Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Just to get this out of the way…

By

I have decided to treat Blue Mass Group as the New York Times of the Progressive Movement – the official paper of record, as it were.

I just saw this on Jon Keller’s blog on WBZ:

Full Disclosure

My adult son, Barney, has accepted a full-time position doing communications work for the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Email Jon your comments and feedback

Dec 4, 2007 5:27 pm

OK – so everybody is now aware?  Nobody is kerfluffled that the adult son of a news commentator has the temerity to work for Republicans?

Very good.  Carry on.

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  2. Nobody is kerfluffled that the adult son of a news commentator has the temerity to work for Republicans?

    <

    p>…Jon has made a disclosure.  Whether or not it is sufficient I’ll leave for other people to decide.  Then again, we don’t watch Keller’s station anyway.

    <

    p>Barney’s selection of party might be a bad career move, but that’s another issue.

  3. I hear that the Blute harbor cruises are great.  

    <

    p>Plus he did work for the Ogonowski campaign, something that Jon didn’t discuss until the very end, while routinely discussing the campaign.  That might have been something for Jon Keller to discuss, don’t you think?

    • put up a disclosure on his blog in the early summer when Barney first started working for Jim.  He’s got nothing to explain.

      • …that early disclosure wasn’t enough for David.  Or many others.

        <

        p>So – since Keller doesn’t have posting privileges here – and I do (for Now) – I just thought I’d highlight this up-front disclosure in order to avoid hard feelings in the future.

        <

        p>God knows, few BMG’ers read Keller’s blog.

        • … we can assume his blog audience is at least as big as and overlaps entirely, his TV audience.

          <

          p>Please.

          <

          p>On the other hand, maybe he is egotistical enough to assume it as a given that the TV viewers would certainly check his old blog posts because he is so interesting.

            • … number of viewers and the hit count of the blog, if you want to make sure something is understood by the audience as widely as possible, the venue is clear unless you are an idiot.

              <

              p>Similarly, if three is something you have to disclose but you want to make sure it gets as limited play as possible, the venue is clear unless you are an idiot.

              <

              p>I’m perfectly willing to concede that Keller is an idiot.

          • If he does, that’s news.  I’ve never seen a post or comment from him; maybe he thinks you’re more discriminating than you actually are (although God knows, letting ME post and some others should have been a tip-off…)

            • Ernie Boch III and Jon Keller are one and the same! đŸ˜‰  (Note to the humor-impaired: the “wink” icon in this context signifies that I do not, in fact, think it likely that “Ernie Boch III” is a BMG pseudonym for WBZ-TV employee Jon Keller.)  Seriously, I have no idea if Keller posts here or not.  He doesn’t seem to do so under his own name; that’s his choice.

              • …but Keller may be under a contractual obligation not to post or comment elsewhere under his own name.

                <

                p>That would not forbid Keller from posting or commenting elsewhere under another handle, of course.

      • … nor do I watch him on TV or read him on the corporate site…

        <

        p>

        *[new]  Jon Keller  (3.00 / 1)

        put up a disclosure on his blog in the early summer when Barney first started working for Jim.  He’s got nothing to explain.

        <

        p>…In point of fact; the only time I’m exposed to Keller is when people use his writings to (attempt to) bolster their arguments, such as they are… In which instance(s), it’s often germane to include the disclosure.

      • That’s a load of bull and you know it.  

        <

        p>Who’s his audience on WBZ?  He decided to tell his viewing audience, who are very different people very late while covering the election.

      • Only people who read his blog — a tiny minority of his TV audience — would be expected to read that. He made no mention of this fact when doing his TV commentary.

    • What’s wrong with the MA Republican Party?

      <

      p>that’s a good question.  Apparently, they imploded.  I was moderately paying attention to the northeast, but it seemed that the Republican party in MA was moderately vibrant: Volpe (I believe), Sargent, and others in the 1970s.  

      <

      p>I actually do have a theory, backed up by no evidence, but I suspect that Nixon’s Southern Strategy basically doomed the Republican party in the Northeast and also the far west, by inducing the Dixiecrats to join the Republican coalition.

        • <

          p>…when you realize that political parties at the national level are really just a coalition of parties at the state level.

          <

          p>There were actually three coalitions at the national level loosely described as the Northern Democrats, the Northern Republicans and the Dixiecrats.  The Dixiecrats hated the Northern Republicans because of the War of Northern Aggression and the subsequent excesses of Reconstruction, and they caucussed with the Northern Democrats.

          <

          p>That coalition began to break down in 1928, when the Northern Democrats nominated a Roman Catholic (Al Smith) for president.  The Dixiecrats were, of course, primarily Southern Baptists, who weren’t entirely enamored of Catholics.

          <

          p>I’ll skip through Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat run for the presidency, and fast forward to Nixon’s Southern Strategy in the early 1970s.  The Northern Democrats had enticed the Dixiecrats to stay in their coalition by basically promising welfare.  Thus the many military bases in the South.  Thus the many space centers in the South.  There really is more.  

          <

          p>Nixon figured out that he could entice the Dixiecrats from their coalition with the Northern Democrats to the Northern Republicans by offering them the same if not more.  And it worked.

          <

          p>The problem that you adherents to the Republican party have is far broader than that, though.  The Republicans at the national level have also learned that they will have to provide what is essentially welfare to numerous constituencies to keep them happy.  Agribusiness,  The military-industrial-congressional complex.  The prison-industrial complex.  The medical-insurance complex.  Many, many complexes.  

          <

          p>Your dream of a smaller federal government is not going to happen under the Republican party.  Republicans love their welfare.  Federal spending increased markedly under St. Ronald, he of Reagan, and has exploded under GWB.

  4. that involves the New Hampshire Republican Party, that his son has a full-time position doing communications work for the Party.

    <

    p>Here is a relevant passage from the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. Keller apparently is not familiar with this organization, or its useful work, sadly.

    <

    p>

    Act Independently
    Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.

    Journalists should:

       -Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
       – Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
       – Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
       – Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
       – Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
       – Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
       – Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.

     

    • …but he CAN decline the Christmas Present!

      <

      p>And by him posting there, and me posting here, at least an effort has been made to disclose ‘unavoidable conflict’.

      <

      p>BTW – he also mentioned this on his daily WBZ radio dicourse (I flip away from Finneran to listen as I drive, and then back to the Tom and Rachel show when he’s done…sorry, ‘BZ…)

    • He should declare that his wife’s second counsin (twice removed) gets her hair done by the sister-in-law of the ex-husband of Mitt Romney’s gardener’s former book-keeper.

        •  On the web.

          <

          p>Internetty people always assume, wrongly, that there is an infinite amount of time and space for this kind of junk. Hence the “why no copious footnotes?” in a book that functioned as a long-form op-ed.  If these guys actualy did all the stuff you guys wanted they would be (i) unreadable, (ii) unwatchable, and (iii) unemployed.  Doubtless that is the unstated wish behind those who go into high dudgeon over stuff like this.

          • … to 1 million people, its ok if I disclose on a blog that may get 30 thousand hits tops?  Is that really a disclosure or an attempt to do the ethical thing while making sure it doest get around too much?

            <

            p>Seriously… if the 1 million is your audience, that thats who you need to disclose to.  If disclosure is what you owe your audience that you’re gypping them to bury it in your blog.

            • …Keller DID make mention of this on his morning radio diatribe, which reaches as far south as Wet virgina, North into Maine, and can be streamed from anywhere – in short, FAR beyond the broadcast reach of WBZ.

              <

              p>So – does disclosing to 30,000 on the blog and 20 million on the radio offset not disclosing to 1 million on TV?

              <

              p>BTW – I have no idea if he said anything on TV – I’m usually watching re-runs of ‘Sex and the City’ at 11….

              • … because I missed the radio reference?  Must be, because what I was pointing out was that if there is a duty to disclose, then it matters to whom the disclosure is made.  I find it hard to believe that you’d disagree with that.

  5. Just when did Jon Keller become the David Broder of Boston media? Who anointed this David Yepsen wannabe the king of political coverage in Boston and New Hampshire?

    <

    p>I stopped reading and listening to Keller after his cub reporter days with The Tab covering municipal politics and Prop 2 and a half in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s .
    His writing then provided more than enough evidence to characterize his political views and analysis as banal, ideologically predictable, trite, and superficial.

    <

    p>If WBZ-TV wants to improve its political coverage, it should re-hire the sorely missed Dick Flavin to restore some much needed wit, class, and intelligence to local political reporting.  

    • In any case, who bothers to read or listen to Jon Keller anymore?

      <

      p>Pay attention to whom the commercials are directed.  It’s mostly to elderly people, the pill poppers and so forth.  With advertising driven mass-media you can usually tell who the targetted audience by following the advertising.  Keller is merely filler between the commercials.

      <

      p>60 Minutes is targetted to the elderly, and that’s why they don’t get rid of the troglodytes like Mike Wallace.  Network and local news is targetted to the pill-poppers, mostly, but not exclusively, elderly.  I don’t pay attention to the daytime talk shows.  

      <

      p>Sports?  They’re targetted to the vroom!vroom! young male crowd, hence the plethora of BMW commercials.

      <

      p>Who bothers to read or listen to Jon Keller?  Follow the commercials.  The advertisers are paying the bills.

      <

      p>BTW, Broder is a troglodyte whom I have never paid any attention to.  He’s such a sanctimonious jackass, like most of them in DC.

  6. This would appear to be right up the alley of many BMG commenters. Let’s see a list of political reporters and opinionmongers along with what their spouses, kids, parents, and second cousins once removed do for work. See how often they disclose. And by all means, let’s try to be nonpartisan about it.

    • … but to what audience do they disclose.

      <

      p>If there is an ethical duty to disclose, then it must be asked: … ethical duty to disclose to whom?

    • It’s everyone else’s fault that Jon Keller didn’t disclose to his audience until very late in the election that his son was working for the Ogonowski campaign.  Keller who had been covering the election and the sole provider of polling data to the public.  Key point here Jon was COVERING the election, you don’t believe that a major Boston TV station reporter should disclose that his son is working for one of the campaigns?  Your answer is that it’s possible that commenters on BMG don’t provide full disclosure.  What does that have to do with Jon Keller?

      <

      p>FYI – Barry isn’t Jon’s second cousin once removed.  

    • ..if enough people complain to the advertisers of Keller’s media outlet, maybe he will be removed.

      <

      p>Dan, I’m sure that you don’t like hearing this, but the fact is that the advertisers call the shots.  There is no such thing as “ethics” in advertising-driven media.  It’s all about getting the advertisers to pay up.  The “talent” is the filler between the ads.

  7. Y’know – I remembered that the last time Keller fils took a job, y’all missed the blog announcement.  It caused a lot of kerfluffle here.

    <

    p>So when I noticed the new announcement, at nobody’s prompting or pay, I said to myself, “Self – put this on BMG, so we won’t have an undignified brawl in six months.”

    <

    p>It now appears one will be held immeidately.

    <

    p>That was NOT my intention – my intention was a light, cordial, good humoured mention.  Unless you took my words about regarding BMG as the NYT of the Progressive Movement overly seriously?  Got your green blood flowing and all?

    <

    p>Well, I guess if we ARE goign to do the archeology to find the ancestors of Frank Phillips, Howie Carr and Joan Vennocchi, we should at LEAST be prepared to apply the ‘Romney Standard’, and determine if their great-grandparents had any pecadillos in their saddlebags.

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