven’t had time to check. And where did the tapes end up?Again, the news trail is a dead end.

Newsday reported the event as a straight news story, quoting both named and unnamed attendees who said they were victims of  harassment (See Hate victims speak out in Patchogue).  Judging from Downes reporting, those quotes must have been gathered in the vestibule of the church, not inside the sanctuary, and presumably with the permission of the sources.

As for the Times, it chose not to report the event in either its online or New England print editions . I haven’t been able to determine whether it ran news stories in its City or Metro editions, however.

If the Times passed, as I’m guessing, then I think it made the right decision. There was no news to be reported, since previous stories in the paper had already told stories of the on-going harassment of Latinos in Long Island communities. The story the Times chose to tell was of the attempt of two leaders to hijack the emotions aroused by the crime for themselves. That angle, and the reporter’s sense of having “been had,” did not lend itself to a standard news format, especially once Downes made himself a part of the story.

Downes made his bias plain in the lead he wrote for his column.

Not all crimes against immigrants take place in darkened parking lots with hurled insults and knife blows. Some happen in church, obscured in a swirl of platitudes, righteous poses and smarmy motives.

NYT “Does Its Own Reporting:” Asian Beetles in Worcester Revisited

Although the Boston Globe, which is owned by the New York Times, often publishes international and national stories from it’s parent paper, the Times apparently chose not to return the favor in assigning its own reporter (or, perhaps, freelancer) Ariana Green to follow up on an article about the Asian beetle infestation in Worcester, Mass., a city in the Globe’s own backyard. The Times has written other stories on the problem, mostly about the greater New York metropolitan and New Jersey areas, while the Worcester Telegram and Gazette — also owned by the Times — has provided even more extensive coverage
The Times story, “Asian Beetle Spells Death for Maples So Dear: An Infestation in Massachusetts,” appeared in its November 28 New England edition; Carolyn Y. Johnson’s Globe article, “Swat Team Takes to Trees: Battling the Beetle Threatening N.E.’s Forests,” appeared October 18 on Page One, beating the Times by more than six weeks.

Perhaps the Times story was inspired by the Globe, or perhaps the scale of the Worcester effort caught the eye of a Times editor, but whatever the motive, Green appears to have followed the ethical adage of journalists to “do your own reporting.” In her report, she develops a fresh angle on the story: Worcester’s decision following  a 1953 tornado to replace most of its downed trees with Norway maples contributed to its current problems. Nowadays, foresters recommend that communities diversify their tree populations to avoid widespread devastation of the kind Worcester now faces. Here’s how Green moves the story from her lead to the larger issue she wants to explain:

WORCESTER, Mass. — People who live in this city’s Greendale neighborhood love the maples that shade their streets in summer and turn beautiful colors in fall. But most of the maples in Greendale are now painted with red dots, indicating that they will be chopped down as early as next month because of an infestation of Asian long-horned beetles that is plaguing thousands of Worcester’s trees.

When a tornado devastated Worcester in 1953, maples were planted as replacement trees. “Norway maples were readily available back then,” said Brian Breveleri, the city’s urban forester. “And they were popular because they could weather the cold.”

But when Worcester plants new trees this time around, it will vary the type. A tree inventory, completed in 2006, showed that 80 percent of its street trees were maples, which the beetles find irresistible. The city should ideally have about half as many maples.

These three paragraphs set up Green’s article for her reporting on diversification as a preventative strategy, the need for communities to complete tree inventories in order to implement such a strategy, and the availability of new software that makes it possible for volunteers to help professionals identify infested trees.

Green quotes eight sources, six experts from the region and two residents of the Greendale neighborhood in Worcester; Johnson quotes four experts, all from Massachusetts, and one resident. The articles are roughly equal in length. There is no overlap in content. Green’s report seems, at times, more deeply reported, revealing, for example, that a professional inventory team failed to spot the beetle in Worcester in 2006, and that the pest was first detected by Greendale residents this summer. But Johnson is alone in explaining how the beetle actually does its damage and why the Worcester infestation is unique (it’s the first large infestation discovered so close to a forested area , the woods of New England). She’s also the only one to explain what must be done with an infested tree once the beetle is detected, as well as the emotional impact of cutting it down on homeowners and neighborhood residents.

The Times article ends by returning to Worcester, noting that the beetle was first spotted by residents and complaints the city was too slow to respond. But it ends on a hopeful note, with words from the resident of the Greendale neighborhood who spotted the first beetle.

In Worcester, Donna Massie, a resident of Greendale, first noticed the beetle this summer and reported it to the authorities. Ms. Massie is eager to help with eradication efforts, but other residents are angry that the beetle went undetected for so long.

“It seems to me that Worcester just drags its feet,” said Donald Huard, 58, a handyman who lives on an affected street. “And now look; the problem is so big it’s really going to change our landscape.”

Ms. Massie, 53, is trying to get her neighbors to stay positive and informed through her Web site, asianlonghornedbeetleitems.com, which also sells beetle-themed goods like lacquered frozen beetles in wooden boxes and beetle Christmas ornaments. She plans to give half her proceeds to the city for replanting.

“Some people blame the government for catching the problem after the beetles already had time to spread,” she said. “But, really, it’s the beetle’s fault, and we’re all responsible, so the best thing to do now is to get educated and deal with the situation before it gets even bigger.”

The Story Behind Her Stories: Rules of Access for Angelina Jolie

Times reporter Brooks Barnes provided some useful insight into the distinction between celebrity news and journalism this week in her Friday, November 21 page one feature “Story Behind the Cover Story: Angelina Jolie and Her Image.”

Based on interviews with two anonymous sources, Barnes reported that in addition to paying $14 million for exclusive photos of the twins born this summer to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, People and other magazines that bid for the pictures had to “promise that the winning magazine’s coverage would be positive, not merely in that instance but into the future.”

According to the deal offered by Ms. Jolie [wrote Barnes], the winning magazine was obliged to offer coverage that would not reflect negatively on her or her family, according to two people with knowledge of the bidding who were granted anonymity because the talks were confidential. The deal also asked for an “editorial plan” providing a road map of the layout, these people say.

People magazine won the bidding war and a photo story of the new twins ran in its August 18 issue, its best selling issue in seven years, according to the Times. Writes Barnes,

In the People interview, there were questions about [Ms. Jolie’s] and Mr. Pitt’s charity work and no use of the word “Brangelina,” the tabloid amalgamation of their names, which irks the couple.

In a statement, People denied there had been a quid pro quo

“These claims are categorically false….Like any news organization, People does purchase photos, but the magazine does not determine editorial content based on the demands of outside parties.”

But the protests of People appear not to be born out by the statements of others who have negotiated with Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt in recent years. In her investigative piece, Barnes claims to have interviewed more than two dozen industry insiders who have worked with the couple over the years and say otherwise (though not one was apparently willing to be quoted). The picture that  emerges from those interviews, she says, is one in which Ms. Jolie dictates terms to the celebrity publications that cover her in a way that creates difficulties for editors trying to maintain journalistic standards.

Barnes was not able to interview either Ms. Jolie or Mr. Pitt, though she did interview and quote Trevor Neilson, a “philanthropic advisor” to Ms. Jolie. The are no on-the-record quotes in the article that either confirm or refute the pattern that emerged from the two dozen anonymous sources that Barnes interviewed. She does provide two strong cases involving People magazine in which the evidence of a quid pro quo is clear.

The New York Times ran a profile of its own on Ms. Jolie by reporter Mark Harris in an October issue of its Sunday paper, focusing on Ms. Jolie’s role as a working mother, the kind of favorable image she seeks. Barnes reports that “there were no restrictions on access” placed on the Times. A full page ad for Ms. Jolie’s latest movie, The Changeling, did run in the same section of the paper as the Sunday profile; Times policy, however, forbids collaboration between the newroom and the advertising departments.

So, are celebrity-oriented magazines like People, US, and others wrong to pay for access or to agree ahead of time to an editorial direction? Perhaps not. But just don’t call it journalism, most reporters would say.

Arguably, People is in the business of satisfying the hunger of a public that wants to hear stories about celebrities. Celebrity stories, and perhaps especially unfavorable ones, do sell copies and often are just an excuse to mention a famous person or publish a photo. Such stories do not often have a serious purpose, so perhaps it’s understandable that celebrities like Ms. Jolie choose to manipulate that game to their own advantage.

But agreeing to terms of access has the effect of ruling out other directions a story might take. By preventing other truths from emerging, the journalistic process is derailed and the profile that emerges is at best a partial truth or a distortion of the truth.

The New York times is very clear about treatment of sources in its own Handbook of Ethical Journalism.

The Times treats news sources just as fairly and openly as it treats readers. We do not inquire pointlessly into someone’s personal life. Staff members may not threaten to damage
uncooperative sources. They may not promise favorable coverage in return for cooperation. They may not pay for interviews or unpublished documents.

The Los Angeles Times, which deals with Hollywood celebrities on a regular basis, has a more explicit policy, which can be found at its web site.

The Times does not make deals in exchange for access. When negotiating with Hollywood publicists, for instance, we do not make promises regarding story placement or angle of approach. That such deals are commonplace among entertainment media does not make them acceptable at the Times.

It is permissible to discuss, in general terms, the scope and direction of the story we have in mind. It should be clear, however, that the ultimate placement and angle of a story are for reporters and editors to decide.

If all else fails, there is always the advice offered by two widely used texts, Elements of Journalism and Writing and Reporting the News as Story. Be transparent about sources and the restrictions that may have been placed on your reporting. And, “disclosure is preventative medicine.”

Electoral Maps: Is the glass half empty or half full?

Obama won! So which color would you expect to predominate on a map showing the results of the election county-by-county: red or blue? Like most things, that depends.

Among the joys of a national election for a political junkie like me, are the maps and graphs that follow the counting of the  ballots and tallying of the exit polls. Like x-rays and MRIs, they reveal the contours of the political landscape we live in at a particular moment in time, spare  summations of gigabytes of data.

The November 6, 2008 issues of the Boston Globe and the New York Times each contained their share  of four-color and black-and-white  graphics, though the Times was the clear winner with its special 20-page “After the Vote” section. The Globe devoted a mere eight pages to “Election 2008” in the front section of the paper.

Each paper included a county-by-county map of the votes cast, but although both are owned by the same company — the Times — the map in the Times was predominantly blue, while the other was red. How come?

The color, it seems, depends on which result you are depicting. Here’s the explanation. The Globe map was red because the McCain-Palin ticket carried most of the counties in the U.S. Obama still won because he prevailed in the most populous counties, the ones that included towns and major cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Geographically, the country remains conservative and Republican, but demographically, the country is liberal and Democratic.

The Times map was blue because it chose to display a different and startling aspect to the data: although most counties remained Republican, the percentage of residents voting Democratic in those counties increased by 5 to 20 points, compared to the 2004 election. While he did not win most of the counties in the U.S., Obama did cause more voters to cast Democratic ballots than previously. Republicans increased their percentage of the vote only in certain counties in Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

The source of the information for both maps was the Associated Press. The maps themselves were rendered by their respective papers. The two versions — and others — can be seen at the Times interactive 08 Election Results Site. To see the map that brings joy to Republicans (the red one) , click on “County leaders;” to see the map that should energize Democrats (the blue one), click on “Voting shifts.”

An Ethical Lapse by a Popular NPR Radio Host

The New York Times reported Thursday this week that the host of the popular NPR radio program “The Infinite Mind” had earned at least $1.3 million between 2000 and 2007 “by giving marketing lectures for drugmakers.” The same report was also published in the Saturday New England edition of the paper.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, did not disclose the payments to either his audience or to his producer. They were uncovered by Senator Charles Grassley as part of his on-going investigation into whether conflicts of interest exist between medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies. According to the Times, Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated.

The Times quotes Dr. Goodwin as saying in an interview that neither he nor his producer, Bill Lichtenstein, thought “getting money from drug companies could be an issue.”

Lichtenstein remembers things differently. According to the Times

…Mr. Lichtenstein said that he was unaware of Dr. Goodwin’s financial ties to drugmakers and that, after an article in the online magazine Slate this year pointed out that guests on his program had undisclosed affiliations with drugmakers, he called Dr. Goodwin “and asked him point-blank if he was receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies, directly or indirectly, and the answer was, ‘No.’ ”

…“The fact that he was out on the stump for pharmaceutical companies was not something we were aware of,” Mr. Lichtenstein said in an interview. “It would have violated our agreements.”

The exchange of money for services between Dr. Goodwin and companies whose products he covered on his weekly show clearly violates the first of “Dan’s Three Keys” to ethical reporting: establish a reporter-source relationship, make it explicit, and then keep it.

Whether or not the money Dr. Goodwin received for his marketing lectures influenced the opinions he expressed, the appearance of bias is certainly there. His programs often dealt with topics that touched on the commercial interests of the companies who paid him. On a September 20 show, Dr. Goodwin told his audience that modern mood stabilizers were safe for children. The same day, GlaxoSmithKline paid Dr. Goodwin $2,500 to give a promotional lecture on its mood stabilizer drug Lamictal, according to Grassley’s investigation.

In a March program, he said, ““As you will hear today, there is no credible scientific evidence linking antidepressants to violence or to suicide.” That same week, according to the Times,

…Dr. Goodwin earned around $20,000 from GlaxoSmithKline, which for years suppressed studies showing that its antidepressant, Paxil, increased suicidal behaviors.

In addition to violating “Dan’s First Key,” Dr. Goodwin’s chumminess with drug companies also violates a principle advocated in The Elements of Journalism:

Journalists must maintain an independence from those they cover.

The journalism text, Writing and Reporting the News as Story, is even more explicit in its list of “Principles of Journalistic Independence and Ethical Conduct.”

Don’t accept anything of value from anybody [especially, one might add, from those you’re covering, whether subjects or sources].

Resist alliances that suggest conflicts of interest.

In the end, it seems, Dr. Goodwin will lose his radio show, and his reputation as an independent source of opinion. He might have avoided his current troubles if he had followed yet another principle that everyone seems to agree on: disclose potential conflicts to your readers and your editors. By not disclosing his relations with GlaxoSmithKline and others, Dr. Goodwin makes them all the more suspect. “In retrospect,” he told the Times, they “should have been disclosed.”