Mike Ball listened to 'BUR's Deborah Becker grill Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral on Philip Markoff's suicide and thinks Becker ran amok:
Becker started out like a real journalist and quickly went tabloid on Cabral. She clearly came in with her conclusions and was not about to let truth or knowledge interfere.
WBUR's won a $250,000 Knight Foundation grant to work with Quincy District Court to set up a way for bloggers and reporters to report on court cases as they happen - and to develop standards for other courts to use. Laura McGann interviewed 'BUR's John Davidow on the Order in the Court 2.0 project.
Boston Music Intelligencer takes a peek at the latest Arbitron numbers for WGBH (and WCRB) and WBUR.
Will air from 3-4 p.m. with host Meghna Chakrabarti and Adam Ragusea doing reporting. Their first week will features interviews with all five people running for governor (quick, can you name 'em?).
Dan Kennedy gets the scoop on WBUR's plans for the newly expanded show, whose "lead host" will be 'BUR reporter and producer Meghna Chakrabarti.
The battle for ratings between our two bigfoot public-radio stations is stepping up a notch: 'BUR is turning Radio Boston, which now airs only on Fridays, into a daily show.
Take a look at the job postings for executive producer and associate producer.
Go to wbur.org, then click on your browser View button, then on View Source. Maybe tilt your head a little to the right.
Boston magazine has a long article on the public-radio war between WBUR and WGBH that I'm sure is just absolutely fascinating, but which I'm having trouble reading because it's just so full of mistakes, starting with the very first paragraph:
Alex Beam reports on the war between WGBH and WBUR for public-radio supremacy in this most NPRish of towns:
... 'BUR staffers have an almost mystical faith in WGBH's management ineptitude, and in the past they have not been disappointed. ...
But 'GBH is hiring 10 new reporters and producers (Quick, Robin! To the Bat Resume!).
Eeka warns the WBUR yakker: If you say "TARP program" one more time, imma beat you over the head with an ATM machine.
It's not enough that WGBH is stealing WBUR's news/talk format; now it's trying to wrest away its slogan, too. The station, which used to call itself "Boston's NPR Arts and Culture Station" is now calling itself just "Boston's NPR Station," as if WBUR, "Boston's NPR News Station," no longer existed. As 'BUR reporter Andrew Phelps sums up: Pretty ballsy.
Eeka has started posting a daily word that the WBUR newsreader gives a different spin to.
Ken George unwraps the new look of WBUR's Web site, which looks a lot more like the sort of site you'd bookmark for breaking news than today's model. Interestingly, it's all being done in WordPress (well, interestingly to Web geeks who enjoy such back-end details).
Philil Greenspun runs some numbers, concludes that WGBH on-air fund drives don't bring in enough to cover the costs of annoying listeners and driving away advertisers sponsors and that the non-profit station could make up the difference in the compensation of the 14 vice presidents who made between $200,000 and $350,000 a year in 2006. Because, he says, WGBH no longer has a monopoly for the high brow in Boston:
... I'm listening to CBC Classical right now, which is free of all commercials, free of fundraising solicitations, and streamed at a much higher audio quality than WGBH's Internet feed.
Pamela Rosenthal reports posts she put up a year ago about the sudden disappearance of WBOS still get hits - but she also explains how she's moved on, and how WBUR gets it when it comes to audience retention.
This week on Radio Boston! We bring you some of the magical sounds of the season...with Chanukah music from the Klezmer Conservancy Band, and Christmas music from the Boston Camerata. This week on Radio Boston. Friday at 1. WBUR.
or go to www.radioboston.org.
'BUR new-media type Ken George wonders, both Twitterishly and bloggerishly:
... Do pledge Tweets (and mind you, I will be very conservative in this regard) make you feel like I've crossed a line? How about YouTube-hosted videos asking that you give. Flickr pledged-themed photo galleries? And what about Facebook? Is requesting you forward along a pledge link violating the unspoken yet code of contact? ...
Because of the growing crisis affecting our financial system, Radio Boston will be changing up our show this week, to look at local impacts. Let us know what you think at radioboston.org.
This Friday, October 3rd at 1 p.m., WBUR will be re-launching its weekly local news/talk program, Radio Boston. We've got a new in studio host, award winning journalist Jane Clayson, and David Boeri will continue as field host of the program. Visit our website, www.radioboston.org for more information, and new video and pictures. This week we'll be doing a show about the new Rose Kennedy Greenway, which is scheduled to have its grand opening on Saturday October 4th. We're definitely interested in what you think about the program, and about what topics you think we should be covering.
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