Why is the Boston Globe letting former US Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) sell space on its op-ed page? As Eric Hananoki reports for Media Matters, the Globe has once again allowed Sununu to pen a column without disclosing he’s a highly-paid industry lobbyist:
Sununu wrote in his August 17 column that “Obama’s bureaucrats reach ever deeper into the economy, pursuing expensive and unnecessary regulation of the internet.” Sununu and the Globe did not disclose that he is the highly-paid honorary co-chair of Broadband for America, an organization whose members have included major broadband providers and has been heavily funded by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
Broadband for America’s most recent IRS 990 form states that the group paid Sununu $480,067 for “lead consulting” during parts of 2013 and 2014.
Sununu also serves on the board of directors for Time Warner Cable (TWC), which fights Internet regulation. […] TWC gave Sununu approximately $272,000 in compensation in 2014, according to company documents.
But Sununu’s byline innocuously reads, “John E. Sununu, a former Republican senator from New Hampshire, writes regularly for the Globe.”
Sununu has also used his column to attack President Obama’s Clean Power Plan while serving as “Adjunct Senior Policy Advisor” for Akin Gump, a powerhouse DC lobbying firm that rakes in millions from the coal, oil and fracked gas industries.
The Globe’s excuse? “Reached by phone by Media Matters‘ Joe Strupp, Editorial Page Editor Ellen Clegg said she’s on vacation and hasn’t ‘read this column closely.'” When it comes to Sununu’s incomplete byline, Clegg says “take a look at it.”
But when Media Matters first pointed out Sununu’s Akin Gump conflicts of interest back in 2012, then-editorial page editor Peter Canellos claimed, “If [Sununu] were in any position to benefit from matters he writes about, we would disclose that fact.” (Canellos is now executive editor of Politico.)
The Globe is failing to live up to its own stated ethical standards. Will Clegg now succeed where Canellos failed?
and afflicts the afflicted.
I stopped reading that rag whore years ago when it sold its’ soul to the corrupt and greedy one percenters.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
The Globe exists to promote the Boston Red Sox and the related business interests of its owner. Nothing else matters.
Nothing.
Isn’t the President on the side of net neutrality? I guess it’s not OK for the government to “regulate” to keep it that way, but just fine for private interests to “regulate” (ie “rig”) it to suit their needs. I assume I’m not the only one to notice this blatant example of Orwellian doublespeak.
It’s like watching John Stossel on Fox. Yes, I force myself to do so on occasion to see where people are getting these distorted points of view.
Stossel points to seemingly silly and/or useless regulations, like the stickers on a step ladder that no one reads or pays attention to.
That puts people in the mindset to vote for candidates who promise to reduce regulations ..who get elected..and so there goes your 401-K and overtime pay and all the regulations that were saving your ass….and the stickers are still on the ladders..
In his three ways to detect bullshit rant
LIBERTY!!!
Maybe they assumed their readership was astute enough to recognize that ‘former Republican Senator’ is a synonym for paid corporate lobbyist.
The Globe has a history of dismissing columnists with a liberal point of view: Most recently James Carroll, whose columns were always thoughtful and well informed. Before that, it was the late David Nyhan(dismissed before he died), and another whose name I don’t recall.
Instead we have Jeff Jacoby (who still denies the reality of climate change) and John Sununu.
The Globe still describes him as a current columnist on its website. He published a column in mid-May.
According to his own website, “In the Fall, 2015, he will be Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at New York University.” It doesn’t sound as if he was dismissed — it sounds as if he’s moved on. I’m interested in any information you have that’s different from this.
I guess the outcome is the same, though. The Globe is completing its transformation into yet another right-wing rag.
John Allen and Ines St. Martin are great beat reporters, but if he is on the Globe payroll his voice would be a great addition over there. His cover page New Yorker article analyzing Pope Francis is one of the best I’ve read.
February 16, 2015: Sununu scolds First Lady for advocating for healthier school lunches (“the paternalistic and dangerous idea that anything that’s a good idea should be a law”), while Globe omits the fact that Akin Gump, the lobbying firm for which Sununu toils as “Adjunct Senior Policy Advisor,” has corporate clients in the food and beverage business.
Dan Kennedy has been following the Globe’s insouciance on this matter for a while. Even beyond the serious conflicts of interest, he has concluded, “the larger question is why the Globe would hand over precious op-ed space to a partisan hack like Sununu.” Indeed.
The “larger question” isn’t why an op-ed page would offer space to a “partisan hack.” That happens all the time. The large and very serious question has to do with repeated failure to disclose conflicts of interest. That’s what is undermining the Globe’s journalistic credibility.
there are so many deserving partisan hacks out there. Sununu gets 25 Globe by-lines in a year, while Scott Brown only gets to supervise the harem on Fox’s Outnumbered once in a while? It just doesn’t seem right.
Sununu writes awful stuff – there are much better writers among the ranks of partisan hacks. But his non-disclosure really is unacceptable, and the Globe should be embarrassed about this.
The Globe is not perfect, but it is not a right-wing rag.
Sununu adds nothing to the op-ed page unless it is considered instructive to see a corporate shill in action. The editorial page seems incredibly stubborn in refusing to recognize Sununu’s conflict of interest.
Dan Kennedy has the details.