What exactly do you find shocking about Harvard trying to control the news about Harvard?

Is there any novelty in this?
 

It's just so...clumsy.
 

The art of controlling the news was perfected under Summers. It is unlikely that the practices established under him will change any time soon.
 

If Summers was adept at controlling the news he would still be president.

He thought he knew how to handle press and politics but he was way out of his league.
 

Out of his league? How do you think he survived 5 years on the job and managed to make fundamental changes on many fronts at Harvard?
 

Richard,

Do you seriously expect the HUNO to list your blog? Beware, they might offer you a consulting job one of these days, or buy your blog and its archives.
 

And where's the Globe on this story? Emulating the Times's "day late and a dollar short" approach to news?

Great 02138 piece, one that scoops everyone on lots of important stuff. Go RB!
 

He controlled the budgets.
 

Yes he controlled the budgets and a good thing that was. Many of the professional schools are now bleeding red. Perhaps the powerful intellects of the Corporation should take a look at those budgets too.
 

He did not control the budgets. He controlled people through his control of the budgets.

The only schools in the red in this Harvard Thermidor are those where the Deans appointed by Larry are spending out of control in parties for students and faculty in an attempt to appease them.
 

While the stories listed are not about Harvard alone, they are at the very least actual news, and not simply "back-biting" gossip citing unnamed sources.

..."said Someone Who Knows." (my personal favorite)
 

again, you've made my point- he controlled the people and the budgets and they are in the red.

so not only could they not handle the press they couldnt handle the most basic administrative task-spending only what you have.

oh, by chance, are/where these people so important they were exempt from budgets?
 

What are you talking about? No Dean at Harvard is exempt from budgets? They all need to balance their budgets.
 

PEOPLE, WHO CARES?
 

Apparently a lot of people do and should.

Size of the annual operating budget $2.5b jobs contracts etc.

Endowment- $29b - lot of money managers make a lot of money for themselves and their firms.

Pharma-big research grants and development through the university and the hospitals.

So, that's who cares - oh, yeah and the students who fork over $40,000 to get an education-

It's a business and it is struggling for position and authority in the marketplace no differently than Microsoft, Apple, GE,GM or HP. So that's who cares and why!
 

Not clear that it is a business, or that it should. But there is no question that it is struggling and that is a shame for it did not need to be this way.
 

The problem is that too many leaders at Harvard have come to see it as a BUSINESS and treated it as such. The University is struggling not because it has been poorly managed as a BUSINESS but because it is a UNIVERSITY not a BUSINESS. The crisis at Harvard is precisely a reflection of the conflict between different ways to understand the central mission and nature of the University. Summers was not fit to be an academic leader, he may have been fit to run a BUSINESS. Some members of the Corporation apparently do not understand the difference between a BUSINESS and a UNIVERSITY.
 

Richard, why the Herald and not the Globe? Do tell!
 

What the place needs is a master politician who understands how to run the business operations of a large entity ($2.5b qualifies as a business, sorry) and to communicate the "message" or "vision" and fundraise and get opposing sides to work together domestically (Harvard) and internationally (everyone else).

You must be a member of the tenured class. Sorry to disappoint but universities, just like gov'ts, are inherently a business and need to be managed fiscally, socially, and morally well- so that is your task as well as the new administration's. Derail her and you degrade your own standing. Work with her and you elevate your own image. The choice is yours and you will be held accountable this time.
 

That's a good question. Well, first, I like a good tab. Second, I'm not sure where the Globe would have put such a story. It doesn't have a media column (does it?), doesn't have a gossip column....

Plus, the M-Bomb has never written about me, the blog, or Harvard Rules—which is fine, totally her prerogative—but I don't have any relationship with her. I've spoken with lots of other reporters covering Harvard, but she's never contacted me about anything.

Third (4th?), and completely aside from Ms. Bombardieri, I don't know if the Globe has the guts, you know? You just get the feeling that the paper has a cozy relationship with Harvard, and that the Globe would be culturally squeamish about such a radically different way of covering the university.....
 

Oh, and also, I should add that I'm not the guy who actually does that stuff; 02138 has a PR firm.....
 

R:

It struck me as funny since the Herald is considered low brow in Boston and the Globe used to be more or less the thoughtful paper (until the Times sucked the life out of it). Anyway, very subtle.

Perhaps Marcella sees you as competition-she really isnt that good of a reporter - typical of the new Globe people - they wait for their phone to ring and then copy down the tipsters' comments- she's no Tom Farragher or Walter Robinson.
 

Richard,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you complained in the pat about the use of the word, "source" in stories?

Blind "sources" haunt this piece.
 

I can't speak to the low vs. highbrow distinction, I just believe that a good story is a good story. One of my definitions of a good story is whatever powerful people don't want you to tell.

Can't speak to the new vs. the old Globe, either.
 

A couple thoughts in response to that.

First, fair question.

I once criticized the M-Bomb because she simply used the phrase "a source" when attributing something. But then it turned out that I was flat wrong, and I retracted my criticism, with apologies.

The simple truth is that no one will speak about the Corporation for attribution—no one who knows anything about the Corporation, anyway.

So you do your best—you try to identify the source to the extent possible, you seek multiple sources for every fact, you err on the side of caution, and you don't let anonymous sources make wild accusations or engage in personal attacks because of some agenda they have. (This isn't always possible, but you can generally tell.)

I think this story does pretty well on those accounts.

Obviously, I'd prefer to have everyone on the record, and yes, I think it'd be an even stronger story if they were. But that's never going to happen.

So I think you need to read the story with that in mind, considering for yourself how well-reported it seems, how balanced, how thorough, how informed. And in that sense, it's like any piece of journalism—to be read critically (in the best sense of that word).

And finally, I always welcome input after the fact, even if it's people saying I got something wrong. I think that's important and essential. I have no agenda with this article other than to try to report what happened, so if someone else can add something to the pool of knowledge, I welcome that.
 

You make a good point about potential story placement in The Boston Globe, as there really isn't an appropriate section to feature this type of story. However, considering the nature of the piece, one that might best be described as 'intellectualized gossip,' it seems appropriate that it would feature in the gossip column of the local tabloid, especially if 02138's PR representatives have a close relationship with the Boston Herald.

Your choice of topic is compelling, but the manner in which you chose to explore it does weaken the overall relative news value of the article, but then, I feel that's more a result of individuals not willing to ever go on record, which, admittedly, does put you in an awkward position when trying to compose a stronger piece.
 

No particular close relationship with the Herald, no. It's just business.

I'm not sure what other way you could explore an article about how the Harvard Corporation chose the university's 28th president other than trying to report what actually happened. But I'm sure such other ways exist, and I honestly hope that other writers explore them. Mine won't be the last words written on the subject, nor should they be. Harvard is a $30 billion, tax-free institution which receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants every year and trains thousands of future American and world leaders. As far as I'm concerned, it's impossible to know too much about how its president is chosen.
 

By the way, Anonymous, there is some irony in you faulting people who won't go on the record, when you are, well, anonymous.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if everyone went on the record. But sometimes they have quite understandable reasons for choosing not to do so.
 

Just a word in defense of Ms. Bombardieri, who is pretty well respected by some of the Harvard old-timers as a resource -- at the time, a resource in opposition to Summers. Hard to know what it means to be 'cozy with' an institution so deeply fractured.

She's always seemed pretty on the ball to me, though I can't speak to the question of her gumshoeing skills.

Standing Eagle
 

I didn't mean that the M-Bomb was cozy with Harvard, more that the powers-that-be at the Globe are—the paper's editorial page was very pro-LHS.....
 

Standing Eagle

It is easy to be on the ball when staff and faculty are dropping dimes on each other-collect, collate and print-very easy.

So, it sounds like you have been a resource or a "source"; best to keep that to yourself since official spokesmen are ok but unofficial leakers are never trusted.

The old trick in politics is to give an unofficial leaker some bait (usually bad information) and see where it ends up. If it ends up in the newspaper then you know who sourced it and who to use and how to use them. The unofficial leaker then has something leaked about them (usaully so embarrassing that they never employ the tactic again and it doesnt need to be true, either)to a rival reporter. Dye in the water test. So, if today's events taught us anything, talk with reporters candidly and on the record and be very careful about what you say, who you say it to and how it can be against you. If you think I am blathering on ask Scooter, Tim Russert and so on.
 

Standing Eagle,

This is why one double-sources things....

But ultimately, as James Angleton would tell you if he were alive and would ever admit it, the hunt for leakers is almost always self-defeating. (For a more current example, see the recent Hewlett-Packard piece in the New Yorker.)

In fact, it's far better to conduct business transparently and to accept that press coverage comes with the job, and is often a good thing.
 

Richard:

That was my point.
LHS served the editorial board's agenda whether he knew it or not. City beat (M-Bomb)is a different part of the paper as you know and as we all know controversy sells papers.
 

To your original point re the "daily list," I'm not sure that the HNO ever includes the Herald's Harvard gossip pieces, but wouldn't listing an 02138 article be a bit like listing a Crimson article? I imagine that list is for articles that aren't already pointed to a Harvard audience, no?
 

Harvard doesn't read the Herald-that is the joke in this!
 

They do list the globe's gossip column. But they never list the crimson, harvard mag, etc., so it is not a sign of anything nefarious that Richard's piece is omitted.
 

Perhaps. But they do link to the Harvard Gazette, of all things. In any case, the Globe's gossip column really isn't a gossip column at all—more like a circular file for press releases—and 02138 isn't published by Harvard, as the Crimson and Harvard Mag (the latter sort of) are.
 

Whoops, scratch that—don't know why I just said that about the Crimson. Coffee hasn't kicked in yet.