As the late Tip O’Neill was fond of saying, all politics is local. The idea that Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia amount to some sort of repudiation of President Obama is just as silly as the notion that Obama’s endorsement was ...

At this point, it’s just depressing. Voters in Maine last night overturned their state’s same-sex-marriage law by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. The very idea that we should have the right to vote on whether our neighbors are fully huma...

Peter Canellos In an apparent attempt to infuse the Boston Globe’s opinion pages with a pop-culture sensibility, editorial-page editor Peter Canellos has announced that feature writer Joanna Weiss will be moving to the editorial board and writing a ...

The Guardian has put together a package of commentary on the first anniversary of President Obama’s election. Mine is here....

Two weeks ago today, the Twitter feed Fake AP Stylebook was launched upon an unsuspecting planet. Journalists who had long labored under the tyranny of the Associated Press Stylebook know that they’re supposed to use 1950s-style postal abbreviations...

I’m watching the anti-SLAPP hearing here. Background on the case here. And that’s a wrap. The Supreme Judicial Court will consider the arguments it heard this morning and issue a decision at some later time. It strikes me that the questions we...

The myth lives on in the Boston Globe. Christine Legere writes today that the town of Middleborough “enthusiastically agreed to host what was to be the state’s first gambling house” two years ago. In fact, residents attending a chaotic outdo...

Fredda Hollander, an activist-journalist who will appear before the state’s Supreme Judicial Court on Monday, has given me permission to post the affidavit (pdf) I wrote for her at an earlier stage of her case. It’s a public document, but give...

Adam Gaffin has posted an excellent summary of an important press-freedom case that will be argued before the state’s Supreme Judicial Court on Monday. Fredda Hollander, an activist-journalist who once wrote for a local newspaper called the Regional...

Christopher Mayer I have no particular insight into Boston Globe publisher Steven Ainsley’s retirement announcement, or why senior vice president Christopher Mayer was chosen as his replacement. But I do think Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix gets ...

OK, one quick one, then I’m out of here. The Boston Herald today follows up its social-media story with more from Dave Wedge and Jessica Heslam and a column by Margery Eagan. In order to bolster her argument that Amy Derjue, spokeswoman for Boston C...

I’m in New Haven on business today and will be dealing with some family business on Friday. Which means I might not get to post again for a few days. Go, Pedro!...

Amy Derjue (from Twitter) Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub has some big-time fun with the Boston Herald’s story on city employees who use Facebook and Twitter during work hours. Gaffin reproduces a photo of the Herald reporters who wrote the story, Jess...

Why, to cater to their audience’s every whim, of course. So kudos to WBUR Radio (90.9 FM), which responded to my whining on Twitter about the lack of a downloadable MP3 of last night’s Massachusetts Senate debate by posting one this afternoon....

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that the long-predicted newspaper-circulation death spiral now under way wouldn’t be such a big deal if online advertisers weren’t fleeing newspaper Web sites as well. On a cheerier note, Jonathan Knee wr...

U.S. Senate candidate Alan Khazei seemed to come out of left field (they’re all coming out of left field, aren’t they?) when he announced his opposition to casino gambling at an event on Monday morning. Indeed, one fellow candidate, U.S. Rep. ...

Outside Bagel World in Peabody There’s an absolutely terrifying story about the newspaper business making the rounds today, and it’s not the one about print circulation falling another 10.6 percent. That’s hardly a surprise, given the co...

Thought you might enjoy George Will’s response on “This Week” when George Stephanopoulos asked him about Dick Cheney’s accusation that President Obama, by taking his time before deciding on a strategy in Afghanistan, is “dith...

What’s your favorite way of getting Web-site traffic data? I’m looking for something reliable and, if not free, then at least incredibly cheap. I’ve played with Quantcast and Compete.com. Quantcast is supposedly more reliable, but only i...

What should we think about a partnership the New York Times has announced with a Chicago non-profit news organization that will supply two pages of news each week for the Times’ new Chicago edition? On the one hand, the Times, a for-profit enterpris...